Nice to hear it turned out okay. Hope the sales reflect the positive scores. Now I'm a little bummed that I'm already set on getting Persona 4 Arena Ultimax instead.

Same here. I think if it wasn't for those cards, which I'll get the second half when I get PQ, I think I would have gotten Shadow of Mordor instead.

I'm quite excited by the positive reviews!

I generally only play about 3-5 games per year so my bullshit radar is usually on point. I had a feeling this game would be one to watch and I'm glad it didn't disappoint.

Excited to hear that its doing well! I've held off on pre-purchasing on steam, but now its looking like I'm safe to take the plunge.

Polygon 9.

Destructoid 6.

Gamespot 8.

Eurogamer 8.

Gameinformer 8.25. ( really weird scoring )

Gametrailers 8.7.

Seems it turned out pretty great.

I dunno if I'm allowed to post something like this, but after reading some of the reviews, I was pretty excited to see that GMG has a good deal going on this game for PC:

Dealzon (Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor)

$37.50 is a solid price for what appears to be one of the sleeper hits of the season.

@dan_citi said:

Here, I'm holding out my wallet. Take what you need.

$39 on Green Man Gaming. PC Master Race FTW! :D

@cloudymusic: Sweet! Thanks for the head's up on the coupon code. DEALZO-N25OFF-SEPT14

Nice!

Any PC reviews?

Make sure to use the coupon code you should have gotten in your email!

Hooray! So pleased this is being received well, given I passed on Destiny. Haven't bought a big game since Watch Dogs, so I'm feeling the need for some AAA goodness

Well, at least he's upfront about their review going up late. But at the same time why even bother if it's going to be late anyway, especially given Jeff's own stance on reviews and how he has recurrently stated how they basically don't matter beyond the first day, if that.

I'm still going to have to play it before I believe it's a great game. Never been a big fan of Lotr or assassins creed. I'm mildly more interested, though.

@tp0p: There doesn't seem to be much for you in this game then. I mean, the one thing people can agree on is that it's LotR + Assassin's Creed. Do you often buy games out of sheer curiosity?

I'm not being a dick (tone is hard to convey over the internet), I'm just genuinely curious about consumers like yourself

I need to see this for myself. I didn't bother reading all the reviews, but I did read the Escapist's and Destructoid's, and they go over the same stuff wih very different levels of enthusiasm. Looking forward to the quick look. Story and bosses sound bad, but if the movement and basic gameplay seem fun it's not really that important to me.

@shortbreadtom: I played the first assassins creed all the way through. I started playing the second but the platforming was all finicky(for me) so I didn't finish that one and I haven't finished it. I've played lord of the rings two towers and return of the king. Those were pretty fun. I'm not a big fan of the movies or books. Maybe I'm just getting bored of the same game mechanics and locales(lord of the rings killing goblins and orcs). I don't know why, but I'm not really interested in the leader killing and controlling aspect and turning factions against each other. Also, I was never a fan of the batman asylum game and I heard the combat was like that. Anyways, yeah I'm not going to buy it out of curiosity. I'll get the demo maybe? Or maybe when it's cheap in a year or two.

I very nearly preordered this today. It looks great, but I've been burned by several of the last $60 game purchases I've made. I'll hold off for a bit on this one.

@arbitrarywater: aww no more 5-Star Shoemaker?? :(

Ruh roh 8s and 9s. Cant wait for the hype honeymoon around here followed by the acidic backlash!

@yummylee: It doesn't for most publications but since this is a personality driven site I find that I trust the reviews more. My tastes tend to line up with Brad on single player games so his reviews are super helpful to me. It's still going up before launch even if it's after all those shrink pop reviews.

Sounds like Brad isn't quite in the "9.5 omg" crowd but still sounds solid. I'll wait for the Quick Look.

@spraynardtatum: most reviews would say you're wrong.

@corruptedevil: Oh right, I forgot that the game isn't out yet until the 30th for the US. With so many published reviews going around I admittedly jumped to the conclusion that it was already out over there.

I'm mostly interested in the last-gen version. My PC isn't capable of running the game and I don't own a current-gen console, so I'd have to go with the 360 version if I decide to get it. It just depends on what was gimped in order to get it up and running on those old machines. The whole nemesis thing sounds interesting, but it's not what I want to play that game for, so I wouldn't mind if that part is less complex. As long as the size of the world is the same and the frame rate keeps up then I'll be happy with it, I think.

