''Shadows of Mordor: Game Two of Lord of the Rings'' is a text adventure game for the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness W ...

Amstrad CPC The Amstrad CPC (short for ''Colour Personal Computer'') is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Si ...

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

, and

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

. It is based on the second part of ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's bo ...

'' story. It's a sequel to '' Lord of the Rings: Game One'' and ''

The Hobbit ''The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'' is a children's fantasy novel by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the ''N ...

''. The game focuses on Frodo and Sam (with

Sméagol Gollum is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. He was introduced in the 1937 fantasy novel ''The Hobbit'', and became important in its sequel, ''The Lord of the Rings''. Gollum was a Stoor Hobbit of the River ...

as an NPC) on their journey to

Mordor In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, Mordor (pronounced ; from Sindarin ''Black Land'' and Quenya ''Land of Shadow'') is the realm and base of the evil Sauron. It lay to the east of Gondor and the great river Anduin, an ...

to destroy the

One Ring The One Ring, also called the Ruling Ring and Isildur's Bane, is a central plot element in J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings'' (1954–55). It first appeared in the earlier story ''The Hobbit'' (1937) as a magic ring that grants the ...

. The game is considered an improvement over its predecessor, though still not on par with ''

''. The game was followed by ''The Crack of Doom'' in 1989, which was released on

, and

Reception

Macworld ''Macworld'' is a website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG Inc. It started life as a print magazine in 1984 and had the largest audited circulation (both total and newsstand) of Macin ...

'' reviewed the Macintosh versions of ''

'', ''

The Fellowship of the Ring ''The Fellowship of the Ring'' is the first of three volumes of the epic novel ''The Lord of the Rings'' by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It is followed by '' The Two Towers'' and ''The Return of the King''. It takes place in the ficti ...

'' 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.

References

External links

''Shadows of Mordor''
at

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