Recent reviews by pawq

Gorgeous RPG but with poor RPG elements...?

+ Really beautiful world and decent music, which makes exploration very pleasant; outstanding design of machines, and decent variety (although they get a bit repetitive later on); some decent character design.
- Very poor writing (both quests and dialogues); horribly broken lip sync (which is particularly annoying given the amount of face close-ups during dialogues); combat that gets rather tedious with time (some weapons and combos are obviously superior for particular machines).

The Frozen Wilds adds some more variety, a gorgeous soundtrack and some interesting lore. The writing is improved too, but combat gets tedious after a while once again.

Fantastic world design, maintaining the level seen in the Dishonored series. The design of the entire space station, all its interiors and its exterior, is breathtaking, and at times made me feel like in a space station sim. The concept of the story is fascinating too, and the design of the aliens is interesting, if not terribly original. However, the combat felt a bit monotonous and repetitive by design, with all encounters looking similar - you enter a room, find an alien in it, and kill it. No real ambushes, chases, reinforcements, or anything else that would make the combat experience more engaging. I also dislike the decision to make the playable character mute throughout the game, even though all interactions are scripted, and the character is voiced (as evident by recordings). This, together with lacklustre behaviour of NPCs, made interactions with other living inhabitants of the station rather unengaging emotionally, and made me not really care about what happens on the station. Other mechanics, such as researching the aliens or the neuromods, were well implemented and made the experience diverse enough, but unfortunately it remained rather unengaging till the end. And the ending(s) was lazy to the point of being insulting, with some of the endings composed of nothing more than a cheap 3-second cut-scene. A weird imbalance, compared to the meticulous attention to detail of the station design!

Damn near perfect. Incredibly beautiful and fascinating world design complemented by gorgeous music, diversity of creatures that keeps surprising, and snappy and well-designed combat make the exploration experience truly unforgettable. The amount of hidden stuff, from barely hidden to almost impossible to find or notice, is mind-boggling - the game really rewards attentiveness, not just with extra loot but with whole new environments! The difficulty curve is demanding, but seems perfect - the game forces you to try, and try, and keep trying, until you learn your capabilities, and your enemies, sufficiently to progress. My only complaint is the lack of a strong story driving the exploration, and as a result, for the most part, a lack of emotional engagement (although the lore is fascinating), but the whole experience is fascinating enough to make up for it.

The feel in this expansion is decent, but really it's some mechanics and a map very heavily inspired by other game series, and the core gameplay is the same repetitive grind as in the main game (and its predecessor). Take over 5 outposts, and then a fortress. The main difference? Once you die you start from scratch (retaining only the rather unconvincing story quests, and some - but not all - upgrades).

Some new potentially fun mechanics, but very imbalanced, with most of combat becoming laughably easy, and some fights (notably against Talion) becoming horrible repetitive grinds. The story was alright, but still kinda forced and unimmersive.

An even greater disappointment than the predecessor. Most of the strong (and weak points) of Shadow of Mordor were retained, with some mechanics and game elements were expanded. The combat still works well, but somehow the story felt even less engaging than in Shadow of Mordor, and the world felt even more lifeless and contrived. Still mostly empty spaces, with infinitely respawning Uruks (sometimes spawning or de-spawning in front of your eyes). And, in my view, the game is even more grindy and repetitive than the first one. Oh, and I guess they decided that the world from Shadow of Mordor was a bit too bland (being Mordor and all), and apparently thought it was legit to add an ice region, a lava region, a desert region, and a forest region, all within Mordor. And I'm supposed to feel immersed??

A decent continuation of Blades of the Shogun, despite the lack of new mechanics. The extra maps (three major ones) are well designed and interesting, and the mechanics from the main game were in such a sweet spot that nothing more was really needed. It's not groundbreaking - just more of the same good old stuff.

The Bright Lord lets us get into the skin of Celebrimbor in his heyday, which is a cool concept, but its implementation leaves much to be desired. Most of it is the same old process of slaying Uruk and dominating Warchiefs (albeit with some modified and some additional mechanics, including a lot more branding), intertwined with really lame verbal back-and-forths between Celebrimbor and Sauron. The final boss fights were also rather underwhelming. It's a shame this period was not explored with a bit more depth!

Lord of the Hunt is an alright extension of the main game, adding some more mechanics, a few more quests and a bunch of collectibles. However, the new bosses, quests and collectibles follow the same patterns as the main game, so it feels repetitive and uninspired. It could've worked better if it was embedded within the main game, similar to The Witcher 3 expansions.

A good game, but also a story of what could've been, AKA a disappointment.

Shadow of Mordor is focused predominantly on hack-and-slash combat, which is implemented very well indeed, so that makes it fun. World and character design are decent, but the world is rather small. The music is alright. The story? Well, there are some interesting bits from key moments in the Middle-earth history, but the way these tie in with the personal story driving the main character is a little questionable, and definitely not emotionally engaging. Even as someone who is moderately into Tolkien stuff (i.e. read & watched LOTR more than once, but not more), I was unsure of what's going on at times. This is partly due to a poor intro - the game throws the entire backstory and half of the mechanics onto the player in the first 3 minutes, instead of gradually laying it out and making it more immersive. The way a lot of the stealth and exploration mechanics are copied from Assassin's Creed is also a disappointment.

The Middle-earth universe is just begging for so much more, both in terms of the expansiveness and richness of the world, and the fascinating stories set in it. Shadow of Mordor is solid in most ways, and would do just fine as one of a myriad games set in the universe. But as the main one released in the last decade, it's just underwhelming.