I think this game gets praised way too much, so i'll write this for those that like to check negative aspects of a game before buying.


Shadow of mordor closely resembles assassin's creed when it comes to it's movement, batman when it comes to it's combat, and combines those with the nemesis system to distinguish itself from the said titles.

The movement, i think they've nailed. Your character feels responsive, climbing is quick and fluid, speed boost after jumping off/over things is amazing, pace at which you sneak, shadow stepping behind enemies, all of those are great.

The combat is batmanlike, meaning on a basic level, you're just mashing 1 key and choosing the direction of your hits. Mashy combat isn't necessarily always a bad thing and while usually easy it can be fun if the animations are of high quality, which they are. But, as far as i'm concerned, shadow of mordor doesn't reach the quality level of batman combat even though it follows mostly the same principles. I'm not sure exactly why and i'd have to go back and replay batman to get better insight, but in short i'd give a few reasons :

1. I think it's partly because in batman it feels as if your hits have force behind them, compared to shadow of mordor where basic attacks don't feel as impactful.
2. There's a bigger set of moves and gadgets.
3. Higher animation variety for basic attacks.

The most unique combat mechanic is branding, an ability to take control of an orc/orc captain and his followers and have them fight alongside you but it is introduced too late into the game, when most of us already have a set approach to doing things.

The nemesis system is basically a system for procedurally generating mini bosses, and surprisingly on the surface it works pretty well, you'd think procedurally generated orc captains (mini bosses) would be very generic, but because of their unique models/voices/combat traits they mostly feel handcrafted.

This feature is supposedly considered the main selling point of the game, is it a good feature? It is. Is it enough to carry the game? It wouldn't be even if it was implemented perfectly and it isn't, so no.

The main reason why the nemesis system fails is the fact that the game is way too easy.
You spend a huge chunk of playtime mowing through hordes of braindead orcs and these orc captains are supposed to bring a change of pace, to stand out, change your gameplay and they can, the problem is, unless you specifically let them kill you over and over again or pass the time, that won't happen. They will be too low level, too weak and will get butchered, forgotten and replaced just like all the normal orcs. Your last miniboss before you finish the game is an orc captain that is supposed to be your nemesis, you're supposed to know who he is from all the times you fought him. But guess what? Because none of the orc captains posed a threat and died in 1-2 attempts i had no idea who this dude was. To me he was another generic orc captain.
So yeah, for you to have some proper fun it is expected from you to die on purpose, which to me is bad game design.

This is the primary thing from which the nemesis system suffers, but the game being easy damages other parts of it aswell.

Apart from the nemesis system, the game being too easy also ruins combat and the interesting branding mechanic.
If you have a big variety of abilties you can use but there's no motivation to use any of them, you'll just end up using whatever you're used to and whatever works best, and for me that was the bow. Bow headshots just insta-kill all non captain orcs and because of that i ignored a decent chunk of combat abilities.
The same applies to branding, there really isn't a single point in the game where you feel that branding is necessary, so even though it's an interesting mechanic you end up not bothering with it.

The boss encounters are terrible, there is no difference between boss encounters and orc captains, bosses totally feel as if you're fighting a regular orc captain. The cherry on top is that the last boss himself is also a QTE sequence....Having the last boss be a QTE sequence feels like an insult to the player, honestly...

The game isn't helped by the fact that the side activities are extremely boring. You acquire collectibles, collect herbs, free prisoners, but it's all very basic and shallow and exists solely to increase your play time.

On the topic of collectibles i've just mentioned, the game has you spin these random objects (when you first obtain them) until you find a "memory point" and then boom, you get to hear a few lore related lines of dialogue. Things that go further into the gameworld lore can be nice, but only if you have made the player invested in the story/lore in the first place. Collectibles should just be extras that enrich the story after it has been presented well enough during gameplay and cutscenes.

Sadly, the main story here is so forgettable that these lore bits from collectibles don't mean ♥♥♥♥. I always attempt to get invested in a games story and if it's interesting i end up remembering quite a bit about it. This one didn't catch my attention at all, all that i remember is you share your
body with some elf and you're trying to get revenge, so you do stuff for the said elf , that's the extent of my knowledge, that's how much i cared.

Characters are forgettable, with the exception of ratbag.

When it comes to visuals, it does have some high quality graphics but that doesn't save the overall aesthetic of the game. To me this is a game with one of the ugliest environments i've seen in a while. The zones look terrible, the first one is predominantly brown, consisting of rocks/mud/ruins/forts scattered around and the second one is basically the same just recolored to green. The part of visuals that somewhat save thhis games aesthetic have got to be the orcs. The orcs look amazing. Best looking orcs in anygame to date, hands down.


In total i clocked in at only 13 hours to beat the game and that includes doing a solid amount of side activities, which for an open world game is kinda low (compared to let's say batman which had side activities that were more interesting and provided higher playtime), although considering how repetitive the game is it's probably for the best.

The thing about shadow of mordor is, it ticks all the required boxes to be great from a technical standpoint (visual fidelity, sound, animations etc.) but from artistic (aside from the amazing looking orcs) and gameplay standpoints (which is the most important thing), it's mediocre at best and feels more like a proof of concept, a demo. I'm sure there's fun to be had judging by the steam reviews, but imo there's too much work expected to be done by the player to create fun in shadow of mordor.

Nevertheless, if you've liked games like assassins creed and batman, or if you can create your own fun/adventure (hunting a specific captain, creating an orc clan war) i'd still tell you to give this a shot, if not, then surely stay away, this game is as far as i'm concerned a mindless repetitive orc killing simulator and probably a demo for shadow of war.

