One Year Later

We're pretty much a year into the next console cycle and it felt like it was finally time to reflect back on what that year has been like. Every new system cycle brings promise of new adventures, new challenges, and new gaming concepts. Last generation brought us such success as the Assassin's Creed series; building on the parkour craze at the time. Games like Dead Space brought a brief revival to the survival horror genre. Rockstar hit us hard and early with Red Dead Redemption, helping to take character driven stories to new heights and then helped close out the generation in similar fashion with Grand Theft Auto V alongside other character driven stories like The Last of Us. But by the end of the generation it was clear that technology was holding these experiences back. It's no wonder that one of the earmarks of this first year was bringing games released in 2013 back with remastered, touched up versions.

I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit here though. Lets start off with the launch of the new console generation. I used to tend to lump myself into the hardcore gamer category but I think it's a label we can all kind of do away with now. I tend to think of gaming as just another tech oriented hobby and like most tech geeks, I'm an early adopter. So when November 2013 rolled around, I was picking up my brand new PS4. The release window is always a mixed bag. This release window seemed a little more sparse than others so I found myself playing NBA 2K14 for a while. While there was a few first party offerings and a varied selection, I picked something that would show off the graphical prowess of the machine and also be fun to play. I would later add Assassin's Creed: Black Flag in along with it. 

Initially I was blown away by the visuals of both games. Everything was extremely fluid and just stunning to actually look at. But in the long run, the gameplay was essentially the same as it had been in the year prior. And this would be the stigma that carried on for the next couple of months. I would manage to pick up additional offerings in Infamous: Second Son and MLB 14: The Show. Once again, extremely beautiful games. Second Son had some of the best animation, textures, and environment designs I had seen so far in the small amount of time that the PS4 had been on shelves. But once again, gameplay itself wasn't too much different from the other Infamous games. And while I enjoyed The Show, it was becoming clear that sports games aren't a good barometer for what new systems are capable of because the mechanics of those games are governed by the actual sport they're representing. There isn't much to change and innovate there.

This of course would bring me back to the point I was making earlier as the game I've spent the most time playing this year so far as very simply a remastered version of a game I had played last year. When Naughty Dog released The Last of Us: Remastered I was pretty much all in. It wasn't just that I liked the story itself but the game's added multiplayer mode had me hooked from the get go. However it seemed somewhat limited by network issues and framerate issues on the PS3. The game actually being 30 frames per second on the older version while being 60 frames per second in the PS4 version. You wouldn't think this would make a big difference but the feel of it changes completely. It generally feels better and seems to complete the experience. Coupled with the graphical boost that the game received, it's essentially a game of the year edition that packs in all the downloadable content and has a little extra to boot. 

Now while many individuals bought into the whole craze of definitive, remastered versions of games from the year prior; and we still have the Grand Theft Auto V remaster to go, it presented a very weird dynamic. These new systems were on the market for almost a 9 month period now and there had yet to be a game that truly showed us what the new hardware was capable beyond better graphics. To be honest, I don't think we really saw the real potential of these systems until September rolled around, almost a full year into the life cycle. Sad to say, it wasn't the highly anticipated Destiny that brought that innovation though. As much as I have enjoyed Destiny and the idea of a shared online world, it's not exactly a brand new concept nor has it revolutionized the way we play. No the honor of being the first game to truly show us something revolutionary on these new systems would go to Monolith's Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor.

On the surface the game might seem like your standard action/adventure fare with some mechanics ripped straight from Assassin's Creed and Rocksteady's Arkham series. So yes, Shadow of Mordor's character does skulk around the map similar to one of the protagonists from Assassin's Creed and yes the combat is very reminiscent of the fighting system from Arkham Asylum. These are in no way criticisms of the game because these are tried and true gameplay mechanics that have been adopted by many other developers in the industry. It's a solid base to build upon and combine with extremely good level design to make Shadow of Mordor an excellent action game. But what makes Middle Earth stand out is a mechanic the developers have dubbed the Nemesis System. 

Monolith's Nemesis System breathes a whole new life into what would ordinarily be a serviceable action hack and slack game. What the Nemesis System achieves is bringing unique personality to every orc you battle in the game. For example, early on in the game I happened across a low level orc captain. He was a nobody in terms of the orc hierarchy that the game employs. As I was still getting used to the actual gameplay and adjusting my timing, I fell in combat and this particular orc was able to rise through the ranks. The loss increased his ranking in the overall orc ranking, moving him higher up the food chain but also increasing his power; making him a tougher opponent to tackle later down the line. Not only this but he would both remember and reference our battle when we clashed again later down the line. I would go on to fall in battle to this particular orc another 3 times, giving him enough power to rise up and sit in the hierarchy just below a warchief. There was merit to each battle though. Every encounter found my orc nemesis more scarred and bruised than our previous encounter.

There were even times where this nemesis led ambushes against me and retreated just before landing the killing blow with a line of dialogue citing it would have been "too easy". I genuinely found myself frustrated that no matter what I did I was unable to take this foe down. Even after I was able to gather intel and learn what his strengths and weaknesses were. I still found myself unable to defeat my nemesis. In actuality, it wasn't until a good 6 hours into my playthrough of the game's story that I finally managed to defeat this orc in combat. Naturally I felt a bit of relief that the ordeal was finally over. I found myself sidetracked from actual missions in an attempt to take down this one particular enemy. I felt a drive to complete this task and take him down for good after how many times he had defeated me to leave me stunned after an ambush. There was a relief that I could continue this story now and progress through this game and start to battle actual warchiefs. 

Look at that mangled mug.

The beauty of this system began to shine through as I made my way into the stronghold of one of the warchiefs I was meant to take down in order to progress the story. In the course of doing this, who should show up my my hated nemesis; battered, bandaged, and still holding a grudge against me. Here he was to try and ruin my day yet again. This is because the Nemesis system is built in such a way that simply defeating your foe in combat might not be enough to keep them down for good. Orcs will return to fight you again and again with mangled faces and war wounds, ready to battle you to the bitter end. Once again I found myself embroiled in a hard fought skirmish until I finally landed a kill blow and decapitated this captain. His surrounding minions fled is terror after the fight, leaving me to continue my original quest and closing the door on that particular orc nemesis. 

While the story of Shadow of Mordor takes a big of a curve on some of the Lord of the Rings lore, it's not what kept me enthralled. There were times I completely forgot about the story because I was too busy trying to track down low level orcs for intel so that I could start to break up the orc hierarchy on the way to taking down the warchiefs. Along the way, I built these rivalries that completely took over my time and made it far more grand experience than the pre-determined story ever could have provided. And really when it comes down to it, this is what the next gen is supposed to be about. It's not just more horsepower under the console hood to push out better graphics. It's about taking that power and implementing systems that provide unique gameplay that wasn't possible on the consoles that came before them. So kudos to Monolith for being the first studio to really give us our first glimpse at what this new generation holds.