Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
Forge your nemesis and discover your greatest ally.
Genre(s): Action-adventure Platform(s): Microsoft Windows macOS Linux Xbox 360 PlayStation 3 PlayStation 4 Xbox One Release Date: Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One NA: September 30, 2014 EU: October 3, 2014 AU: October 8, 2014 PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 NA: November 18, 2014 EU: November 21, 2014 AU: November 26, 2014 Linux, macOS WW: July 30, 2015 Developer(s): Monolith Productions Publisher(s): Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Country: United States Series: The Lord of the Rings Successor: Middle-earth: Shadow of War

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is a 2014 action-adventure video game developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The game takes a place in the world of Lord of the Rings, it follows the Ranger Talion, who was killed by Sauron's minions and is resurrected by a wraith elf named Celebrimbor to bring destruction to the fiend.

Why It Rocks

1. Amazing graphics and environments. The creators consulted Peter Jackson himself to make a world that was accurate to the movies.
2. Awesome gameplay that's like the Batman: Arkham series (only with more violence)
3. Great voice acting.
4. Interesting story that takes place between The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series.
5. Awesome nemesis system, if an enemy kills you, they will be promoted to a position of power and also partake in activities to increase their standing amongst the army of Sauron, getting stronger with each promotion. Some will even kill others to increase their position or defeat them in a duel. Literally any orc could become a nemesis which gives the game a great dynamic and plenty of things for the player to do.
6. You can take over orcs and put them in the nemesis system, only they'll work for you and you can start a side-quest where you support them in battle to get rid of another nemesis.
7. Lots of different ways to kill enemies. You can be stealthy and pick them off one-by-one, you can fight them in large-scale battles, or you could even poison their grog to kill them without risking yourself.
8. You can ride caragors after brainwashing them to fight orcs.
9. Loads of side-quests which range from ones with actual importance to nemesis quests (where you have an opportunity to kill one such enemy)
10. Faithful to the original source material as well as the movies.
11. Loads of enemy variety, in part thanks to the nemesis system. On the other hand, there's also a huge variety of random enemies in the game.
12. The nemesis have a wide variety of personalities and weaknesses or strengths, making gameplay hugely varied.
13. Fun exploration.

Bad Qualities

1. While the story is decent, it doesn't really reach the level of quality or impact of the Lord of the Rings series. It's restricted setting also means that there are no Hobbits or Nazgul.
2. With the exception of the Hammer of Sauron (which is pretty awesome, btw), the boss fights are pretty bad. The Tower doesn't put up a fight at all and is pretty much a puzzle solving game, whereas the Black Hand is just a bunch of quick time events.
3. While the DLC can be fun, they don't really add much to the story and have the same environments as the main game.
4. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 ports (which were released on their consoles last legs) had plenty of technical issues that weren't present in the next-gen console versions, as well for some graphical downgrades.
5. The gameplay can be extremely repetitive, since most of the time, you do nothing but fight orc after orc.

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