"Save buying this one until the asking price is at least slashed in half, folks, as you’re going to need the rest just to get the orcs you need."

Shots fired.

Well written opinion/review by the way.

Finally, someone calls this game out for what it is.

I wonder if WB will do what 2K did when The Sixth Axis scored NBA low.

Um.... didn't it already come out that the story line is not actually behind a paygate as this article leads you to believe? Been listening to a number of podcasts and sites reporting that it was being reported erroneously and I think IGN (could be wrong on outlet) outright said they made a mistake in assuming some things around this that weren't correct.

So u graded the game based on your hate for loot boxes and micro trans? The games great, really fun and builds on the nemesis system, ya the loot boxes are unfortunate but that doesn’t take away from your ability to enjoy this game thoroughly. Solid 8/10 for me so far, still have a long ways to go till I beat it buts so far it’s far from a 4. This articles ludicrous.

“Oh, it’s far from bad, in many respects it’s even spectacular. It offers an engaging story, great new mechanics for your armies, and even a refined system of battle mechanics and orders.”

4/10 - gaming activism

I played this all weekend, had a better time than i expected, never bought anything, never felt pushed to.

Rekt.

That score is a joke. I’ve got 20+ hours in and absolutely no need to even think about buying loot.

It is a great game.

This is so dumb haha

THIS IS CLICKBAIT. I have put 10+ hours into the game and it is paced fine without lootboxes, you can literally pretend they do not exist and have a great time. This is not like 2k18. To call a game spectacular and give it a 4/10 score is bullsh*t clickbait, and people will sit here and heap praise on this outlet for "calling out the greedy devs". 4/10 is a bad or broken game, which shadow of war is not, and the lootboxes have literally no effect on your enjoyment. This writer is just capitalizing on lootbox hate for clicks.

I'll probably buy the complete edition with all dlc down the road. I won't buy loot boxes though, problem solved for this game anyway.

4 out of 10?? Wow. That can't be right. I know loot boxes are bad but come on.

So much for objective journalism.
I understand not supporting Microtransactions, but that doesn’t reflect the quality of the game.
If we are going to do this let’s drop review scores for all games with microtransactions.
GTAV, all of those shark cards.
Gears 4
Uncharted 4
CoD
All of these games need reduced scores to reflect this, if we are changing our standards.

This is utterly ridiculous. Are there micro-transactions? Yes. Do you need them to play the game? No. Nobody enjoys microtransactions but unless you want to start paying $80 for new games, get used to it.

A 4? For Shadow of War? Even by the authors definition, it's a good game.

Not understanding this... Right now I havent bought any Loot boxes. I have about 74k in game money. I have zero need to buy a loot box as of now... But id be able to buy them if I do need them with in game money.

The real cancer to the gaming community are reviews like this and the pissants that praise it.

Game is an insult to Tolkien,this is what it deserves

Stop with the BOYCOTT the game B.S.
Buy the game, support the developer who was forced to add these into their game in the first place, and just not purchase any of such content on offer.
The only thing that happens were you, to say, not buy the game, is the publisher will then say "Hmm. Your game didn't sell well, and you're a liability" ... and end the developer.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where the publishers will push this sort of loot box, pay to win, $60 release with $1000 of optional content if it shows even some sort of profit. Which it always will. The only way to improve things is to show that the sort of practice is a liability for the franchise by receiving reviews such as these, which highlight that the biggest issue with the game is the inclusion of such s***** practice.

I hope people dont buy anything with this garbage in it anymore.. However theres an entire generation of gamers who grew up with smart phones having these types of loot boxes.. We will see what happens but im not buying this, AC origins, or battlefront 2

$59.99 is enough fuck the microtransactions! Never had and never will.

So it's come to this. Outright lying about needing a credit card to get the epilogue. Well, now I know to not take at face value anything this Starburst site says:

Comment made on this review:

"The "series of gates requiring your credit card" comment is just, plainly, wrong. You're misinforming your audience. It is absolutely possible and, more importantly, FUN to see everything this game has to offer without paying any extra money. Yes, Shadow Wars mode is more grindy than the rest of the game, but it's grindy in a way gamers often LOVE. It works well in Shadow of War, and you absolutely do NOT need to spend any extra money to access this "true ending."

Also, calling it the "true ending" is bullshit. It's far more like a post-credit sequence than an actual ending. The story mode has a satisfying ending before Shadow Wars mode begins. If you want the EXTRA bit of story at the end, then that's your reward for playing many more hours of a great and fun game.

You don't have to like microtransactio ns in games, but you shouldn't mislead people about what Shadow of War actually does."

And another thing:

https://www.pcgamesn.com/mi...

"...First things first: you do not need to buy these chests to play Shadow of War’s campaign. You can finish the entire story without so much as even opening the store page, and you will have so many orcs and weapons thrown your way that you will never even consider paying for more..."

[...]

"...So, does the game try to force you to buy chests? Not in our experience. We went straight into the Shadow Wars with only the orcs we had from the campaign and managed to hold Sauron’s forces at bay. Our fort was mostly defended by standard-grade orcs, too. While the assault was notably harder than the campaign sieges, it was still perfectly achievable, and our army is fighting fit to take on several more battles..."

