I remember first time I died, I went to get revenge and killed the Orc, the guy survived had a massive scar on his face, killed him again, still survived this time with half his face gone, still survived now with just leather covering his non existent face, still ducking alive, I developed an emotional attachment and made him a war chief, he lived through the whole game as my slave until the big war chief fight at the black gate, he was permanently cut down by a random Orc. I still cry for leather head (we had nicknames).

1:58 I just played the game and I DID hear an ork say somethin along thel ines of: "Im tired of hearing you talk about how tough you think you are!"

"Don't forget to kill the whores" "All right, stop fussing" the best

_"Equipped with half a sword and most of a bear"_ - why i love Yahtzee

Yahztee's Orc voice is amazingly accurate to the voice in the game itself.

I remember actually getting a couple of laughs from this game. The chemistry between serious Talion and like, Ratbag the Coward, was pretty funny. Like, "Be sure to be there to take the Warchief's place." "Ah, buwt, the wawrcheef snawt ded yet?" "I'mgoingtogo *KILL HIM*." Talion says it so just, frustrated it was funny.

I laughed my ass off every extra time he said "Mooooorrrrr doooooorrorororor~!" xD

My house has 4 walls, a ceiling and a lot of windows, but I think something is missing?

I once had an uruk named tharak the swift, he was the first uruk captain I ever branded, he helped me obtain glory as he rose up the ranks, until one duel against a basterd named torhun sword master, I wasted all my arrows and still had ten guys left to fight, I was able to get them all except 2 guys, one of them hit me and brought me last chance but was then killed by a friendly uruk so torhun started dart towards me, he had the no chance thing so I knew I was done, but right before his animation started tharak hit him and I was able to get up, but just before I was about to shadow strike the uruk and brand torhun I saw it zoom up to tharak just to see him get stabbed in the back by torhun, I spent the the rest of the day building up a warchief and as his four bodyguards, then sent them out to get torhun and by God when I saw it it was beautiful, torhun was being passed around like a hot potato, just before he died I swooped In wrath flashed every one and dragged him away to a seaside cliff and said " THIS IS FOR THARAK YOU SHRAKH EATING SHRAKH" I then proceeded to explode his head and throw his body into the rocky shore and crashing waves below.

Taking great elements from AC and Batman to make a great game and adding it's own unique things, such as the innovative Nemesis sistem, I don't know why some people bitch about this, every game borrows elements from each other, it's part of the evolution of gaming. Besides they did add there own touch to make the game unique, so it definetely deserves praise gameplay wise.

I laughed every time one of them came across a slain compatriot and exclaimed "A dead uruk!", because I would then say "No, TWO dead uruks" *stealth kill*

0:35 Well, sounds like the cops found out about Yhatzee's dwarf torture pit.

Press X to kiss your wife. Most adorable QTE ever.

You know whats strange? I think this is the first time Yahtzee actually made me want to play a game.

Lost it at "Mythical fantasy realm of New Zealand". It has to be my favorite Yahtzee line yet.

So I've discovered that your reviews are infinitely better when I know and love the game in question. This was priceless. I'm actually crying I'm laughing so hard.

Change the speed to 0.5, it is the most amazing thing ever.

Yahtzee is probably the only game reviewer worth anything these days.

I'm a piece of wood with a smiley face drawn on it

Shadow of Mordor is kind of like Dishonored: at face value, they blatantly ripped off aspects from other games (Assassin's Creed and Batman: Arkham etc. for the former, BioShock and Thief for the latter). Rather than do a boring check the boxes job, however, they both took the pieces and created something original, polished, and fun. Now all we need is for SoM's donors to start ripping it off in weaker, more mediocre ways, and we'll have proof that history does, in fact, repeat itself.

My most memorable Orc isn't even my own, but TearofGrace's. You know which one.

I think Talion was the main reason the story in this game fell a bit short... His character was awful and boring and bland but all the rest were done well enough to keep me invested in it. If he was... A regular guy who found a ring of power and it turned him into a ringwraith and he was forced by the elf ghost that inhabits him to bend to his will while he was trying his best to resist... There you go much better backstory for the main protagonist. It's not so hard. Don't get why games keep going with the disgruntled super-soldier family was killed thing.

That "and gaaargle vlaarghle vlaaaah" fucking splits me every time.

I actually found Talion to have a good amount of personality, especially on the ratbag missions.

