One of the greatest games set in the Middle-Earth world, the best one if not for Shadow of War

For full review check out my video
https://youtu.be/L3iS2TJLd9Q?si=UBnW4b7iIKH1AiOn

Middle earth: Shadow of Mordor. A great mix of Assassin's Creed and the Witcher that stands on its own.

Quite dark and that in a literal (environment, setting) and a figurative (lore, theme) sense and I quite like it. Game is pretty brutal and goes hard on the Orcs or the Uruks found within that populate the world.

There is stealth as well so it makes this quite a serious game and seriously enjoyable as well in terms of the possibilities of cat and mouse gameplay and what's more is that the AI is actually pretty good for this purpose, so the game can be aggressive and sword play cut and slash or it can be more patience and observation driven in terms of how the AI "perceives'' the world around it and how you as player go about eliminating individual elements to I don't know, fulfill objectives and stuff.

It's really kind of a beautiful game with awesome sword fighting. There is also archery available but you got to get arrows through the world which are scattered throughout or draining enemies from energy (archery's sort of "spiritual" if that makes sense), but still gameplay is quite satisfying.

One thing that's funny to me is that this is obviously a console game in the vein of many others on Steam that are available but the part that is funny or amusing or entertaining to me is that I actually like console games because there are a few reasons for this. One of them is that the way they are developed where the developers making console games usually compared to the PC platform have to work with less so to speak in hardware terms so to me it makes the games in a way more creative then "pure bread" PC games where this feature or design choice harkens a bit back to the early stages of PC game development where the consoles back then were really much worse off than they are today in terms again of the hardware capabilities and power and PC's back then were also kind of weak but then people, the developers making these games I think had to put a lot more creativity into the games one way or the other in order to make them good and from this mentality I think a lot of classics spurred on furthermore I think it is because of these hardware limitations of the past is that we got so many memorable games, where I have to think of games like Metal Gear Solid for the consoles and or other games for the PC like System Shock 1, way back when, and then System Shock 2 and Thief 1 and 2 but also Deus Ex later on and after Deus Ex released and Deus Ex 2 (Invisible War) came out, is when this line and divide between PC gaming and Console gaming started to really blend together, for better or for worst in terms of PC games exclusivity where today the world seems to be "flipped around" where Consoles have the exclusivity often (for instance as is an example Grand Theft Auto 6) because these console games tend to have a bigger turnaround than PC games do and that is all well and good but as long as we as PC users and PC gamers will have to some extent somewhat good and powerful PC games with high framerates and high graphical fidelity together with great and immersive gameplay I think this shift to the console market of the gaming industry isn't necessarily the worst thing because my review here of this game that I like, has a little bit shifted into this analyzing and pondering about PC and Console games in which sense again I claim that Console games can be good games because they are made out of a little bit a different source so to speak and that could be a good thing in some ways like I mentioned about creativity but also then…

In terms of games sort of simplicity, I like console games too because the mechanics of console games are kind of well-designed and are entertaining at face value where for instance games on the PC can tend to get a bit more complicated especially if games on PC are simulations where more keys are necessary than are just found on a controller but in essence the idea here is that there are no PC exclusive games anymore, that there are simply games that are sort of simplistic in nature or a bit more complicated but PC gaming has become Console gaming because both the type of games have become intertwined with one another and again this isn't necessarily a bad thing it is just that sometimes features that I personally miss cannot be made to have a comeback and to flourish because of the nature of the controller and in part hardware of the consoles but also because I think people in generally, like general public, where the most money is to be found as an or for an industry really do not desire complexity in their games like for instance with the amount of buttons that they have to press playing a relatively simple game but to me sometimes games that have this as a feature, games that are complex in through their input, the games (G)UI and gameplay but also to an extent in their visuals and fluidity (console's 30 or 60 fps compared to a PC's 144+ fps) is something that I kind of miss but the point is that there are games that do have this, even today with the blending of platforms and games like the Witcher 3 or System Shock remake or Cyberpunk 2077 are a testament to this which I am glad for and so this game, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, even though if it might not have the most impressive visuals and gameplay loop and diversity of enemies or elements like control schemes is still deep enough and mechanically engaging enough and looks visually astute for me to give it a recommendation because it is in essence good and fun to play.

Good adaptation to the world of Middle-Earth. It may not be inline with the greater themes that Tolkien wrote originally nor does it have the grand epic adventure that is expected. But I respect the work done in terms of the narrative (which isn't 100% lore accurate but still better than RoP).

Gameplay is simplistic and is really easy once you got the hang of Stealth which isn't too hard a learning curve. Nemesis system however is what really makes this game worth playing that gives a dynamic playthrough and I wish this could be implemented in other games.

Graphics are decent, never encountered any bugs or glitches where I clipped through objects annoyingly.

OST and Music is absolute fire!!!

My main complaints is the simplistic combat where you just button smash to win and if that doesn't work, you run away to stealth kill. The other complaint I have is the characters not having enough time to actually have a dynamic with each other and what is there feels forced (with the exception of the Wraith & Ranger). Also the Ranger felt more loss for his wife rather than his son comes across weird especially since I just came off of The Witcher 3 where being a parent is more important than being a spouse. Finally the final boss fight is hella anticlimactic where you press 3 buttons and its done instead of an epic duel.

All in all. I rate it an 8.7/10.