Craig Anderson

This game is awesome on a Series X, post day 1 patch. Delivers on the promise of tense melee-dominated combat. The assets are bonkers-good, the sound design is A++, and the graphics are probably the best I've ever seen in a game. Definitely one to play on 'quality mode'. Main quibbles: (1) poor combat tutorials (e.g. didn't know you could block until I read it online), which may have been a hamfisted implementation of 'figure it our yourself' (the game does very little in the way of hand-holding, which I generally like); (2), I'd kill for a 'duck and roll' mechanic, to dive out of otherwise unwinnable situations; (3) seemingly un-blockable attacks by some enemies, which appear to be there purely to drain your health before big encounters to add tension, but which end up being merely annoying and out of place for a game focused on skill-based combat. Still, these are minor annoyances in the scheme of things. Fantastic new I.P., and keen to see new content for the game.

Really enjoying this, so couldn't understand the one-star ratings. They seem to centre around three criticisms: 1) The dialogue is stilted Tolkien's storytelling is wonderful, but literally google 'Tolkien stilted dialogue'. You're remembering the books wrong. 2) The work isn't faithful to The Silmarillion, etc Cry more, nerds! 3) It has non-white characters Cry even more! All in all, good stuff, and something I'll pay to continue watching.