Shadows of Mordor

This article is about the 1987 video game. For the 2014 video game, see Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.

Shadows of Mordor
Amstrad CPC cover art
Developer(s)	Beam Software
Publisher(s)	Melbourne House Addison-Wesley
Platform(s)	Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Commodore 64, DOS, Macintosh, ZX Spectrum
Release	1987
Genre(s)	Text adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player

Shadows of Mordor: Game Two of Lord of the Rings is a text adventure game for the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Apple II, DOS, and Macintosh. It is based on the second part of The Lord of the Rings story. It's a sequel to Lord of the Rings: Game One and The Hobbit.

The game focuses on Frodo and Sam (with Sméagol as an NPC) on their journey to Mordor to destroy the One Ring. The game is considered^{[by whom?]} an improvement over its predecessor, though still not on par with The Hobbit.

The game was followed by The Crack of Doom in 1989, which was released on Commodore 64, Apple II, DOS, and Macintosh.

Reception

Macworld reviewed the Macintosh versions of The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring and The Shadows of Mordor simultaneously, criticizing The Hobbit, calling it "particularly clumsy" as it is "handicapped by a 400-word input vocabulary" as opposed to the latter two games' 800 words. Macworld calls The Fellowship of the Ring "particularly intricate" and recommends it as an entry point to the series as opposed to The Hobbit. Macworld praises The Hobbit's graphics, but states that in The Fellowship of the Ring and The Shadows of Mordor the art adds little to the games' overall appeal. Furthermore, Macworld heralds the three games as "literate and faithful in spirit to original books", but criticizes the dated and "rigid" nature of the text-adventure format.^[1]

References

1. McCandless, Keith (May 1989). "New Hobbits For Old". Macworld. Mac Publishing. p. 209.

External links

• Shadows of Mordor at MobyGames
• Shadows of Mordor in the Interactive Fiction Database
• Shadows of Mordor at SpectrumComputing.co.uk