I think this game gets praised way too much, so i'll write this for those that like to check negative aspects of a game before buying. Shadow of mordor closely resembles assassin's creed when it comes to it's movement, batman when it comes to it's combat, and combines those with the nemesis system to distinguish itself from the said titles. The movement, i think they've nailed. Your character feels responsive, climbing is quick and fluid, speed boost after jumping off/over things is amazing, pace at which you sneak, shadow stepping behind enemies, all of those are great. The combat is batmanlike, meaning on a basic level, you're just mashing 1 key and choosing the direction of your hits. Mashy combat isn't necessarily always a bad thing and while usually easy it can be fun if the animations are of high quality, which they are. But, as far as i'm concerned, shadow of mordor doesn't reach the quality level of batman combat [b]even though[/b] it follows mostly the same principles. I'm not sure exactly why and i'd have to go back and replay batman to get better insight, but in short i'd give a few reasons : 1. I think it's partly because in batman it feels as if your hits have force behind them, compared to shadow of mordor where basic attacks don't feel as impactful. 2. There's a bigger set of moves and gadgets. 3. Higher animation variety for basic attacks. The most unique combat mechanic is branding, an ability to take control of an orc/orc captain and his followers and have them fight alongside you but it is introduced too late into the game, when most of us already have a set approach to doing things. The nemesis system is basically a system for procedurally generating mini bosses, and surprisingly on the surface it works pretty well, you'd think procedurally generated orc captains (mini bosses) would be very generic, but because of their unique models/voices/combat traits they mostly feel handcrafted. This feature is supposedly considered the main selling point of the game, is it a good feature? It is. Is it enough to carry the game? It wouldn't be even if it was implemented perfectly and it isn't, so [b]no[/b]. The main reason why the nemesis system fails is the fact that the game is way too [b]easy[/b]. You spend a huge chunk of playtime mowing through hordes of braindead orcs and these orc captains are supposed to bring a change of pace, to stand out, change your gameplay and they can, the problem is, unless you specifically let them kill you over and over again or pass the time, that won't happen. They will be too low level, too weak and will get butchered, forgotten and replaced just like all the normal orcs. Your last miniboss before you finish the game is an orc captain that is supposed to be your nemesis, you're supposed to know who he is from all the times you fought him. But guess what? Because none of the orc captains posed a threat and died in 1-2 attempts i had no idea who this dude was. To me he was another generic orc captain. So yeah, for you to have some proper fun it is expected from you to die on purpose, which to me is bad game design. This is the primary thing from which the nemesis system suffers, but the game being easy damages other parts of it aswell. Apart from the nemesis system, the game being too easy also ruins combat and the interesting branding mechanic. If you have a big variety of abilties you can use but there's no motivation to use any of them, you'll just end up using whatever you're used to and whatever works best, and for me that was the bow. Bow headshots just insta-kill all non captain orcs and because of that i ignored a decent chunk of combat abilities. The same applies to branding, there really isn't a single point in the game where you [b]feel[/b] that branding is necessary, so even though it's an interesting mechanic you end up not bothering with it. The boss encounters are terrible, there is [b]no[/b] difference between boss encounters and orc captains, bosses totally feel as if you're fighting a regular orc captain. The cherry on top is that the last boss himself is also a QTE sequence....Having the last boss be a QTE sequence feels like an insult to the player, honestly... The game isn't helped by the fact that the side activities are extremely boring. You acquire collectibles, collect herbs, free prisoners, but it's all very basic and shallow and exists solely to increase your play time. On the topic of collectibles i've just mentioned, the game has you spin these random objects (when you first obtain them) until you find a "memory point" and then boom, you get to hear a few lore related lines of dialogue. Things that go further into the gameworld lore can be nice, but [b]only[/b] if you have made the player invested in the story/lore in the first place. Collectibles should just be extras that enrich the story after it has been presented well enough during gameplay and cutscenes. Sadly, the main story here is so forgettable that these lore bits from collectibles don't mean shit. I always attempt to get invested in a games story and if it's interesting i end up remembering quite a bit about it. This one didn't catch my attention at all, all that i remember is [spoiler]you share your body with some elf and you're trying to get revenge, so you do stuff for the said elf [/spoiler], that's the extent of my knowledge, that's how much i cared. Characters are forgettable, with the exception of ratbag. When it comes to visuals, it does have some high quality graphics but that doesn't save the overall aesthetic of the game. To me this is a game with one of the ugliest environments i've seen in a while. The zones look terrible, the first one is predominantly brown, consisting of rocks/mud/ruins/forts scattered around and the second one is basically the same just recolored to green. The part of visuals that somewhat save thhis games aesthetic have got to be the orcs. The orcs look amazing. Best looking orcs in anygame to date, hands down. In total i clocked in at only 13 hours to beat the game and that includes doing a solid amount of side activities, which for an open world game is kinda low (compared to let's say batman which had side activities that were more interesting and provided higher playtime), although considering how repetitive the game is it's probably for the best. The thing about shadow of mordor is, it ticks all the required boxes to be great from a technical standpoint (visual fidelity, sound, animations etc.) but from artistic (aside from the amazing looking orcs) and gameplay standpoints (which is the most important thing), it's mediocre at best and feels more like a proof of concept, a demo. I'm sure there's fun to be had judging by the steam reviews, but imo there's too much work expected to be done by the player to create fun in shadow of mordor. Nevertheless, if you've liked games like assassins creed and batman, or if you can create your own fun/adventure (hunting a specific captain, creating an orc clan war) i'd still tell you to give this a shot, if not, then surely stay away, this game is as far as i'm concerned a mindless repetitive orc killing simulator and probably a demo for shadow of war.