There are better The Lord of the Rings games out there, but I never had as much fun with any of them as I did with Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War.

Shadow of Mordor plays like a mix of various other games. Assassin's Creed, Far Cry (movement, stealth) and Batman (combat) send their regards. Especially the free-flow-style fights play smoothly and are fun. The finishers are great and it is very satisfying to cause a real bloodbath among the Orcs/Uruks. Furthermore, the story, the soundtrack and the atmosphere fit wonderfully into Tolkien's universe.

But what really makes this game unique is the Nemesis system. In addition to the normal Orcs/Uruks you fight, there are captains and warchiefs. These are randomly generated, look different, have their own name and individual strengths and weaknesses. There is a hierarchy among them. They engage in competitive battles and other activities to increase their power and climb the ladder. And we can intervene in this power structure and influence it with our activities or non-activities. And not only that. We can also control them and then send our own Orc/Uruk into the race. This system isn't perfect, of course, but I found it very entertaining to add my own touch to the whole tussle.

I would definitely recommend Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.

It's a good time, don't get me wrong. But looking back, the game is pretty hollow. Sure, you are constantly doing something, but it's always you fighting one orc, then another, then another. Without any diversity, without any deep story telling that one would expect from a LOTR project. The parkour reminds me of Assassin's Creed, yet even more frustrating, which is bad considering that this game is technically a stealth game? I still think this is a pretty solid game, I had fun and I'm excited to play Shadow of War. However, I struggle to understand why it garners such unrestrained praise, as it feels more like a decent time than a groundbreaking masterpiece.

Kinda mediocre overall, really just "little" time killer for people who like this type of specific gameplay. 6/10 Get on major sale.

Story was simple if not boring, maybe even little prolonged more than it should be. Tho i did really enjoy the beast DLC story, probably cause it has the most characteristic character from the whole game in it as main lead. The most interesting parts were from pickupables but thats about it,

Both of the maps are mostly empty-ish with nothing new happening, and the parts that have something in it are way too complex sometimes for some of the gameplay wise mechanics.

I did really enjoy the gameplay tho,
the nemesis system is simple if not way too straightforward but it still added little spice to the game, the combat is more of a batman arkham style so thats up to prefferences. I also really enjoyed running around with graugs and other beasts. Stealth is quite fast and not too hard but still fun nontheless.

Graphics looked "ok" with that one DLC that bumps up the game graphics. You can still say that its older game with how it looks but overall it didnt aged poorly too much.

Difficulty? There is no slides or choices, so once you get basic understanding on what works how it turns into quite boring experience where i myself started doing things way faster.

Bugs? Actually barelly any, i did experience few crash moments when mass "dispatching" converted uruks/orcs and few other crash issues for the trials of war but outside of that and maybe few funky camera angles there isnt really anything big to mention. Actually really suprising.