Shadow of Mordor is good, but its not GOTY

After playing through the entire game and its DLC. Game of the Year...wow...no way.

Its an enjoyable game for the most part, but a huge reach for GOTY. First, its basically a clone of other games that simply has a neat system in the nemesis system. Other than that, its another Assassin's Creed game, with Arkham Asylum like combat. It does nothing new or original outside its enjoyable gimmick. Other than Celebrimbor's story, the narrative of the game is lacking, with characters simply not fleshed out enough. The mission design is derivative and the bosses are pretty bad. And really, the entire game feels like a tutorial. The combat system does not flow as well as Arkham and Talion keeps attacking targets I do not intend him to, which is really bad once he starts branding uruks.

Just because a game is surprisingly good, does not mean its GOTY. Gamespot definitely reached here. definitely an overrated GOTY winner along with often awarded Dragon Age Inquisition.

For once I agree with you. I think the nemesis system is a cool and well executed concept. The combat may not flow as well as in Arkham City, but I think it has some cool features like letting you teleport mid-combo to take out archers, branding, replenishing resources mid-combo, enemies with special abilities and so on. It's an RPG-ish expansion of the Arkham system which works well.

However just as you say the content (main and side missions) are just very generic. Thing is that they have built a sandbox and the missions are just combining these elements in the most straightforward way. I completely agree with you that the entire game feels like a tutorial. The side missions make no narrative sense and feel very gamey.

Another really weak aspect is the world imo. It's sooo boring. Mordor is supposed to be bleak, but they've gone too far. There's just very little in terms of interesting architecture to look at, or beautiful vistas. No friendly hubs you can visit and so on. I mean compare the world of SoM to AC:Unity's Paris and the quality difference is a couple of orders of magnitude imo.

It's not even good, it's an Arkham copy with Assassin's Creed parkour. Nobody would care about this mediocre game if it weren't for the Nemesis gimmick.

It's Gamespots GOTY not yours, mine would be any of these 3. MK8,DS2 & DA.I

DAI is another overrated game, but its the narrative that's the problem there. I don't mind its gameplay.

Another game the more I play, the more I don't like. Such a downgrade from ME3 storywise.

Dark Souls II would be my pick, or This War Of Mine.

Mario Kart 8 was easily the best game of the year. After playing it, and continuing to do so, it is one of those instances where you wonder what Nintendo can do with it outside of some minor balance issues.

I don't care what anyone says, I really enjoy Shadow of Mordor and the combat system was hell of a fun when I beheading those Orcs. GOTY baby.

You would think Queen of Numen's area would be a friendly place, but nope. So much wasted opportunity.

And the Bright Lord DLC was not very good, hell, the orcs are talking about the Ranger a major age before he even existed, Nevermind Uruks being in the Second Age is a huge issue with the Middle Earth lore. They rushed that out, it was so sloppy.

It was my GOTY until I played The Talos Principle. A really enjoyable game. Had me hooked for hours and hours despite its bleak, mostly empty open world, whereas AC Unity's world looked great and was full of people, but the game was trash.

The first DLC was weak, unfortunately. I heard the second DLC was also on the same level, so I decided to skip that.

Cool story. Blog it.

I never played the DLC. I wonder what kind of budget they had compared to other AAA games. I get the feeling that some of the issues may have to do with a very tight budget.

pretty much... I fell for the hype but didnt even get 50% through the game

I get why there is always an emphasis on having new ideas in a game but I don't think it is as nesseccary as everyone thinks. I think a new experience is the important part.

Look at the Engine they used for Oblivion. The pretty much took away the trees and armor and made Fallout 3. The same source made two totally different games while still sharing much of the same qualities.

I haven't tried shadow of Mordor yet but everyone keeps talking about how great the nemesis system is. Maybe it is time I try it!

So far my GOTY is Dying Light or Ori.

I need to play these games, specially Ori. i love games like these

I totally agree with both a yas. Lord of the Rings doesn't interest me much anyway any more, but even so the plot was pretty hum drum, the main character was a dick to everyone except the hot women, and the actual missions and content was just pretty lame.

They should keep the visceral combat and nemesis system, and just improve on that with a better game.

How it won so many GOTY awards perplexes me

Couldn't get into it, which is a shame, because it looked like something I would really like.

Break it down a little.

Good story and you don't really need to know anything about Bilbo, Frodo, and co.

Good fluid and exciting combat, yes it's similar to other games but how many games are original? Yes other games in the past have got better combat but I never found targeting to be a problem either with or without branding.

Excellent and new enemies system, some those buggers can get seriously powerful and you really need to think about how you get them.

