Shadow of Mordor - Game Review

[bondon]

Hey guys,

Wondering what your general thoughts were RE: Shadow of Mordor. It just went on sale for the Steam OS sale for 37 bucks including a seasons pass and i'm thinking of gettin it.

[Slug]

I haven't played it myself but a few of my friends have. All of them told me the same thing, that's its a fun game but the nemesis system can make it very difficult. None of them actually finished the game because of how hard it got lol.

[Rylant]

I finished it. I actually found it to be the complete opposite of what Percy21 says. It is really difficult at first. Until you start to build some skills, and really get to know the good skills to take as you level, it is incredibly difficult. I found myself trying to kill the same boss over and over again. One of the interesting things about the nemesis system, is that if you are killed by a boss, HE levels up and becomes tougher. It got to the point where I would fail so many times on the same boss, that he became almost unbeatable.

However, once you start to understand the skills which make a strong game difference, and you start to build your character, it becomes easier.

It is an open world game with heavy fighting and RPG elements. If you are like me, you will spend hours doing side quests without even touching the main story line. The voice acting is top notch. The main story is good, but not amazing. The ending was slightly anti climatic, but not to a huge deal. I did find it to be incredibly entertaining, especially after I started to figure out the direction I wanted my character to go. It also has some ties to LOTR lore, so if you are familiar with the story, you will appreciate some of the little details.

I spent well over 100 hours in the game. I did really enjoy it. I give it a solid 8.5 out of 10.

Rylant

[Slug]

Ya I'm pretty sure my friends just threw the towel in to soon on the game. Got to the point where they had a near unbeatable boss and quit.

[bondon]

Thanks for the reviews! Yeah I heard the nemesis system could get really difficult, I also have a couple of friends who threw in the towel pretty quickly lol.

Rylant, I loved the Arkham series for Batman which is why I thought I'd give this a try. From what I've heard this is the closest thing to the Arkham series as you can get.

One question I have in particular though is, is it worth buying the season's pass? The game itself is 29.99 and the pack with the season's pass is 37.49 or something like that.

[Rylant]

If you enjoyed the Batman Arkham series, and you enjoy The Lord of the Rings, I think you will really enjoy this game. I also found the combat similar to the Arkham series, and a couple of the Assassin's Creed games.

Be patient with it. If you find a boss to be too difficult, ignore him for a while and build up some skills. Come back later after you have built up a bit. Personally, I concentrated on the combat skills first, then the stealth skills,and the archery skills last. Three of the best skills to have are the one that allows you to do 2 combat finishers, the one that drops the hit streak fro 8 to 5 for you to be able to perform a combat finisher, and the one that allows you to take a hit without resetting your hit streak.

As far as a seasons pass, I don't think there is much out there for DLC for the game yet, so right now, I would say it isn't worth it. If they end up with a boatload of good DLC, then it could be worth it eventually.

Rylant

[Rodgort]

I have a friend who plays it non-stop and loves it, even with how difficult it is. I did hear that all you really need to do is counter everything and you will be fine though haha

Also I just want to add, Holy Crap Arkham Knight will probably be the best game ever.

[Bomm Bastic]

Sorry I just need to interject here...I can't help but think of 'Ramble On' every time I read the thread title.

Carry on...

[Rylant]

Sorry I just need to interject here...I can't help but think of 'Ramble On' every time I read the thread title.

Carry on...

Hands down, my favorite Zeppelin song, on my favorite Zeppelin album!

Rylant

[bondon]

You guys convinced me, I took the plunge last night.

I'm pretty pissed though, I left my comp on to download the game and found out a few hours later that it had gone into sleep mode so only like 1/4 of it was downloaded. Bah!

[Burgundy]

A lot of fun and the Nemesis system is great (and will be aped in years to come, which is a good thing - it's exactly the type of innovation that something like Assassin's Creed or the Arkham games need to refresh themselves). As others have said, it's very difficult for the first few hours as you learn the ropes and die a few times - you pretty quickly realize that running away is a very good option until you get stronger. As soon as you get the branding skill, the difficulty starts swinging the other way and by the end of the game nearly any enemy is pretty trivial.

Heads up since your version had the season pass - the DLC is apparently not very worthwhile.

[bondon]

I actually bought it without the season's pass. Based on the comments in this thread as well as similar comments from a couple of my friends I decided against it!

[bondon]

So I managed to get a couple hours of gameplay in over the weekend and wow, talk about throwing you right into the fire lol. Not even 50 seconds into the game and I had somehow run into 3 different orc captains and almost died before I ran away like a little b*tch lol. Ran around and killed random orcs for about half an hour to get a bit stronger (the 8x combo execution is amazing if you're able to keep the streaks going).

One thing that cheesed me is that the captains can run away...though I guess that makes sense if you're able to. But it really ticked me off because I had gone after this one captain (I think his name was Urgg and he has this poison sword), and he called like 10 or 15 orcs over that overwhelmed me and I died. I went back for more and managed to get him down to 1/4 HP while fighting off his army and he RAN AWAY. I was so cheesed I chased him all the way back to his stronghold before I gave up lol.

Anyway, fun game and well worth the price.

[bondon]

I beat the game! It was well worth the $30, a hell of a lot of fun. Nothing more satisfying than branding 3 or 4 orc captains and having them become one warchief's bodyguard, and watching them beat the hell out of the warchief LOL.

Think I made the game too easy though. I definitely spent too much time early running around killing things and doing side quests because the main quests were ez pz.

[yougo]

I beat the game! It was well worth the $30, a hell of a lot of fun. Nothing more satisfying than branding 3 or 4 orc captains and having them become one warchief's bodyguard, and watching them beat the hell out of the warchief LOL.

Think I made the game too easy though. I definitely spent too much time early running around killing things and doing side quests because the main quests were ez pz.

I bought the game on Sunday and have spent several hours on it so far. It's kinda repetitive but I just got the "Branded" skills and you are right it's just so much fun to go full stealth, brand everyone and then watch the chaos.

I made the same thing as you, did a lot of side quest and the main mission were relatively easy. The "Black Captain" fight was a joke because I already had the skills where executions only take a 5x hit streak. Anywho, it's a great game, I'm loving it so far.