Happy new year. Let's talk about Shadows of Mordor.

Like all games these days, she'll try to get in your pants.
Not a chance, sister!

So long time no post. Yes I've been lazy. So just a quick one.

Shadow of Mordor is a game I've played on the PS4 a couple of months ago (I know, laziness kept me from writing about this one). Its gameplay combined what looks like Assassins Creed and Batman, set in the Lord of the Rings universe. Having actually played non of the AC nor Batman games, and seen none of the LotR movies/read the books, it was a little odd for me, as I was not able to fully appreciate (or at all) the plot. The story is kinda throwaway unless you're a fan of the franchise I guess. The gameplay is where it's at for me.

The graphics are really beautiful and the main character's model (can't even remember his name now

The skill tree. So many goodies
to pick from!

lol) animates really nicely. The controls however are a bit sticky. The main character is stuck on permanent walk mode no matter how hard you tilt the stick, and you have to hold O to run, I mean, how 90s. I have not played any of the AC games so maybe this is just a feature of the genre, but it's really unintuitive. Another complain is that a button has many functions depending on the situation, so sometimes it's difficult to get the game to do exactly what you want to do simply because the same button controls 2 or 3 different things. For example, when I climb to the top of a tower that has parallel walls and the platform in-between the 2 outer walls, it's a bitch trying to drop onto the actual platform. My character keeps dropping off the outer wall surface, or jumps to the other wall, or leaps off, or drops off the tower. Everything except dropping into the inner wall surface. Or when I'm trying to pick something up while enemies are around, due to time limit I'm trying to just pick up the item, but the button for picking up item and grab is the same, so I kept grabbing the enemy instead. Very frustrating.

Controls aside, the gameplay is very fun. The nemesis system, where you're up against the hierarchy of enemy generals, is a lot of fun. It's always fun to hunt down the generals as they drop runes. Also loves some of the advanced combat power unlocks. The combat is a lot of fun and if you're good/lucky, you can potentially chain hundreds of hits against an unlimited amount of enemies while parrying everything thrown at you. I love the combat executions, where you can instantly decapitate an enemy in the most brutal way possible. There are a lot of options on combat too, from melee, stealth kills (always fun!), and head shots from a bow, plus some of the combat upgrades, such as shooting at a bonfire to ignite an explosion, teleporting arrow kills and turning them into your slave. Combat in this game is never dull.

Brutal executions are your bread and butter.
If you're squeamish you may wish to try Cooking Mama.

The game isn't particularly long. I think you could do it in 20 hours if you don't do everything, but 30 hours would be stretching it. It's not really an RPG, but one of these action hybrids that everything these days seem to be. One other complaint is that there's no replay value. At all. Once you've beaten the story you can keep playing to fight more nemeses and collect runes, but since there's no additional content there is no point.

It's definitely worth playing once. Anything beyond that won't hold too much interest. And I can't say for any DLCs. I think the formula is cute for a taste, not for a swallow, meaning I wouldn't really be interested in any DLCs if they're just more of the same. Like I said, the story doesn't appeal to me as a non fan.