Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor was excellent. While the combat and stealth gameplay was very Assassin's Creed -- just with some added ghostly powers -- Mordor had something truly unique: the nemesis system. Players would almost forget the main storyline as they were caught up battling with other Orcish leaders who had become sworn enemies. With Shadow of War, little has changed. Again, the nemesis system forms the most intriguing part of the game, offering more variety of Orc thanks to an increasingly diverse voice cast.

"Two rings to rule them all, two rings to find them, two rings to bring them all and in the darkness bind them." Thus opens Middle Earth: Shadow of War, or at least that's how it would open if there were any justice in the world. See, 2014's Shadow of Mordor ended with our half-ghost/half-man protagonist Talion née Celibrimbor [Three-year-old spoiler] defeating Sauron in hand-to-hand combat and announcing his intention to paradoxically forge a second One Ring. And he does just that to open up this bigger and better sequel. I've played the first six or so hours of Shadow of War ($60 on Amazon) so far--enough to reach Act 2 (of 4) and start dominating orcs.

A lot of time and effort will be spent discussing Middle Earth: Shadow of War's improved Nemesis System between now and probably about a month after release. And for good reason--the Nemesis System was the only thing that elevated predecessor Shadow of Mordor from another me-too Assassin's Creed clone into a technical wunderkind. Leaning into that aspect for the sequel is probably a good call, especially since we've failed to see similar tech make its way through the industry. The dynamic characters that made Shadow of Mordor such a joy are still, three years on, a novelty. But I had 20 to 30 minutes of hands-on time with Shadow of War during E3 and to be honest, the Nemesis System was the least of my concerns.

You know, I really did think we'd have more games with Shadow of Mordor's "Nemesis System" by now. It was the standout feature! Procedurally-generated orc enemies who, through tech wizardry, remembered your last encounters and even bore the physical scars. Cool stuff, and while I assumed there'd be a grace period before it showed up in other games, we're nearly three years on and there's been nothing at all. So perhaps it's not surprising that for Shadow of Mordor's sequel, Shadow of War, all that's required is "…More Nemesis System."

For years now, some of the best, wildest, most moving or revealing stories we've been telling ourselves have come not from books, movies or TV, but from video games. So we're running an occasional series, Reading The Game, in which we take a look at some of these games from a literary perspective. They march and they argue. They taunt their human slaves and, when they pass close enough, I can hear them talking about me -- Talion, called Gravewalker, murdered Captain of Gondor brought back to life by magic and the influence of my mostly-invisible elf/wraith buddy, Celebrimbor, who is a ghost that lives in my head. I am bored out of my elf-inhabited mind.