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Despite a myriad of sources to draw from, few games have brought Tolkien's Middle-earth to life. There have been many attempts, from the ZX Spectrum text adventure The Hobbit to endless film tie-ins, but none have quite recreated the spectacle of steel sparking steel, nor the smell of blood and dirt and sweat-through leather in your nostrils as an orchestra swells triumphantly at your back and you charge valiantly towards almost certain destruction. Far from getting there and back again, most games set in Middle-earth fall before they've even left The Shire.Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, however, begins where most other Lord of the Rings games meet their end. When the Ranger Talion and his family are slaughtered by uruks under Sauron's command at the Black Gate, he is resurrected and his body bound to wander Mordor, the wretched region home to orcs and uruks where the very air, thick with ash and sulphur, chokes the life from lesser mortals. But not all who wander are lost. Now sharing a physical body with the Elvish Wraith Celebrimbor, and with naught but revenge on both their minds, Talion is set upon stirring trouble behind enemy lines.
Initially, this means using a combination of stealth and melee combat to assassinate low-ranking Uruk captains within Sauron's swelling ranks. Talion can move swiftly and silently through Mordor, slipping his dagger into enemy backs unseen. Or he can stroll right up to his foes and face them head on, triggering the game's brutal rhythmic combat system, which combines Batman: Arkham-style striking and countering with racking up high enough kill combos to initiate instant executions and other special abilities.
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