I played this when it came out and then picked up the GOTY edition recently because it was on sale. Both times on PS4 I believe. I’ve been playing through it again and it’s great. It’s got everything I want in an open world game without too much filler. I love open world games but feel like they overstay their welcome a lot of the time. I love the power progression in SoM where you go from running away from groups of orcs to gradually being able to handle them with ease. I also love the violence progression, which goes from ‘very violent’ to ‘OMFG HEAD EXPLODEY’.
I also love that there’s a meaningful death penalty. Shuffling around the game pieces and making things a bit harder is enough to discourage deaths while somewhat offsetting that the game gets easier as you go anyway.
I started it this weekend, and holy cow is this a hard game (for me). I think every Uruk is going to hit general before I finish. I’ve stopped now to get back to HZD.
If I get more than a couple of Uruks on me it’s game over. I don’t like when I die it’s a total mission restart. It’s taken me a while to get used to that fact that the block reaction really is neccessary.
I received this as a gift from @vinraith. I think the best way to show appreciation for a gifted game is to post about it to encourage discussion, so here I am.
I didn’t enjoy this at first. I was trying to play it like a challenging technical beat 'em up like the Arkham series. I didn’t take any overpowered skills and I tried to get into the flow of combat. But I don’t think the game really works that way. It’s too janky and imprecise.
I had a LOT more fun once I embraced the ridiculous abilities and treated the game like an orc murder simulator. It’s the same good stupid fun as Space Marine, with orcs instead of orks. There must be something satisfying about killing greenskins.
Shadow of Mordor isn’t quite as polished as Space Marine though, and the open world structure is tolerable but ultimately annoying.
Yeah, I really liked this at the end of the game when I unlocked all the super powers and went on an hour long orgy of destruction across Mordor. I’ll still knock it a bit for taking so long to get there – Space Marine was glorious from the first moment, for example.
I bounced off this game the first time hard. Tried playing the 2nd game, Shadow of War - it’s embarrassing the amount of brain cells I have had to dedicate keeping these two names straight. I kept getting confused by the story and got tired of the overly long intro so I decided to bounce back to the first.
Glad I did because this time I stayed with it long enough to fall into the game and 100% it, which is a rarity. Granted this is a pretty easy game to 100% I guess, but still, I liked the combat enough to keep playing it.
Looking forward to the 2nd title after I take a break with another game or two.
One thing I really appreciated was all of the weapon side quests, and their bonus objectives. Mostly because it wasn’t required, and usually forced you to get good with a specific weapon skill. I actually appreciated this because it wasn’t always obvious how and when to use them.
I picked up this game and the sequel for $5 and am enjoying it. I thought this game was singleplayer only - what did Borgu and the Uruks do to @BrianRubin?!
Grabbed this and the sequel for a 10 spot in the Xbox Spring Sale. I couldn’t resist giving this game (or games, with the sequel) another shot at that price. I’m a fucking sales whore.