I got a guy named Thakrak the Cook. He holds plenty of feasts, but I don't ever poison the grog at them because he fucking slaughters everyone without me needing to. This was BEFORE the brainwashing, he just killed them all and then killed me in 2 hits when I tried to intervene because I felt bad for Joe, Bob, and Jim, the guys who were living off food stamps and just wanted a bite to eat. Also, I learned I loved this game when I was able to convert half of a fortress to my cause, and then defend the area in such a way as to defend all possible entrances. The battle ended after about 20 minutes, when I had to run because our position was compromised, so I just threw three guys at the giant wave of enemies, shouted "Good luck!", and went to go do something else.

Hi there from the future, Yahtzee just named Shadow of Mordor his 10th Best Game of the Decade

Somehow I get the Feeling that Yahtzee isn't quite happy when he has to give credit to a good game. He seems to enjoy destroying shitty games, but friendly words aren't his strong side. XD

I'm calling it right now: Shadow of Mordor will be in his top five games of the year. Also, spoiler alert, his review of Alien Isolation just went up on The Escapist, and he likes that even more than he likes this. So I'm putting bets on that one being in the top five too.

The dry heave at 0:52 just made me fucking cry. Best now-running joke ever.

Wait Yahtzee didn't hate this game? Well, shit, I might have to check it out then.

one of the best games I've played in ages thank god I managed to get this on release just before the shop closed

At least he pronounces Mordor correctly. Unlike... everyone else.

That moment when celebrimbor had more personality (300 times more) than talion

To be honest Talion isn't the main character regardless of what any one says. Celebrimbor is the reason we are here.

"You and me, kid." and "Duck and weave!" Those were the best parts of the video for me.

Probably one of the funniest reviews in recent history.

This is, by far, the funniest, and my favorite of the zero punctuation series.

Great game but christ on a bike why can't we have interesting protagonists in videogames anymore? They're all the same mid to late 40s, troubled character with a tragic backstory causing them to want vengeance. And as if that wasn't enough, a lot of them seem to want to be Batman, because they all sound like they have throat cancer. I'm looking at you, Aiden Pearce.

Yahtzee, likes an action adventure game? Maybe I should look out the window to see if the sky is falling and the oceans have turned to blood.

I like the alliteration! Don't get rid of it, you're one of the few videos I watch where the speaker has a good depth of vocabulary!

I just picked this up the other day. specifically, the version with all the DLC, while it was on the steam summer sale, for $10. Absolutely worth it. Honestly, it's probably worth paying full price, but I very rarely buy AAA games at full price because I don't have much disposable income.

This obsession with creating epic stories every time a developer makes a video game fails to take into account the one feature that defines video games: They're supposed to be fun.

I had one nemesis that became present for the final level. That poor poor Uruk. He had an entire list of weaknesses and just Immunity To Stealth. I got into a habit of beheading him, I think I got a streak of 9 before he finally kicked the bucket. A day later and I found his son, Junior Weaks To Everything, whom had the exact same look, just without the horrific scars and dismembered limbs held on by ropes that looked like they were dragged from the sea. And he didn't even have the Immunity to Stealth.

The whole Orc Army was probably the best part of the game. There are some fights you'll remember for a long time there. Take this one for example: I was going to try and complete a Sword Legend mission in the Durthang stronghold, but the problem was it was the territory of a certain captain who had a poison gas cloud attack. So he'd throw it at me, my vision would go green, I wouldn't see counter prompts anymore, and all the minions would swarm. Though that captain never killed me, a couple minions got promoted for doing the dirty deed. After getting killed the third time, I decided to put off that mission until I'd killed that captain. Fortunately, he then had a mission that occurred outside the stronghold, so I was able to hunt him down and murder him for fucking me up so many times.

You never feel too overpowered? Bullshit it is hard as hell to die. You can left click your way through the game, and if you dodge you become invincible, allowing you to effectively be at your strongest at the beginning.

I picked this game up on a sale (it was 90% off, great deal) and I've been loving it. It's just fun. Pure, unadultured fun.

the way he says "MOORDOOOOOOOR" cracks me up every single time.

0:35 - 0:40 people with headphones will like this subtle background surprise.

Now I want Yahtzee to read the Lord of the Rings audiobook. Looking forward for the orc voices and every time Mordor is mentioned. ^^

So in other words. Fun to play, but story... yeah. Seems like all I have seen of the game. I really like the Nemesis system. I cannot say I really have seen a game with such a system before. Correct me if Im wrong.

Yahtzee saying *MORDOR* with increasing aggressiveness brings me back to the one call of Juarez review he did where he also said Juarez aggressively

Ah, it seemed like so long ago I started playing Shadow of Mordor. I know that Shadow of Mordor wasn't released too long ago but after all the hours I sunk into it and Shadow of War (The latter of which I just completed) I can still remember my first most personal nemesis. His name was "(Insert first name) the Manstalker" and he practically followed me everywhere when I was just starting out my first game of SoM. He certainly was a stalker, showing up several times and even killing me to the point where I worried about him showing up suddenly. I was incapable of killing him since I was so new to the game however as time progressed and I killed a few captains myself while learning the game mechanics that I eventually tracked him down, killing him at a Caragor hunt of all things thus signally the tide turning against the orcs in my own story. I do love how the Nemesis System really lets every player have their own unique experience that they can experience and share for the whole world to see.

