Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - PlayStation 4

This game is phenomenal. It's the Arkham combat system and stealth system mixed perfectly with the movement and platforming of Assassin's Creed. The very best of both worlds, and appropriately gruesome and gory! The story is great, the gameplay is awesome, the graphics are phenomenal. This is the most complete game on PS4 so far.

The world feels alive and treacherous, the combat gives you lots of gruesome options, and the enemy army is always evolving. With a few more tweaks this game could have been in the conversation for Game of the Year. Come on, who doesn't enjoy killing Orc's? Good times !!

Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor is an open world game in the same vein as games like Assassins Creed, Grand Theft Auto and the recent Batman Arkham games. You have your main missions, side missions, collectibles....and a horde of orcs to deal with. The gameplay mechanics overall are very solid. Navigating the (smallish) world is a breeze, moving Talion around works very well, and the button layout is one of the best out there. Everything that you need and want Talion to do, he will do - with the exception of the occasional clipping issue that may cause Talion to not move quite where you want or need him to here and there (does not detract from the overall experience in my opinion though). The combat system is very similar, though not quite a copy and paste, to the Batman Arkham games. It is an excellent combat system that works exceptionally well for this kind of game. Graphically the game is very pretty, but certainly not the greatest when comparing it to some recent exclusives that have come out on the PS4/Xbox One. However, you will not be disappointed. The game is very brutal, you will see a lot of blood and a lot of orc heads fly off of their bodies - and it is glorious. One of the greatest additions to this game, thanks to the horsepower of the current generation of consoles, is the sheer amount of enemies on screen at any given time. I have been surrounded and chased by as many as 30 orcs at certain points in the game, and although at first it can feel a little overwhelming, once you get a hang of the combat system, level your character up, and just get a good feel for the game in general, it is a pretty awesome feeling to take out so many on screen enemies. The difficulty of the game is one of the greatest aspects for me. It's not stupidly difficult, nor do you ever really feel cheated by the difficulty. It's just a hard game, and you have to learn how to play the game well enough to cope with that. You will die - probably a lot - but you will learn from those deaths and learn how to not die so easily. Personally I feel that I am a very skilled game player, and although I feel like I am dying "a lot", I never feel like the game is being overbearingly difficult. As you level up and gain new abilities and just learn how to play the game and use all of those abilities in tandem, the game becomes much easier and more enjoyable. The story is nothing to write home about, but it's solid and does the job it needs to do, namely take you through Talion seeking vengeance, and the learning about the mysterious spirit that guides him. I had several laugh out loud moments during some of the cutscenes thanks to witty dialogue and well performed voice acting. The nemesis system has to be one of the greatest gameplay mechanics I have had the pleasure of playing with in recent video game history. As you fight orcs, and die to them, they will gain power and rank up. When you kill an orc Captain, a void opens up for another to take his place (only after you die though). You may find yourself dying to one orc over and over again - each time he gets stronger and ranks up (ranking up can give them extra perks, such as extra bodyguards) - and when you finally do get the better of him, it is a very satisfying feeling! Overall this is a really excellent game and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys open world action games. You will not find a lot of the standard "Lord of the Rings" fare here - this is a story that stands on its own within the LotR universe.

Who doesn't want to roam around MIddle Earth. If you are a fan of RPG games you will love this. Many main missions and so many side missions and power missions, hunts for relics and many other things to do you won't know what to do next. Character upgrades and weapon upgrades are numerous in this open world realm. When you get to the point where you have to kill the warchiefs game starts to become rather difficult and requires stealth and planning. Ureck warchiefs and Ureck veteran captains and ther army will chase you down in battle so use caution. There are two main mission story lines to follow that will provide a great challenge. After killing warchiefs and captains you will be able to upgrade your sword, bow, and stealth dagger with runes. When you comlete missions of any kind you will upgrade tallon with abilities that revolve around ranger mode and wraith mode. The enemy will actually make you want destroy them so make sure you do. God Bless J.R.R. Tolkien. 5 out of 5.

