Recent reviews by michohl

I was looking for a game to scratch my Diablo itch and this game seemed to be very promising. I actually really enjoyed the first handful of hours I played the game and thought the negative talk online was maybe a past issue that had been resolved.

But after 11 hours of gameplay and making it to the end of chapter 3 and realizing I will never progress because the final boss of the chapter is bugged I decided the juice wasn't worth the squeeze.

A great dense humor filled game. Great to play with a partner and laugh together.

I'm a borderline retired gamer who finds myself not particularly interested in any games these days and have to force myself to play games sometimes. With that in mind this game managed to completely hook me and grab my attention in a way that another game hasn't been able to in years.


This is the absolute crown gem of this game for me. I'm a huge Tolkien fan so the universe this is based on already had my favor before I even launched the game but the more I explored and the more I got involved with the captain system for the Uruks the more I became absolutely enthralled. It really makes you feel like you're impacting Sauron's army when you take on the optional radiant quests while getting a interesting insight to the inner workings of the Uruks.

I've gotten completely lost for hours at a time just finding every single optional quest on the map and attempting to wipe out every single captain before taking on any Warchiefs. Part of the reason this is so fun to me because of these things:

1. the top level view of Sauron's army the game makes it feel more like you are actually impacting the strength of Sauron
2. The "intel" system where you can learn about the individual captains and warchiefs before you ever actually interact with them makes the setup and planning stage before ambushing them a treat
3. The generated titles and strengths/weaknesses for all captains makes every captain feel like a real unique character that you can learn more about and get into their head which makes taking them down so much more fun


I've recently come to not enjoy games that are open world as much as I used to and have been more interested in smaller scope linear games. But this game has managed to do open world in a way that doesn't feel exhausting for me.

The map feels large, vast, and imposing which sets up for great immersion. But at the same time the mobility you have as a character and the relational scale to the map makes it possible to run across the entire map in a reasonable amount of time while still feeling like you're traveling great distances (this is exaggerated even more when utilizing caragors).


The world is filled with optional collectibles and quests that do not have to be completed. Normally I would completely avoid these types of challenges but this game takes away all the guess work and BS by marking every single collectible on your map exactly and allowing you to mark it with a quest marker. This makes it incredibly satisfying to see a map full of optional collectibles and working your way across the map and cleaning it of all the small markers.

This is also paired with a clear and concise list in the pause menu that shows you exactly how many of all the optional items you've collected making it addicting to try and fill all of the individual collection bars.


Not much to say here besides it is a contributor to what makes this game so replayable. The ability to sit in a dog pile of Uruks and single handidly combat them all in such a cinematic way while still feeling engaged is incredible!