0:37 Am I the only one who hears a police siren?

"And Garggle larggle lar" -Yahtzee 2014

"...insert fucking sleeper agents." Oh, is that what you're supposed to do? I just brainwashed every orc I could get my magical hand on until I had fifteen captains and five warchiefs under my control, in addition to an unknown number of mooks. You can get pretty overpowered, especially when you get the ability to brand orcs during combat after just a few uninterrupted hits. The points he makes are really good points, but there's one huge negative I'd like to bring up: the final boss is piss-easy and really, really anti-climactic. Also, and this might be different for others, but the last couple of scenes when you're storming the final fortress with your mind-controlled armies got REALLY slow and stutter-y. I couldn't even fight because I would get hit in between frames with no chance to block. I ended up having to just run away from the fights to let my forces fight for me.

I personally didn't see Talion as an alienating character: rather, it was a combination of him helping to solve their problems, accidentally bringing hell down on them for associating with them, and him not wanting to form any new major personal connections because he ought to be and intends to become fucking dead. I also remember that in my first playthrough, there was one randomly generated captain who was the first RNG captain to kill me outright and give me major amounts of trouble. I eventually came back and seemed to put him in the ground, but he must have come back for more (or at least wandered around within the bounds of a story mission keep well after I'd shoved a sword through his spinal column and got my boots covered in his guts) at least half-a-dozen times within the starting map alone. In the last mission, where your nemesis, the one captain who has in theory given you the most grief throughout the game leads the defending orcs against your warchief brigade, is revealed, take a guess which orc was my nemesis? The guy who came back over half-a-dozen times, that's right. And because he'd come back so many times, I had to stop and smile when I realized he was back a-fucking-gain for one last showdown before the credits rolled. My nemesis in my second playthrough, contrastingly, was some guy I didn't know at all. I literally looked at him and wondered to myself "who the hell is this guy?"

Great! it's what I always wanted in a Batman Game, AND in a Assassins creed game! "Less talky more stabby/ less puzzle more punching"

judging the comment section, this game is great for watercooler talk.

0:37 sirens in the background.

I actually liked Calebrimbor. He was practical, blunt, and sometimes snarky. That's a hell of a lot more than Talion.

Good, even though its about seven years later, I am still not the only one who wants Condemned 2 to get released on PC.

Yahtzee's alliteration was amazing.

0:32 I can't get over the sirens in the background...

I can't remember the name of the toughest captain I faced, but I do recall fighting him like five times and getting my ass kicked by him every time -it was impossible to outfight him. He did crazy damage, was immune to range, to stealth, and became enraged when he was wounded. I eventually killed him by poisoning him at a feast and kicking him off a cliff. There was literally NO other way to take this guy down.

Probably the first triple A game I have enjoyed in a long time. Hats off to monolith. The game is gonna get accused of being a lot of things especially by people that haven't fucking played it but are willing to pass judgement. The fact stands that EVERYTHING in the game is tied to the one mechanic of killing orcs. It doesn't muddy things down or pretend you are there for something else(Cough Assassin's creed, Cough Batman). It doesn't blow it's entire load right at the start making the pacing enjoyable and fucking fun as hell as you get new powers and it really does its best to be incredibly immersive. You will find yourself creating stories for each of the orcs you fight or gritting your teeth as one cocky motherfucker gets promoted off luckily killing you and then the game lets you get back at him or use his friends against him. The combat system can get meditative and flows better than arykham with higher animation qualities and brutality. It really adds much needed flair to the system and it's own list of abilities that make it the superior version of the fighting system, If you are intent on calling it the same fighting system that is. I have no problems with that. Not every game should attempt to reinvent the wheel. That is how we get shitty shit from big companies claiming they will "Innovate" the game industry) I feel like triple A games too often forget what it's like to build a game around one mechanic and focus on quality, Shadows simultaneously is an open world game while it manages it systems perfectly to empower you and make it feel good to play. No bowling with your cousin or animal hunting missions. Shadows gets a solid 8 out of 10 from me and a recommendation for everyone to complete it.

This must be a paid promotion; Yahtzee is never this positive xD

They should make a spin-off or expandalone or something with the sleeper agent stuff. I found it fun to just brainwash an orc captain and make him a warchief.