I feel like I have already got my moneys worth. Been playing for 18 hours and I am only in Act 2. I just finished a session where I captured a Graug and went on a rampage, no real reason just to have fun. I swear gamers today don't know how to just sit back and have fun with the environment, to be like a kid and play. No, they need a linear hand holding snore fest with 10 seconds of action between never ending story dialog to bore you to tears.

It's time we take a stand against this malpractices!! If we do nothing, it will continue to get worse

Review has a lot of BS in it. For example, nobody can "attack your single player" castles. You have control of that feature.
You can turn off the loot box features by not accepting online play.
You don't need to grind through Siege, can move towards the story line if you wish.

you can say and feel how you want about loot boxes and MTs but... to bash a game and score it low for that reason alone? hey look at me!! Score the game appropriately. The review is where bashing such features come into play. Shame on the reader for being lazy and looking at the score instead of reading the actual review.

In 12 months time I won't be surprised if these publishers don't add a charity side to it
Say 50p in every £2 spent goes to good causes those publishers have been planning this loot box game for years its not gonna dissappear without a fight.
I'm not against micro transactions, I played warframe for 12 months without spending a penny when I finished with the game I bought a £20 colour pack and never logged back on but I thought it was earned by them
And I know development costs rise but I'm a simple guy but why not just stick £5 to £10 on at retail for the full beans and I'll decide if to spend it but not like this.

I am astounded that you have people actually defending WB and monolith for this BS. It's no wonder that they are getting away with this crap. F U, EA, Activision, Ubisoft, WB you greedy bastards, stop ruining games.

This website gave this score and used the loot box controversy for clicks plain and simple and it's sickening. I've been playing the game since release and no you're not constantly bombarded by the game to give more money which is what most other reviews who had a problem with lootboxes being there even said to the point it makes no sense why they are even there so that's bullcrap. I will congratulate the website though it worked mission accomplished because if they didn't do this the article wouldn't have even hit warming up status

I had zero need for the loot boxes and beat the game..shit review

Oh look, some website I've never heard of trying to get clicks by giving a game a low score because people are pissy about loot boxes. This is everything that's wrong with gaming journalism.

This “loot box” thing, seems to be the talk of these late 2017 releases. It may just be an industry test to see if there is more money to be made off of the games. It’s seems like it’s one of those, “they’re doing it, so why not us?” If these “loot crates” are a waste of money and we as gamers ignore it, this problem should go away.

Really? I never once was tempted to buy anything in this game nor pushed too. The media is literally creating a narrative that doesn’t even exist for this game. If you don’t like it then don’t buy the loot boxes. I expect outrage for every game that you can buy additional stuff for.

Was really looking forward to this game until I heard about the microtransactions. Makes me sick that this level of corporate greed has made its way into my favorite means of fun and escapism. Skipping this one.

Overall the game is great,I've been paying the MTs no mind when playing.Pay it nada & there should be no problem.

Doesn't it seem strange that they are all doing this? Virtually every major publisher and developer is pushing these microtransactions. There must be a good reason for it. Im not defending the practice, I just think we should think about whats going on here. Here we have two games:Shadow of War and Battlefront 2(Which is astronomical improvement over the first one) that are actually very good, but littered with loot boxes. Perhaps, this is the price of developers and publishers putting more effort into giving a solid product. Perhaps these loot boxes allow them to be a bit more risky and stop half assing their games. Just something we should really look into.

Just finished the game, main story sucks, lame combat and nemesis system makes the game longer but doesn't add to the story, lame ending. Wait for sale.

This review is clickbait. Did this guy even play the game?! He outright lies about how certain elements work. Don't let this review sway you. The game is great and costs you zero extra dollars to enjoy.

I'm not really into loot boxes, but I think people are exaggerating a little. Gaming is supposed to be about fun but we focus too much on the negative. It takes the fun out of gaming.

Yup, that micro transactions crap needs to stop!

Sorry but a bs review score makes me doubt the credibility of the reviewer more than the quality of the game. This is absolutely a minority review used as a soapbox to push a manufactured crisis. I could understand docking a point or 2 for the disappointment to an otherwise decent game at the very least (which a large majority of reviews concede) but this is a thinly veiled agenda. To me, a biased, unobjective opinion is a wasted opinion and more harmful than MT. After all, you can still enjoy the game and just not buy anything in it.

Pay to win should stay the f out of gaming all together tbh we all need to make a stance on this kind of shizz n boycot the shizz only way we can make them see sense.

The review is as long as the blurb on the back cover of the game lol

Ok, MTs aside how is the initial game?

Starburst has a magazine?

you can blog about evil moneygrabbers all day long, it just will not change a thing, because the vast majority of gamers does not read your blog posts and they don't even care. face it: there is nothing one can do about it. even boycotting these games will bring no result for the same reason. let's be generous here.. let's say 50'000 people are sshowing them the middle finger... 500.000 more people will not and instead open their wallets. where would YOU put your emphasis on?
but i guess, the kids will whine on and on. it feels like an angry crying baby in an overcrowded tram or train. you want to approach it and say "oh shut the eff up already".