No major bugs or game breaking faults at launch

Good parkour system, any game with a parkour system gets compared to Assassin's Creed. I don't see it as a problem

The biggest point of all though,

Look at what it was up against

DA:I Personally I enjoyed this game but I had more fun with Mordor, I'm not GS but I know which one I'd have picked

Bayonetta 2 Didn't get system Goty how could it have got over all Goty

Dark Souls 2 The only other real contender on the list imho

Hearthstone PC exclusive - Gamespot would have self destructed

So just from the list of competitors it's fairly obvious to why Mordor get's the win.

As a point of fact, If my opinion on Goty from last year was valid to Gamespot it would have been Divinity: Original Sin

No, it was GOTY here

Agreed.

The issue is last year sucked. Not a great game in the batch.

That's nice. You don't seem to understand the concept of an opinion, so I won't grant you the right to have one.

I agree, the nemesis system was good idea but not implemented very well. Combat gets old pretty fast I hope the new batman game tries something different because that will get dull. Story was meh nothing special there, and the world was empty.

dying light was pretty damn good

Warlords of Draenor is pretty good actually

its hell of a lot better than dragon age inquisition better story line, deeper item progression, yeah dude no inquistion had a boring story, generic characters, items didn't even look cool, combat was some of the worst ive seen not even challenging, most baldurs gates were like oh im gonna use a ton of strategy and out wit this

DA:I hold down the archer button just plow everything its not like a traditional game at all imo

i haven't played this but everything ive seen this game looks like 7/10

if a 7/10 gets goty you gotta question everyone involved in that Goty listing

combat is from gen 7, graphics look gen 7, story easy 3/10, characters slam dunk 2/10, MMO questing single player game easy 5/10

DA:I and Mordor = plz go away and make a gen 8 game come to the table then u can get a goty award IMO IMO after you do that

I actually really enjoyed it. One of the better licensed property games of all time to be honest. I give credit to a company like WB who actually can make there franchises into great games such as SoM and Batman Arkham series. Unlike someone like Marvel who cant make anything other then shitty mobile games.

Neither does 99% of SW/GAF.

personally I thought the game sucked, I bought it the first day it came out just not my type of game.

texasgoldrush is a special kind of person though. According to him, if you don't agree with him about certain things, you are just wrong.

The first DLC had some interesting things, but the second DLC is bad. Its not Bioshock Infinite Burial At Sea bad, but its bad.

If you don't agree on facts, you are just wrong.

While my take on Mordor is opinion, how does a game in the 80's on Metacritic win GOTY? That's the problem.

I loved it. The Nemesis system added so much to that game, giving the Uruk-hai personality, ambition and purpose rather than just having them be NPC's that you kill in order to advance the story. A random Uruk can become your most hated enemy, and the the game would rub it in your face as you watch him climb through the ranks.

It added so much because without this system, Mordor is forgettable.

A great representation of that:

just like mass effect is forgettable without the conversation system? thats a really stupid argument.

Wrong

You just must have a flawed opinion.

Is it a gimmick? Is it really?

It wasn't my personal Game of the Year but I certainly had a lot of fun with it. It must have just clicked with Gamespot.

So we're calling the nemesis system a "gimmick" now?... Mmmmk. So it doesn't get the praise it deserves, for being an actual next gen idea in a sea of games that simply follow the AAA handbook? Yikes.

Mordor had some legit issues, the setting is boring and the story, while being good in spots, didn't shine throughout, but let's not pretend that this forward thinking feature that added some depth to the world was simply a gimmick.

Perhaps gamespot gave them the award because they were happy to not have to be playing another sequel....

@texasgoldrush: that's like your opinion man...

si

Haven't played it, but nothing about the game stands out as GOTY to me. Dragon Age, Forza Horizon 2, Mario Kart 8, and Bayonetta 2 are have something that make them standout.

I would be interested in learning how GS actually picks their GOTY. Because from 7 editors only 2 had Shadow of Mordor in their top 5. Dragon Age: Inquisition, Vanishing of Ethan Carter and GTA V all were on 3 lists. Looks like that not many agreed with that choice.

No one cares what you think, TC.

I agree, game is no where even near a game of the year award. If anything it's normal version is missing so much content I thought was going to present that I didn't even bother playing it past the beginning of the second map. As I'm not paying extra to fight the leader of Mordor when the whole premise of the game is to work your way through the ranks to kill him.

Im actually kind of bummed because its doing so well that it will probably get a sequel. the nemesis system is wasted on lord of the rings.

You do realise the concept of GOTYs is invalid anyway....... doesn't matter who wins it..... the award is just as meaningless as Metacritic

@R3FURBISHED: Not as bad as a Chieftain I had to fight that was immune to combat finishers, ranged attacks, stealth, explosions and beasts. The only way to deal damage was via fall damage. After I dominated him I practically let him 1 vs 5 in the final boss fight.

Dude give it a go. I am enjoying it. I haven't played it much as I have been playing Ori this weekend.