0:32 huh somethings you never notice in these videos unless you put on headphones

I've always wondered what a positive review sounded like on this channel. Its still funny.

You know, It almost sounds like Yahtzee is a little disappointed that SoM turned out to be good. For what it's worth, I found this review more entertaining and showing considerably more creativity than the ones that are geared toward blasting the questionable efforts and motivations of everyone involved in creating, designing, and hell, boxing up the games. Not that I don't like those. I do. I watch them all, but it's a nice break in the flame.

I think "and gaaargle blaargle vlaah" is the hardest I've ever laughed at ZP, and that's saying something. I've seen this episode dozens of time and I still giggle.

This is like the most positive Zero Punctuation full review I've ever seen. I think.

I know I'm late to this party but how did he not have a problem with the worst final boss fights in history? A brief hide and seak and then a extremely simple button prompt fight against what is supposed to be the most evil character in the Lord of the Rings.

Dat siren at 0:38.

I do love the mechanic that every time i die the entire orc army undergoes restructuring

2:50 It's not alliteration if it's a vowel sound; it's assonance. You're really aiming to annul this assonantal/assonantic annoyance

One of your better reviews Yahtzee, legit had me laughing out loud for a bit

0:35 Can anyone else hear the siren?

i love that in this review yahtzee used basically a picture of a bastard sword training waster as the main sword talion uses, as well as a broken version for his dagger XD

If you have the volume up high enough around the 0:40 mark, you can hear sirens in the background. Just goes to show how far Zero Punctuation has come.

1:05 Sauron isn't a big flaming eye on a stick though. Rather, he's essentially a ghost, some sort of half-solid darkness wielding evil magic, being a Maiar like Gandalf. The eye is a corrupted Palantir, that he uses like a magical telescope, Sauron himself is holed up in the stick

Did anybody else hear police sirens in the background at the beginning of the video?

I love it when I can clearly hear him running out of breath

One of my favourite reviews you have done

This reminds me of space marine, loved that game

This pretty much sums up my own opinion. I find the main character repulsive, but a lot of things he's capable of very nice

LOL at the Calvin and Hobbes pun! "It's like Calvin and Hobbes, it Calvin was a piece of wood with a frowny face drawn on it, and Hobbes was another piece of wood with a frowny face drawn on it." :D Come, Mr. Tallion, tally me banana! :D

0:56 seems that colon was well earned since they made a sequel.

Quick, someone add this to his 'games i like' list

Yahtzee you silly git, were the police coming for you around 00:30 for saying mean things again?

Ya know Talion isn't out for revenge. Celebrimbor tells him that the only way to break the curse that binds them and keeps Talion away from his family/peaceful death is to kill the one who casts it. For the majority of the game Talion is trying to kill the Black Hand so he can be with his wife and son in the afterlife.

i listen to this while I study and do homework and it works very well.

Just finished this game last night. On point review (as always), but I wish Yahtzee had touched on the disappointing final boss fight.

Honestly, this was probably GOTY for me. If nothing else, the fact that the game is incredibly polished is astonishing enough in the current gaming market.

This is my favorite review you have done to date, your magnum opus.

Idk, for me the difficulty was a major issue that impacted the nemesis system. The nemesis system while interesting in principle requires for you to actually let the orcs be. This means you have to avoid killing them, take great pains to ensure that you don't auto-target them with one of your strikes. This becomes a huge issue since you just can't die, (I only had one death and that was to a graug) whether it is facing warchiefs/black captains, or setting off an alarm in a stronghold. Hell you can agro a warchief into a stronghold and counter the fucking hour away. I got to a weird moment where I thought, "maybe I should let them kill me a few times to level up", but any game that requires me to intentionally die is pretty fucked up. If you let time advance, or use death threats the orcs still pose no issue (level 20 warchiefs still die given "X" time). You don't even need intel (other than to locate warchiefs), simply let a few arrows loose, if that fails then attempt to stealth attack, and then just counter-kill the orc in question. I really am beginning to despise the whole arkham-assassin creed style of combat.... Just feels like I'm QTE the whole game.

Orc1: Grrr! I just love killing stuff Orc2: All the alive things better watch out, cuz I'm the best at killing stuff. Never a truer observation was made about the orcs in Shadow of Mordor.

saying "militant atheist" is like saying "dedicated non-stamp collector"

I love you for explaining exactly how everyone should play these games

Don't forget how persistent those Orcs can get. Unless you chop their head off there is a chance they'll come back, with dirty potato sack on their head, a metal eye patch bolted to their skull, and a meat hook for an arm, and they'll be non-too pleased to find you. And I think the lunatic personality type is my favorite, they guys that can't talk they just giggle or growl while chomping their teeth at you like a psychotic chimpanzee.