I don't understand the praise Shadow of Mordor keeps getting

I really enjoyed the combat of Shadow of Mordor, other than that…I honestly found that game mostly forgettable due to the following reasons:

• The Nemesis system is largely exaggerated, it is cool that they remember you, but going as far as stating personal rivalries are formed is just extreme exaggeration.

• The story was….wait…was there a story?

• The characters were all bad or simply plane boring, except Ratbag!

• The two environments were big, but considerably lacked variety. The geographical structure of the lands seemed like it was copy/paste every few meters. Even though there were 2 distinct locations in the game, they shared the same geographical features made them feel the same just with different color palette.

• The final boss-fight? The less I talk about it, the better. Seriously, what the hell was that? I don’t think I lost a single health during the fight.

Don't get me wrong, the combat system is so darn good that makes me want to come back to this game again and again, but, I just fail to get the massive praise this game has been getting constantly around the media.

I relate to some of your complaints and disagree with some others:

• The Nemesis System is amazing if you use a different perspective rather than the one the developers and most of gaming sites used. Look at it as a tool to create your own stories and experiences. Let's consider Assassin's Creed, Far Cry or GTA. Although you have the freedom to approach some challenges in a different way (e.g. you can use another entry point, use a different weapon, etc.), the "bad guy" is always the same and has always the same weaknesses. The Nemesis System shatters this limitation, allowing every gamer to create their stories and tackle them any way they want. Now it has its shortcomings. I would have loved a way to share those stories with other players (like a snapshot of your captain and warchief setup and then send a challenge to your friends).
• Debatable, but I relate to it. The main story is weak. The Celebrimbor story, on the other hand, is one of the most beautiful parts of the Tolkien universe. His abilities and how Annatar deceived him (and the others) to forge the rings is really breathtaking to me.
• Debatable again, but you're right about Ratbag :) Talion is generic, although they captured the ranger "feeling" quite nicely. I loved his interactions with his family and expected it to somewhat continue with others as well. But you cannot forget Torvin, he was awesome as well.
• Environments... agreed. The Mordor part was brilliantly captured. The change of setting to Nurn was welcomed at first but was expecting a more vibrant wildlife over there, instead of the same orc / slave camps with a few fortresses here and there.
• The problem isn't the difficulty. You spend an entire game building the rivalry between your character and the boss to be defeated in an anticlimatic way. This is Space Marine (oh noes, the Deamon Lord, here it comes... and then you play Space Harrier against it) and Kingdoms of Amalur all over again (oh noes,m the Big Dragon, and then you fight some shades in the background).

I believe these points don't make it a bad game. You have to take its context into account: it was the underdog among some huge hitters which didn't benefit from the same media coverage and build-up towards its release). Since I haven't played Dragon Age Inquisition and Far Cry 4 yet (arguably the best rated games last year outside Nintendo platforms), Shadow of Mordor was my personal game of the year.

"In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king"

There, I hope that answers your question.

After all that ranting, you actually think that ratbag is interesting? lol, I'm joking, but seriously, I agree with some of your points!

The game is great, but is far from perfect.

lol

Yeah, that's pretty good.

To be honest, this is part of it. Had it come out against something like Arkham City I think it would have been considered an inferior clone and not GOTY potential but there just hasn't been a lot of accessible, mass market appeal action games that do anything "new" this year. Far Cry 4, COD: AW, and the two dozen Assassin's Creed games that came out this year were fun but they are installments in a series so they don't bring that much to the table.

I think it's a decent game, but I don't disagree with many of the op's comments. I do think the Nemesis system is pretty neat and I was shocked to hear that they cut it from the previous gen releases because it was frankly the most interesting thing about the game by far, but the rest of it is a solid foundation but nothing really compelling. It's got good bones, but it's the sort of game I play on my laptop while I watch TV with my wife, not the sort of game that I devote all of my attention to on the big screen.

-Byshop

It was a slow year for quality games in the mainstream market, and the first one to really stand out amongst the sea of mediocrity was the first to really get praise.

Yeah exactly... Admittedly I didn't think it was that great.

Because this is the grandpa slow to get going put your old crappy games on generation, it didn't take much for mordor to stand out.

Who care if they remember you. I like how they could be in a number of different location and each one had a different set of strength and weaknesses. It keep it fresh and different.

It was even worse when you look at the low grade games.

They did a thing that was different and new, that's all you really need to do to get praise.

this game gets boring after a couple hrs of play. so i'm not sure why anyone is praising it either.

plus they did nothing new here, they almost copied assassins creeds animations for jumping frame by frame. everytime i jumped off a tower i felt like i was amazed how closely they stole the animation from that.

@Gamer_4_Fun: i had no problems with the game, it was great

I can't say about the consoles, but 2014 isn't as bad of a year for gaming as many claim to be. I enjoyed a lot of great games like Wolfenstein, Alien: Isolation. cRPGs like Wasteland 2, Divinity Original Sin and exploration based games like Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

I'd trade the Nemesis system for a proper end game boss fight any day of the week.

Oh God, I'm hearing so much bad stuff about the end boss! I'm almost there, will it be worth finishing?

@MarcRecon Don't finish the game :)

Ehh.. it's a QTE battle. If you're almost finished with it, then I'd just get it over with, but just know you'll be sorely disappointed at the end.

You make some valid points that I cannot totally disagree with.

For me, personally, I really-really enjoyed Shadows of Mordor and hope they make a sequel. It's a fun open-world action game. I hope next time they make bigger world(s) and perhaps more customization in the character such as infusing the game with more action-RPG elements (crafting armor + weapons, mining for resources etc). Those are just my thoughts.

The world of Lord of the Rings is filled with interesting characters, stories, etc. Hope they dive into them next time, as a sequel is guaranteed.

The kind of Quicktime which have no repercussions no matter how many times you fail it.