Middle-earth™: Shadow of Mordor™ Game of the Year Edition

For the first 15 hours I liked this Orc Murder Simulation - a lot! Then it became clear this grind is the whole game, were you are being constantly swarmed by 30+ orcs if you happen to blow your stealth. You just cannot kill / brand them fast enough to make a dent then in their numbers, because the map is just too crowded and then you can get really lucky with up to to 4 additional Captains showing up at once. There is just no end to it and the you get to teh second map where everything starts anew. SoM is not a case of GET GUT it's only a case of when you finally succumb to fatique. Warchiefs can have up to 3 followers, which you have to take out first, or you are up against the Warchief AND his Captains AND a never ending reinforcement of minions, making the task even more tedious and drawn out. On the other hand, killing Warchiefs by making their Captains betray them is way too easy. And this is the whole play-cycle and your fun with this game depends on how much you enjoy that. For me it wore out way earlier than the game lasted. The story is entirely forgettable, so don't get it because of the Tolkien-Setting!

To be honest, this is one a few games which were a total disappointment for me. I bought it while it was on sale, and expected a mediocre story and a good gameplay mechanic combined the the cool Nemesis-system. I was wrong. The story is almost non-existent and adds no value to the LOTR universe. Gameplay-wise it's repetitive: fight against hordes of orcs over and over again only to see their count grow with time. I honestly don't get it: I don't want to fight all the time, it feels like my actions have no effect, if I kill 10 orcs and then the next mob comes in. Unfortunately this means the Nemesis-system cannot show any strengths to me in this combination, but at least it was the only thing which was positive for me (okay, the soundtrack is not bad either). This is all very subjective and as someone who comes from the Witcher games or Gothic, this may be no the right game.

I don't do a lot of reviews, but seriously, if you enjoyed Batman Arkham series or Mad Max, get this Caveat: No Nemesis Forge ergo no Import to Shadow of War (assuming that makes it's way to gog) Short version: Arkham style brawler in Middle earth with an added layer of interfering in orc politics for fun and profit Long Version: The story is good but a little underpaced as is typical of open world games, and there is quite a bit of collection filler, but it still stays engaging and fun. If you loved the free flow combat from the Batman Arkham, it's even more refined here (more natural control sequences). Without spoiling the story too much, you start out by dying, and you WILL die some more, probably on purpose. Unlike some games that punish players for dying (cough Arkham rubbing your nose in it cough) here you just just strengthen a unique enemy to the map. The good news is that you you can seek your revenge on the new baddy and get better loot. The better news is you can do this multiple times, and even eventually control said baddy to fight for you. All the while, meddling in the political infighting of your enemies and turning them to allies. AKA the Nemesis System, This is the part of the game where YOU get to set your goals, and TBH can be more fun than the main quest line. Seeing this on GOG gives me hope that the sequel will come here too (Better story, and vastly expanded Nemesis/Control gameplay)

Cool game, thanks GOG and WB...now we have to wait for the second part of Middle-earth: Shadow of War in GOG store...it will be awesome...GOG are the best.

This is a fantastic game if you like beat 'em ups. It plays very much like if the original Assassin's Creed was crossed with the Batman Arkham series, and has a nifty enemy captain ladder to sort through to top it all off. The game is a little long, and you can free play through the captains at your leisure, but the combat gets pretty repetitive, and after you've bonded so many captain and turned them against each other, it gets to be easy. Occasionally, a captain will spawn with strengths that leave him nearly impossible to kill, including immunity to executions, immunity to stealth, immunity to ranged, and caragor or graug rage (yes, I've had one spawn with ALL of the resists back in the early days of the game). This isn't a huge issue as you can usually set another captain up to kill him, or find some way to bond him. I highly recommend this game to anyone who loves the games mentioned here that it borrows from.