Finally, a 'Rated M' Middle Earth game! I don't know how this snuck up on me, but I hadn't heard anything about it until all the E3 reviews came out. I've spent the past week completely nerding out on this and what can I say? I've been waiting for something like this for a long time. I've played my share of Middle Earth games over the years, most of them actually, and while I usually enjoy them simply for using Tolkien's canon, most of the time the games themselves feel rushed or under-produced. That is not the case with Shadow of Mordor. The story is excellent and does a great job creating it's own unique plot within the War of the Ring while not breaking canon (if only taking a few liberties). The characters are well developed, the voice-acting is superb (they even got Andy Serkis a guy who sounds exactly like Andy Serkis!), and the CG cut scenes are beautifully rendered.
The events take place between the time of The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings. You play as Talion, a Gondorian ranger murdered while guarding the Black Gate, brought back as a wraith to exact vengeance for the ritual sacrifice of his family.
You team up with a legendary character from the Silmarillion, long ago turned to a wraith as well, with the goal of overthrowing Sauron from within Mordor.
I've read that this game was meant to serve as the flagship for the new Nemesis AI system, which builds personalized combat interactions with the unique warchiefs and captains you encounter in the game. For example, if you burn a captain and he runs away, the next time you come across that orc he'll have a burned face and the dialogue with reference the previous encounter. The unique characters are apparently dynamically generated so that each play-through will offer different captains to challenge. Combat is fluid, wonderfully violent (I can't stress that enough), and very fun. It's a blast being in the center of a mob of 20+ orcs and still managing to kick ass; very Tolkien-esque. Of course one slip-up or missed button press can quickly lead to death, so things stay challenging.
One of the more unique aspects of the game though is the ability to possess orcs and command them to fight in your own army. This creates a whole side-campaign of working your way up through Sauron's army to take it for your own. A roster screen allows you to control the actions of your possessed captains, where you can command them to recruit more followers, murder one of their fellow captains, and so on. Each action creates a unique instance on the open-world map that allows you to intervene and help your captains achieve their goal.
The only criticism I've heard about the game are that it's an Assassin's Creed and Arkham Asylum hybrid, neither of which I've played, so that point doesn't really matter to me even if it is true. I can't recommend this game enough though. if you're a Tolkien fan, you'll love it.
Edited by bachamn, 14 October 2014 - 12:56 PM.