We did it because no one else would. Paying a total of £80 from our own pockets for Shadow of Mordor on PS3 and Xbox 360, expectations weren’t soaring to begin with. Based on the blank Metacritic scores for both versions at present, it’s clear that Warner’s marketing efforts and review copy distribution have been focused elsewhere. The obvious inference is that neither version is as good as the PS4 and Xbox One releases, but the gulf in quality seen here is, to put it frankly, absolutely colossal.
For the PS4 and Xbox One’s first year, cross-gen titles like this at least give us a barometer of technical progress. The generational leap is vivid for Watch Dogs, for example, a decent sandbox title that causes Sony and Microsoft’s older platforms to struggle to deliver the same experience. Meanwhile, Destiny gives the opposite view: its adaptable engine swiftly jumping from PS3’s multi-SPU design to the many-core CPUs of current-gen consoles, with solid visuals and performance all round – though of course, the preference is still clear.
Shadow of Mordor is in the former, less favourable category. Meshing Assassin’s Creed’s open-world design with Tolkien’s fiction, and built on a modified LithTech engine, the current-gen releases look stunning in motion. But for better or worse, the massive install bases on PS3 and 360 can’t be ignored this upcoming holiday season, with many still preferring to squeeze value from their existing consoles. Basic economics dictates that last-gen versions exist to check these boxes, and in Shadow of Mordor’s case, we’re left with fundamentally disappointing ports.
Alternative analysis:
Shadow of Mordor – Xbox One vs Xbox 360/PS3 frame-rate test
Patched to version 1.01, the results on PS3 are particularly shocking, and the worst we’ve seen on the console in recent memory. The crux of it is that entire passages of play unfold at 10-20fps, even while exploring Mordor’s wastelands without a marauding Uruk in sight. Frame-rates are better on Xbox 360 by a regular 5fps margin, but both suffer from horrendous screen-tear, operating at a Vita-esque resolution of 960×540 to boot.