@gantrathor: I bet it's just lower resolution with less post processing and everything else is basically the same. That's how every other last gen version of a current gen game is.

Will there be a class system ? like a warrior , mage and ranger thingy ?

@yummylee: Yay!

@violegrace: No, you always have a bow, a sword and wraith powers. You can choose to focus your upgrades on one thing though if you really want to be a cool wizard dude.

Concensus on metacritic so far is heartening. It has an 84 avg on XBOX so it sounds like it will be an alright game.

I'm glad to see that. I really dislike not seeing Monolith release games worth being excited about. It's still really weird even though its been like 5 years or whatever now since the last one. Actually, I think it's been way longer than that.

@corruptedevil:

Oh awesome ! , since there is a magic system then i am getting this :)

?

Are you yay'ing because GB will be posting a review (spoilers: 4/5) or...?

@yummylee: I'm yaying because I was wrong about my prediction. I think you're wrong about that review score though.

3/5 (based on nothing whatsoever)

Brad was saying on twitter he thought it was a solid open-world game with a really good one trick, seems like it'll rate a 4 tho

Any word on the PC version?

Picked it up from GMG hoping I could start pre-loading, but GMG hasn't gotten keys yet. WHAT AM I TO DOOOOOOOO

I found it hilarious how people on the first page shat on the game before it came out and then it turns out it's pretty good.

Unrelenting skepticism allows for pleasant surprises. Unrelenting optimism only allows for disappointments.

I get scared with Amazon preorders with release date delivery. It hasn't shipped yet! It's really going to get here in one day?! Ahhhh!!!

Game seems aight tho.

I'm actually curious if AC: Unity will now be received just as warmly - since Shadow of Mordor is basically Assassins Creed with a Tolkien coat of paint slapped on it.

I think they're different enough, between being set in France during the French Revolution, making changes to the parkour system, and having co-op.

I couldn't care less about Assassin's Creed nor anything related to LOTR, but am really looking forward to playing Shadow of Mordor...anyone else feel the same way? I wasn't expecting to be excited about this game, which is pretty awesome!

Yeah, I'm surprised by all the positive feedback on this game. I've enjoyed Black Flag on PS4, and I like LOTR as much as the next nerd guy, but looks like this game turned out to be pretty good on its own merits. ...I'll be picking it up shortly for sure.

@mb: Exactly the same way. I got burned on AC3 after already being a little fatigued with the series. So I skipped Black Flag and don't care about the new one. I've grown tired of their storytelling methods and the actual plot. But Mordor looks like at least a decent spin on AC, enough to be interesting.

Yeah, I played the first AC and skipped everything until Black Flag (which I burned out on after 10 hours). Lord of the Rings can be amazing, but I haven't cared about much in a decade.

For some reason, this strikes me as one of those tighter open-world games that are made for me. Red Faction: Guerilla had side activities, but the core game was great and the world was fun to be in. Or the Arkham games. Even Saints Row. Those didn't drag on like a GTA or an AC. That's what I'm hoping for from Mordor, an experience that isn't bloated with content just for the sake of longevity. The replayability apparently comes from the dynamic Nemesis stuff more than anything, whereas Black Flag just seemed like so much busywork that wasn't particularly interesting to play.

I like Monolith so that's what initially caught my eye. But some preview videos and all the positive reviews made me preorder the damn thing unexpectedly.

Are you high? The "media" does exactly what you're asking it to do. Destiny got very mediocre scores and there was an Alpha and Beta that weren't that hard to get into. What else could they have done? The amount of coverage they've given the game was warranted and deserved. If you have limited funds you don't need to prehate every game that's coming out so you don't get burned. Just wait for reviews.

@csl316: AC 2 is not overly large as things go (~20 hours if you don't linger); the first AC was terrible so maybe that just gave you a bad impression. 2 and Brotherhood are both top 30 last gen games and ACIV is top 5. Arkham City is probably the only open world game that actually has a tight story which isn't artificially extended for more than like 25 minutes; that's just the nature of Open World games (Asylum isn't really open world, there's just shit to explore like a Dark Souls level). Guerrilla's story is dreadfully dull/disinteresting and the interesting part is the open world, blowing shit up; and as far as blowing shit up for no reason I think it was only bested by Scarface: The World is Yours (though the reason there is quite clear: accumulate a mountain of cocaine).