Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Review (Staffbane)
Okay, I'm going to be this guy that people will like to hate but let me give me my reason why I can't recommend this game:
This game as a concept: a great idea, executed perfectly, well voice acted, visually appealing.
This game as a story plot connected into the lord of the rings: Terribly executed, lack of character roster (unless you like what feels like the computer generated orc names), Very little magic, Very few variety of monsters, The factions of humans and elves are not as involved as they would be OUTSIDE of the Black Gate - this feels like you got thrown over with the slaves and Sauron is like: Yeah guess you're stuck in here with me - want to play cards?
The game plays out like assassins creed, the collectables are like audio logs (presumingly this is the only reason why you wanted to play the Lord of the Rings game right?) Okay, the nagging feeling why I can't recommend this game:
This just feels like a sandbox where all you do is beat up Orcs
The humans just seem to be slaves and that's it - there's no armies, no elves, no mines with drawfs in: Oh but you'll see some cutscenes that may include some elves to remind you it's a lord of the rings game... but essentially this feels less like a lord of the rings experience and more a lord of the rings holiday camp where the Orcs are just sort of stuck with you here - even if you beat the game.
The story feels so cookie cut it barely feels like there was a story: the only spoiler I can really say is Oh you want to kill a bad guy because they did bad thing to your family and this other guy wants to help cos their family also experienced this bad thing - like where's the writing, where's the mentioning of the party of heroes defying sauron? Where's that big eye thing? Where's the roster of bad guys that the movies showed? Instead it feels much like a small holiday camp where you are literately having to wail on these Orcs that are suposingly stealing all your Grog and Explosive powder: That's this game, there isn't many stakes, the characters are 2 dimensional and the Universe you've grown to know? Barely existent...
This game had SO MUCH potential: but it feels like they rushed the game's production rather than tell us a story - it's too basic, some people actually thought some guy getting possessed by a wraith was a complicated story line? If you couldn't follow the plot either you weren't paying much attention or you were too distracted with how many Orcs you could throw off a bridge - in all honesty, this game almost got the combat down, but the story was such a let down in writing I can't recommend this game if you are genuinely here for a game that makes you feel like you're fighting sauron's army: all I felt like was I was playing Scott Pilgrim vs the Orcs.
Also can someone explain to me where the ACTUAL Uruk-hai went? Don't tell me the Black Gate has nothing but Orcs because that is not what Sauron's army consists of.
This game I can only recommend if you want something mindless and you don't think too hard about what made the Lord of the Rings Franchise good - the problem with this game is it feels like it wanted to do something with the concept but didn't have the right enough time in the oven: so you ended up with half baked cookie dough: which some of you enjoyed.
It would have been a really good game if they spent more time on the writing and not just slap a bunch of holiday camps for the Orcs for you to go ruin. As a game idea it's fun, as a player playing it after a long time? It's much like a chore list: have you killed the Orcs yet? Have you killed the Orcs while sneaking around? Have you killed the Orcs while jumping down from a ledge? Have you pull the Orcs down from the ledges? Have you used your bow on the Orcs? Your Sword? Your Dagger? Have you scared all the Orcs yet? If this list hasn't tipped you off as to why it isn't fun: I'll let you play the game yourself and maybe after you look past all the voice acting that went into the Orcs themselves you'll realise just how empty of a game this is.
But sure, for those that just want to count how many Orcs they can stab waiting for their friend to come home I suppose that's "fun" (shrugs).
I can say it gave me something to do, but is that thing to do an enjoyable experience that I can see myself playing consistently day in day out? Probably not.