Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor - 10 Reasons It's Your First Essential Next-Gen Title

2. It Combines The Best Of The Best

Sometimes regressively going "Well it's just X from this, Y from that and a bit of Z from this" can be utterly damning, but Shadow manages to hinge all of its best mechanics on the aforementioned Nemesis System, injecting new life and purpose into things that within their respective games we were just doing for the sake of it. For example you may find out the Orc Captain you're after is actually terrified of Caragors, which are large reptilian dog-like creatures the Orcs keep caged up in many encampments. Now in Far Cry 3 you'd have a similar thing with tigers, the unleashing of which on their captors was just pure fun. But here you're shooting the lock off that cage to gain a distinctive advantage, before announcing your arrival and capitalising on said Captain's terrified state by skewering their ribcage with a good few dagger-pokes. When you think of just how satisfying Red Dead's final mission of tracking down your father's killer was, or the idea that utilising Arkham's combat model in a certain way will allow you to take down a powerful enemy faster should you have found some intel detailing how - it all starts to come together in an incredibly tight package.