Shadow of War had everything I hoped the sequel to Shadow of Mordor would have, but it was also lacking a few things I didn't think were at risk. While I loved playing this game, I felt frustrated at times by minor but persistent flaws that just had no place in a title of this prestige.
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The best part about Shadow of Mordor was the evolving nature of your enemies. Lose a fight to one and they get stronger, cause one to flee from a monster hunt and they get weaker. There were a hundred ways to enjoy yourself without even participating in the main quest.
All of that is still present, and it's even evolved. Some enemies now have "blood brothers" who will avenge them if they are slain. This makes the recruitment system complicated, because you may find that you have blood brothers on opposite sides, and you must now go out of your way to spare the enemy brother if you want to keep your follower loyal.
You can also change and upgrade your weapons and armor, giving you an Iron-Man-esque ability to kit yourself out appropriately for whatever fight you are going into.
Unfortunately, this means you're now forced to devote much of your time to hunting for the best gear, rather than hunting enemy captains for the heck of it. About two out of three of the swords and daggers you'll come across look awkward, so you'll frequently be weighing stats vs aesthetics as well as functionality. I loved the first third of this game. I liked the second third. The last third I spent wanting to his the "fast forward" button on every drawn out animation.
The biggest flaw a game can have is to punish you for playing it. Oblivion suffered from this, for those of you who were gaming when it came out. So does Shadow of war. When you complete missions, time advances. When time advances, all those Orc captains you've slain get replaced. So, unless you dominate every single captain you fight, you are discouraged from playing missions.
This was a great game. If Shadow of Mordor didn't exist, it would have ranked higher for me. Sadly for it Shadow of Mordor does exist and therefore I felt myself wondering why I didn't just do another playthrough of that.
Final score: 7/10
When Jake isn't slaying entire armies of Orcs, he's having entire armies of orcs attack his player characters over at Channel 1D4!