I’m only about two hours into Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, but I’m absolutely loving it so far. That’s a very early assessment, I’ll grant you that. But, it’s shaping up very nicely. I had to step away from it earlier to write the Liana K shill piece. Before I get back to it, I wanted to post a couple quick thoughts.

The game is best described as a mix between the Assassin’s Creed series, and the Batman series (also published by WB Games). It has the gimmick where you climb up and hit a “forge,” much like the “viewpoints” in Assassin’s Creed. The combat is basically identical to Batman, but you’re able to kill your enemies, and use weapons like swords. Even though I’m very familiar with the system, combat has been a blast so far. I’m hopeful that it won’t get boring later on.

The game’s atmosphere is great, although I haven’t been blown away by the graphics. They’re merely above average, not amazing. I have seen some amazing landscapes, however.

One small thing I will note, is that during the cutscenes, your character wears his original outfit no matter what skin you choose. It’s a little jarring to see my guy go from being decked out in his “Dark Ranger” robes when I’m controlling him, to original outfit, right in the middle of the game. It’s not a huge issue, but it still gnaws at me.

I’m not gonna go into the Nemesis system yet, becasue I don’t feel like I’ve played the game enough to thoroughly discuss it.

I’ve only played the game for a couple hours, if that. I’ll have a much more detailed full review up within the next week. I’ll have the Hyrule Warriors one posted first (likely Thursday), though. So be on the lookout for that.