Late to the party again: Shadow of Mordor (PS4)

[Rhezuss]

Dammit, why am I so late in my gaming! Just received my Game of the Year Edition and good god this game fun.

Really cool concepts in this title, Captains, Hidden stuff, nice and non intrusive side quests, great level up system, graphics are really good, gameplay is tight.

Though I feel it will get a bit repetitive but it's so simple and fun that for now I don't really care. It's a great couch game where you can just site down and play, do what you feel like doing and close the game whenever you want.

Great piece of entertainment and now that it is offered in a GOTY edition and for a cheap price it's all worth it.

 

[Lil Frier]

I really liked the game. Not to give content spoilers, but I really hated the end, and the leveling system is too liberal in its doling out of rewards. By the time you get to the second-half of the game, you'll have everything meaningful unlocked, and it honestly becomes a cakewalk. The difficulty is really the only negative to the game. The gameplay and A.I. are awesome.

 

[cronos]

I really liked the game. Not to give content spoilers, but I really hated the end, and the leveling system is too liberal in its doling out of rewards. By the time you get to the second-half of the game, you'll have everything meaningful unlocked, and it honestly becomes a cakewalk. The difficulty is really the only negative to the game. The gameplay and A.I. are awesome.

This is the type of comment that made me look at a game again. The keywords 'liberal... rewards', 'cakewalk', and everything in the similar tone really have to be there in a game for me to even consider getting it. So thanks for that

 

[Rhezuss]

This is the type of comment that made me look at a game again. The keywords 'liberal... rewards', 'cakewalk', and everything in the similar tone really have to be there in a game for me to even consider getting it. So thanks for that

Ahahah yeah, it's pretty couch friendly for a game. I really enjoy this as I can simply fire this up, kill some Orcs and Uruks, hunt Captains and Warchiefs, get killed, retry, quest, explore.

You can do all this in full on charge, from Ranged or Stealthy...everything works and is a lot of fun to use.

Another fun thing in the game is when you kill a Captain or Warchief using it's weakness, it'll pop a rune for that weapon, so if a captain is weak against ranged attacks, if you kill it with the bow you'll get a good rune for the bow.

It's pretty liberal indeed.

 

[Sulaco]

I finished the game about a month ago. Put in something like 65-70 hours.

It's a very good game. Not quite "Game of the Year" material, but I still enjoyed it enough to obviously sink that kind of time into it over the course of a month or two.

The best part of the game is the Nemesis System, which makes hunting different Uruk captains actually compelling, and you kind of create your own little stories and rivalries in your mind, and strategies for dealing them.

That being said, it's not without its flaws. It does get more than a bit repetitive after awhile. Of course, I'm sure it didn't help that when I started out I essentially did nothing but go around killing captain after captain again and again.
But besides that, the world often feels artificially small and cramped, it's quite easy to become overpowered, and the enemy AI/sightlines are kind of nonsensical. I get it's not a true stealth game, and you're supposed to be a super bad-ass ranger who's nigh unto invisible, but all too often I could just "crouch run" past mobs within a few feet, in daylight, and I wouldn't get more than a glance in my direction.

But by far the biggest downside for me, and this are VERY MINOR SPOILERS (kind of), but...


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I thought the ending, in particular the final 3 "boss" fights, were horrendous. The last two especially. They were just total, complete afterthoughts. I remember almost dropping the controller and saying out loud, "Seriously?", as these final acolytes of Sauron turned out to be weaker and easier to fight than regular Uruk captains I had dispatched hours upon hours ago.
It doesn't help that Sauron's Captain's had some truly bad ass and downright menacing character designs (The Tower looked like something from Silent Hill), but turned out to be a total pushover.

That, and the totally abrupt ending to the story (I know they're setting up a sequel, but it felt completely anti-climactic), and I was quite disappointed in the last few hours of the main quest.

I'll still buy the sequel, no question, but it wasn't quite as good as the early hype made it out to be.

 

[cmdrdredd]

The Nemesis system is pretty great in this. If you don't kill a captain he will run away and come back later as a stronger enemy. If you do kill a captain he would often be replaced by a lower ranking enemy who might end up being harder to defeat if you choose to attack him next. Also if any of your friends played it would allow you to avenge them if an enemy killed them. I also really liked the background lore on almost everything. The plants and animals and locations all had some background that tied into the main Lord of the Rings story.

You can make the game too easy if you use some of the OP powers but I think that was the point of those powers, to make you OP.

 

[KentState]

All of the noteworthy characters from LoTR are OP in the books so it fits in. How else can a couple dozen guys take down thousands of Orcs?

I enjoyed the game and like feeling OP and trying to chain together as many kills as possible. The combat system was really solid which seems to be lacking in a lot of AAA games.

 

[NegativeBeef]

A downside to this game is that the only recognizable characters are Golem and Sauron.