A bit low for the only problem the reviewer had being lootboxes. And in this game they aren't even close to being required.

Much too short a review to justify the score. He barely explains anything.

Haha ohhh, the simple-minded morons who actually buys these things xD
I do agree with it needing to impact score though, if a game's core is centered around furthering MT's. That's straight up freemium gaming right there, and shouldn't warrant a full retail price then.

Stupid review. The microtransactions are optional for lazy gamers. For gamers who prefer to play games it is no issue at all.

hahaha what a fucking load of clickbait fuckery

I think its funny how filled with double morals the outraged part of the gaming community is.

It was not long ago that reviewers and gaming media was lynched for promoting a political agenda. Now they are being praised?

It is like no one remembers gamergate.

And stop kidding yourself. This is a political agenda.

Cool story bro. Buying this weekend.

buying a loot box is stupid,its like buying fifa coins.
its a complete rip off because you dont even know what it contains.
its a form of gambling imo

The only reason these things happen is because gamers support them. We only have ourselves to blame, not the companies.

I am sorry.... but I wont bother reading nor clicking. I am not going to support a site that purposely is delivering lower scores for an agenda. I get they don't like MT's... but they said "By all rights this is a spectacular release". What this tells me is I can't ever trust this sites reviews because I will never know when they are pushing their own agenda or other motivations around giving whatever score they give to try and influence developers rather than giving an honest review and score.

A fan can externalize his emotions and let go of this kind of consideration, but a gaming blogger/journalist is obliged to analyze each video game in its entirety. By always using such an obtuse parameter, then GTA V would also deserve a 4/10 and this is totally unacceptable exactly like the loot boxes or the invading DLC that we hate and want to eliminate. No one obliges us to buy a video game: the purpose of an author and reviewer was and remains to inform, not to influence the choices of those who read it with forced votes and hostile attitudes.

I think its just pick and choose which loot boxes you want to support. I see nothing wrong with cosmetic items from loot crates that change looks or add elements to single player games but they should never hinder progression. If you pay full price for a game you should never hit a paywall or feel like you have to grind forever to level up. Blizzard has cosmetic items and what I like about Naughty dog is that with their crates, you never get duplicate items. What I can't stand is Infinite warfare and how they added epic variants of guns from loot crates. I've gotten back to back identical items in loot crates and there's like a thousand different things to get. It's ridiculous. Pay-to-win Loot crates are toxic but the problem is that people will buy the game anyway because of how hyped it is or how much they love the series.

This is a ridiculous review! I have approximately 35 hours invested into Shadow of War, had and am having a blast playing it. I haven't been tempted to spend a dime on it. To punish a game this good, for something entirely optional, only shows the reviewer to be immature with a heavy case of attention seeking disorder!

Ouch.

If you're on PC and play a lot of older games, you can find plenty of single-player games with multiplayer option, especially from the PS3/Xbox360 era. You know what they all have in common? The multiplayer is always dead. Such wasted efforts.

Hmmm... I'm on the fence on this one.

On one hand translating a single player game into having multiplayer components usually suck and the results are probelmatic at best, but damn it's hard to argue how much Last Of Us Factions slaps!

While I agree with this sentiment, a LOT of action games could use 1-on-1 PvP. Developers get this messed up by thinking that every online component needs to be Battle Royale. There's a whole slew of ideas that have never been fully realized in fighting games, and we could actually bring them to fruition with 1v1 in action games.

Example: Star Wars Fallen Order/Survivor with 1on1 lightsaber battles. No mess, no clutter of 10 people acting dumb on a map...just you and an opponent. THIS is what we need more of.

I know that the post is about online multiplayer.
But I just want to add that personally I miss the days where a local multiplayer component was more common than not. I loved the abundance of coop campaigns and deathmatches with bots, or little mini games. I hate that despite consoles getting stronger, splitscreen is less commonplace.
4 player splitscreen used to chug along on the ps2/n64 era but it was a blast. Now there's just very little of that outside of party games.
I will always prefer having my friends over to game, laughing and drinking beers all the while.

I like couch co-op but not online multiplayer very much. Souls game MP I enjoy but I always play them solo first. It’s up to the devs what they want to do I’m not going to complain about what they do I’ll either buy the game or I won’t

Persona 5 Royal, Mass Effect 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Dragon Age II, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Dying Light, Crystar, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Omori, Cyberpunk 2077

Whilst the game itself was somewhat flawed, I absolutely loved the combat system in Final Fantasy 13.

The term “RPG” is so obscure nowadays it’s hard to know whether to consider a game an RPG or Action-Adventure or whatever. Every game has upgrade systems, equipment, crafting, stats, etc. and all of them You’re playing a character or characters that are immersed into a world. I mean that’s essentially the definition of RPG.

And honestly I love Dragon Age Origins but the combat system of that game and the entire series has been the least fun thing about each game. Don’t understand how that makes this list. There have been plenty of other RPGs that have far better combat systems.