A different game review: Middle-earth: Shadow of War

This is a tale of love, betrayal and pain.

I'm not sure how much of these is involved, but at least we can have a distant admiration which we might confuse with love. Sometimes I'm assuming none of us truly know what love is. This is why we have so many songs asking if this is love or what is love.

I recently bought three things: GTX 970 from my friend, Shadow of War from Steam and a house.

My wife didn't appreciate me buying any PC hardware as well, we bought a house and we are basically poor now. But buying last generation GPUs is not really something which drives us to a financial crisis.

Shadow of War was on discount. I really liked the previous game, Shadow of Mordor, but Shadow of War had got some bad user reviews due to micropayments implemented in the game and I decided not to buy the game in a hurry. Now the micropayments have been removed and I finally could buy the game (50% off!)

This was love on the first sight. The game felt right from the first minutes of gameplay and as I managed to get forward in the game, I unlocked more old and new awesome skills. The game is not about the story, but I'm usually just having fun with the game mechanics.

Trying to kill a captain only by sneak attacks? Done.
Running through a camp and stabbing random orcs to death for fun? Done.
HOLY SHIT YOU CAN THROW A HAMMER IN THIS GAME!
Killing an orc patrol by tossing everyone off a ledge? Done!

But back to the game.

For some reason, Sauron doesn't like me. I've been trying to build up the pieces to figure out the reason, but this is all I've come up with so far:

_{No actual Saurons were hurt to make this image, it was only a statue.}

However it might also be due to the fact I actually was killing orcs by tossing them down.

As you can see, one of my favorite tools in the game is the "photo editing" tool. I can stop the game and add filters, add different kinds of images and have special effects added on the images.

This is awesome.

The game truly made me become the artist I've always wanted to be, but haven't managed to be on Instagram.

However, to continue with the story. Sauron doesn't like me. It might be the fact I'm destroying his statues OR that I'm killing orcs serving under him.

Maybe it's both.

I have found the special image of Sauron watching me kill his orcs, but I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing. Maybe this is like Big Brother to him. "Phew, didn't like that dude anyway. Luckily he was... dropped off"

The downside is that I managed to finish the game and kill Sauron in less than 5 hours of gameplay.

But in the end, the game is super fun to play. The only thing I'm having issues with is the fact it's a bit difficult to control the acrobatics I'm doing, sometimes Talion is leaping to all wrong directions and on other hand, is not able to jump over a barrel on the ground.

Compared to the fact he's making at least 5 meter leaps straight upwards.

Battles are fun, challenging enough when I'm playing on a bit harder difficulty, so I'm getting the actual pleasure of winning a difficult fight.

I'm looking forward to all the content coming on later stages of the story, as I'm still on Act I and can't even mind control orcs, but I'm having so much fun already. Taking slow steps forward will give me a lot of time to enjoy the game.

I'm sure this will be one of the games I'll spend 100+ hours on. Which is not good, as I should be outdoors, sleeping, working, spending time with my family etc.

But it's fine. I don't need a family and hobbies, as I have this game.

_{I can also make Talion look at the camera in the image. This clearly states Talion has my back. You go girl!}