One ring to rule them all, but is it one game to rule them all? Well Shadow of Mordor does have it's faults but it is a very good game; featuring well-known mechanics from other game franchises, it turns these into something that is distinctly it's own - less a ring, more of "one game to rule them all (LotR games that is)."
All-in-all, it's a solid story, I really enjoyed it and if you're a LotR fan, you'll definitely enjoy it; there are lots of references to various pieces of lore throughout the game and the world and environments of Mordor are beautifully crafted. Whilst in reality, the story is nothing particularly new, but after certain other newish releases (cough cough Destiny cough), a seen before story is miles better than next to no story at all. It is almost certainly helped by having a host of great talent play it's characters, the likes of which include Troy Baker, Nolan North, Travis Willingham, Alistair Duncan and Claudia Black.
The combat is a unique system, worthy of a next-gen console. Within the game, you fight Sauron's army which is made of up of various ranks of Captains and War Chiefs and so on. What makes the Nemesis so unique is that if you don't defeat an enemy, the AI learns from the encounter and enemies can even level up and become harder to defeat.
Even though it is a solid and thoroughly enjoyable game, as I said at the beginning, the game does have it's flaws. Though the combat does flow smoothly, it does become very monotonous after a while, since all it really boils down to is repetitive button mashing. The story could have also been improved upon - all of the build up to the final counter and for me at least, it turned out to be severely underwhelming; the final boss was just a neat quick-time event wrapped up in a fancy cinematic.
Shadow of Mordor is out now for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
We wants it, we needs it...
So far this generation has given us a few let downs but it looks like we finally have a solid winner. We'll certainly be looking forward to the next one.
Have you had a chance to play the game yet? Got a different opinion? Let us know in the comments below!