Orcs..Orcs..Orcs... I beat Shadow of Mordor!

Finally, a game where I get to murder my way through Mordor with a side story about the time between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings!  While not super dense in terms of story, the atmosphere of this game deserves definite praise.  The combat system borrows from the latest batman game with added gory finishing moves and its lots of sneaking, listening to orc banter, poisoning their beer supply, freeing prisoners, getting chased by monsters, and seeking out orc leadership to slay.

But what really shines about this game is the nemesis system.  Essentially you can play orcs off against each other to fuck with the orc boss hierarchy and get the orcs that are cowed by you into the higher chain of command.  You can have them challenge each other in duels and raids, raise your squeeky orc nobody into a body guard of an orc chieftain only to betray him.  And burn and destroy stuff until the hand of sauron begins to notice your existance.  The end is pretty epic, if a tiny bit anti-climactic... but gets me excited for the sequal which Im sure will be even better.

Every time you get defeated/killed, the random orc who kills you gets promoted to an orc leader and if its an orc captain who does it, they increase in power and renown. 

Its a tiny bit weird being a wraith, but if you think about it like you are kinda the good version of a ring wraith, its pretty cool. You get all sorts of wraith powers which turn you into a an elf/ninja hybrid of orc slaying.  The game is a bit simple, but the system it created has real possibility.