Blast from the past. Finished Middle-Earth Shadow of Mordor GOTY Edition.
When I saw the first trailer of this game back in idk 2013/14 or something I was convinced that this was a bad Assassin's Creed clone.
While it does copy a few things from it, I think it's different enough to not be called a clone and especially not a bad one.
Graphically the game does look a bit dated - not surprising for a cross gen game. There are two somewhat big regions but they don't have a lot to offer visually. Game's a little short too. Only 20 main missions in the base game which don't last that long and 54 side missions that can be finished within a minute or so each. Still got some misc achievements to get but so far I spent around 20 hours on it. Story-wise I can't complain too much but the main missions don't really convey a lot of it. They are pretty standard stuff such as kill all uruks in a camp or kill a bunch without being seen or kill a bunch with a time limit. Not very creative but the gameplay (good stealth, archery and combat) saves it. The nemesis system is pretty cool and unique though.
Sadly the gameplay suffers from a few quirks that can also be found on AC games (the ones prior to Origins). Often times you will be stopped dead in your tracks because there's a small object that you cannot climb (such as a barrel). Even walking around it can be pretty hard as the invisible barrier seems to be larger than the object. Another problem is the button layout. A is used for sprinting, jumping down ledges and jumping over enemies (but there's no way to jump dodge). Often times I just want to quickly escape a fight but pressing A may result in me watching the long "jumping over an enemy"-animation instead and being open to fire afterwards. B (in combination with the stealth button RT) is used to brand uruks or climb down walls. However, when you're trying to do stealth brand on a ledge it will often lead to your character dropping to the ground. Furthermore, I found it very difficult to properly target enemies. When using execution abilities, your character will often ignore directional inputs and just execute the closest enemy.
Still, it was a pretty good first game in the series and I'm excited to play the successor.
8/10