Shadow Of Mordor is a really awesome game! I had some reservations initially before purchasing this game based on past LOTR games. I took a chance based on my love for the books and entire Middle Earth lore. It was the best decision I made once I started playing this innovative game for the PS4. It feels familiar to Assassin's Creed type games yet different because of the terrain and characters. And the nemesis system for the enemies is a feature not seen in any games I've played. For this sole reason it makes this game very addicting to play especially if you get knocked out during a fight. Revenge is what will drive you to play better and take out your enemies on this game because of the nemesis system incorporated into this game. Despite all this it is a very fun expansive game yet smaller compared to a Skyrim or Dragons Age Inquisition. Yet it is fun to play for hours and hours and you will not be disappointed, I surely wasn't and would recommend it if you're looking for a fun adventure in Middle Earth or shall we say Mordor!

So rarely do I find that a heavily touted new never before seen system or feature is truly worthwhile but the nemesis system really delivers. The base game outside the nemesis system has a lot of the flaws of open-world AAA games: Collectibles that feel pointless, awful side quests etc. The combat could probably be seen as either a positive or a negative depending how much you can stand repetitive combat. I actually really like it and there is a RPG-lite upgrade system wherein which you unlock better combat abilities and eventually become incredibly powerful [in the beginning of the game I found anything more than say 6 orcs at once dangerous, by the end swarms of 50 - 75 orcs weren't a problem] and some elements of the combat are fairly cool like there's special abilities you can use once you bulid up a combo meter. The story is all right but nothing too special. The characters are kind of bland but not too distracting. The art direction is quite nice once you get to the second area as the first is very dark. The nemesis system is like a sub-game within the main game almost. It's used extensively in the missions but I find it more fun to go off book with it then anything. In essence the system tracks all Orcs in your game [whether they die, whether they kill you etc.] and there are power rankings to every Orc. If a normal orc kills you he will likely be promoted to a captain, if a captain kills another captain he may be promoted to a warchief and so on. But there's other elements to it as well as you can use the orcs against themselves and it gets quite good at this point. Overall I have enjoyed the game immensely however I have a strong stomach for repetition and others may not find it as enjoyable because of that

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is quite an exhilarating ride from start to finish. While it is not based directly from any Middle-Earth storyline, SoM contains characters (mainly Orcs) and takes place at a key location from the Tolkien created world. The battle system is pure nirvana to learn and execute and felt closely related to the excellent mechanics used in the Batman Arkham game series. Gamers will play as Talion, a Ranger that was killed along with his family and then mysteriously brought back to life; seemingly connected to a mysterious entity that shares your being and keeps you from permanently dying. As you play through the game, dispatching Orcs of various difficulties (from lowly grunts to War Chiefs) you will be introduced to a wonderfully irritating "hook" called the Nemesis System. Somewhere along the way, one of the Orcs that you kill will also come back to life, rise through the ranks and will "dog" you throughout the game. Showing up at the most inopportune times, your Nemesis appear; he will mock you with some cleaver one liners and more often then not "kill you" and become more powerful as a result. It is actually quite cleaver how it all plays out. Graphically, the game is pleasant enough to look at running at native 1080p and a pretty solid 30fps with decent AA. The texture detail at times can be very detailed. Anyway, I can highly recommend this game to any action/fantasy gamer, especially those that enjoy the whole Middle-Earth lore and setting. Pick it up for the action and adventure - and then get hooked in by the awesome battle mechanics and Nemesis System.

First and foremost this is a great game that you should definitely buy. I bought this game after learning of all the rave reviews, and the fact that it was game of the year in 2014. I am a patient gamer so I rarely purchase games before I have been able to thoroughly research it. To be honest the fact that this was game of the year just shows how little was/is available. This game does not introduce anything radically new or different outside of the imperfect nemesis system that you can easily exploit and the story including the ending is all pretty typical. That said, boy is it fun and extremely addicting. This is one of those games where you look up and realize you haven't slept or eaten and that you are beginning to resemble a character from the very game you are playing. Now that the game is discounted I especially recommend and proudly give it 5 stars.