3.5/5 ★ – kubachowicki_'s review of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - Game of the Year Edition.

Set in the lands of Mordor. The mechanics are nice. Talion is a very likeable protagonist. The different outfit selections were pretty cool too. We get many different creatures and species like Orcs and Caragors. Some of the side characters like Lithariel are brilliant but others like Hirgon or Ratbag can feel very forgettable and almost feel irrelevant as there’s no continuity. The narration at the start, followed by the flashback to show some of Talion’s back story was done really well as it instantly tells us about why he’s doing what he’s doing. I love how they did it from the get go. Introducing us to the main antagonist at the very start was great too. We instantly learn that this is a Talion revenge story. It’s weird having a Gollum not voiced by Andy Serkis but I love Gollum in this game nonetheless. Sauron’s design was done to absolute perfection. Gaining intel to find out information and location about the Captains and Warchiefs of Sauron’s Army was a good system. The nemesis system should be used in more games. However the over reliance on it got very repetitive after a while. The side content was really really boring. Some of the references to The Lord of the Rings books and films were nice. This game is very easy and not too long to platinum but after the story it’s so boring so I didn’t even bother.