Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
Review
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is another AAA title to reach Linux, but sadly with poor support for Linux systems with AMD GPUs. In it, you play as Talion, who survives his own murder to avenge the killing of his son. He’s accompanied by the elf Celebrimbor, who endows Talion with some interesting powers, such as shooting arrows in slow motion, X-ray vision and mind reading.
You can climb any elevation in the Mordor terrain quickly and easily, whether it’s a high mountain wall or a flat brick wall. If you’ve played similar games before, such as Assassin’s Creed, you should feel right at home with these acrobatics. When not on vertical climbs, you will mostly be sneaking around Mordor. First of all you must learn that bushes are the ultimate tool for stealthy killing. High rooftops are also effective.
Talion is able to scan the area with the help of his better-than-Superman vision that shows valuable items as well as interesting characters in your area. It is generally best to stick to the shadows and kill one enemy at a time. Although Talion has certain Superman powers, he’s more of a Batman in that he is not really immortal–at least not entirely. Common sense and good defensive reflexes are therefore vital.
You will quickly be aware of how the open gaming world works, structurally. To overcome evil, you have to take out the great orc generals. Power changes hands all the time, especially when you are in attendance, and when the top orcs are taken out. Each general has his own name and appearance, as well as strengths and weaknesses, and it should be said that the variation is quite impressive. Every time an orc boss kills you, he will remember you when you come back to revenge. If you have met earlier, you can expect this to be mentioned. In addition, orcs that are not yet generals can be promoted to the title after having smashed Talion, making the power shifts feel more organic and vibrant than at first sight.
Game mechanics, interstitials, voiceovers, menus and story are all incredibly well-made elements in this game. Monolith has done their homework and it is obvious that this project has been driven by pure enthusiasm from start to finish.
Linux Performance
Like many AAA titles that reach Linux, this game has been ported by Feral Interactive, which is one of the most competent teams in this regard. Unfortunately, Shadow of Mordor was a tough nut to crack, sometimes leaving Linux frame rates lagging severely behind Windows on identical hardware. Nonetheless, if you have enough GPU horsepower you’ll be able to run the game at 60 fps and then it won’t matter.
Details and Linux System Requirements
The recommended Linux distributions for Shadow of Mordor is Ubuntu 14.04.2 64-bit or SteamOS
Minimum (recommended) hardware:
Processor: Intel Core i5-750, 2.67 GHz (Core i7-3770, 3.4 GHz) | AMD FX-8350, 4.0 GHz (Phenom II X4 965, 3.4 GHz)
Memory: 4 GB RAM (8 GB)
Graphics: 1GB NVIDIA 640 or better 9xx series card or better) with driver version 352.21 or later
Storage: 47 GB available space
AMD and Intel cards are NOT supported. AMD GPUs with Catalyst 15.7 or better may work, but performance could be poor.
Shadow of Mordor is available on Steam.