Shadow of Mordorrrrrr

I'm not really a big fan when it comes to Lord of the Rings computer games, but this one has caught my eyes like never before. The detailed graphics plus a refined gameplay makes this game absolutely addictive. You start playing as a guy ( whom I forgot what's his name by the time I write this ) seeking revenge at the Uruk Hai for killing his wife and his only son. After he've been killed along side with his family, he somehow went into spirit mode and thus bump into this another elf spirit that agrees to keep his body alive in a condition of helping him in his quest to search for his true identity ( because he couldn't remember who he was ). So you will have to collect artifacts along the game that reminds him of who he was and also in the same time you'll hunt down some Uruk hai and get your revenge.

The gameplay is somewhat similar with Assassin Creed, but with a whole lot awesome ability and super powers, you'll be able to use the spirit elf's power such as spirit arrow which works as a regular arrow, teleport to assassinate nearby enemies, and also being able to interrogate the enemies. Speaking of interrogating, you will be able to blend into the mind of any hostile hostages that you hold in order to learn more about Uruk hai captains and thus learning their strengths and weaknesses as well. You can go hard by ignoring their weaknesses, fight through an army of Uruk hai before you reach the captains, or you can learn their weaknesses, be sneaky a bit and have a one kill back stabbing them, that is if the captain has that weakness.

Captains are categorized by three level, being level 3 the strongest captain. After the captain comes the Warchief, a higher rank of Uruk hai. There will be only 4 warchiefs and you could see some captains are killing each other to get to the top, you must make sure certain captains doesn't get overpowered by killing them quickly before they reaches to the top. There is really a lot more for me to cover about this game, so why don't you pick up this game and start slaying?

But no matter how good a game can be, there WILL and always be some missing parts. What's noticeably missing in this game is the sword and bow upgrade system. Yes, the sword and bow can be infused with a certain kind of runes which you collected by slaying captains and completing side quests, but that does not really change the sword that you are using isn't it? We were expecting to be able to change from sword to axe ( or katana ), broadsword, heavy sword, you name it, so that players have the customization to choose from such as choosing attack speed over damage, or larger AoE slash over AoE damage. The graphics setting in this game doesn't bring much difference, if you set your graphics from Medium to High or Ultra, you will barely see any changes. This somehow makes the game a graphics blood sucker... or whatever you name it.

But anyway, to summarize the whole experience in playing Shadow of Mordor, please take a look below:

Graphics: 4.5/5
Stunning graphics, very detailed character, oh, and the blood as well

Gameplay: 3,5/5
Somewhat interesting in the skill leveling chart, some skills are just plain boring, and you repeat what you do in slaying Uruk Hai until a new type of Uruk Hai comes out, which you need to learn how to counter it, other than that, you just repeat what you do when you are facing tons of enemies, if you are good at Assassin Creeds, you'll be good at this

Money value: 3.5/5
Yes this game will bring some decent value in your money, but don't expect thousands of hours out of this

Hope you guys enjoy

DOTA2

Well, I know this is not something new but just want to share it out here. I got my 4th betakey on 24th December ( well, I guess it's a present from IceFrog ), installed it at the same day and got my hands on it. As a loyal fan of DotA as well as a competitive player, there is nothing happier than playing a sequel for the game that you've been focusing for so long ( 98% of the time I spent on playing games is DotA, mainly it's because my low end laptop ) While the beta is out at around August 2011, the fans from around the world anticipated DOTA2 as their most wanted game, especially when Valve, the famous game developer company that are known for it's Half-Life, Counter Strike and many more, made DOTA2 1st appearance to the public at the 1 Million Dollar tournament called The International. So far the gameplay is superb, the graphics looks nice, and most importantly, it is has some nice feature that are not possible to implement in Warcraft 3 such as matchmaking, reconnect dropped player and a nice user friendly GUI, which make it par with other popular Action RTS game like League of Legends or Heroes of Newerth. Here are some of the few screenshot for you guys. To apply for this game, you can either try to apply for a betakey at Playdota.com or wait for the official release to purchase it. PS: had a hard time to get use to the game