MORDOR V MIDDLE EARTH
Sauron likes a good war, doesn’t he? If he’s not scrapping with the Elves, h
warring with Gondor, or just everyone in Middle-earth that isn’t an Orc. Mon
excellent Lord Of The Rings outings on Xbox, Shadow Of Mordor and Shado
War focus on one character, the Ranger Talion, but its backdrop is the ove
battles that plague Tolkein’s fantasy land. Building an army and generally
your best to disrupt Mordor’s forces, Talion’s got his work cut out if he’s go
give Sauron a jolly good kick in his crack of doom. Meanwhile the rather cle
Nemesis system is a benchmark in NPC AI, which really helps make this pa
war one of our favourites.
HUMAN-COVENANT WAR
Halo’s 27-year conflict between humans and the Covenant is the major
interstellar dust-up of the 26th century. It all starts when the Covenant’s
prophets declare war on humanity having decreed that man’s existence is an
affront to the Forerunners, actually man’s ancestors, who the Covenant worship
as gods. The humans, under the banners of the United Nations Space Command,
fight back, but are massively overwhelmed by the Covenant’s superior numbers
and technology, with most of the UNSC’s victories scrappy skirmishes involving
the Spartan super-soldiers and, of course, Xbox’s biggest hero, Master Chief.
Space wars really are the best.
CYRODIIL WAR
Three-sided wars can tend to get pretty busy, and
in the Elder Scrolls Online’s expansive Tamriel, the
Daggerfall Covenant, Ebonheart Pact and Aldmeri
Dominion have been warring over the central lands
of Cyrodiil since Bethesda’s fantasy universe went
MMO in 2015. Thankfully, no one bothers you outside
the war zone no matter what side you’re on, which
is particularly polite – but ride out in the game’s
PVP warzone and it’s capture this, fight them, nick
this scroll or that... exhausting. Luckily you can just
leave if the fighting gets too intense and retire to the
nearest tavern to craft some Golden Lager and talk to
cat-faced Khajeet about the price of Ruby Ash. ‘This
One’ is staying home where it is safest.
WORLD WAR 3
The war to end all wars, mainly because most people
are too dead afterwards to start another one. Global
nuclear annihilation has provided the playground for
many an Xbox game, but most notably the Fallout
series – which revels in the post-nuclear apocalypse
with a kind of sick glee. Here, the Great War kicks off
in 2077, the result of rising tensions between the US
and China, all part of a divergent timeline after WW2
that gives the game its 1950s atomic-age stylings.
Variously its Vaults, built to house survivors who
will one day repopulate the Earth, open their blast
doors to allow you to run free among the two-headed
brahmin, giant mole rats and super-mutants, while
battling radiation poisoning and wasteland raiders.
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110 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE
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