Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

[Cyrrex]

You guys need to stop making this sound awesome, otherwise I swear to God that I will go buy it!  Don't make me!

[Pagz]

[Yegolev]

Anyone have or plan on getting it for a console? I'd buy it for PC, but there is zero chance mine will run it well.

Already have it on the PS4.  The controller whispers to you.

Time to play it?  Another story.

[Rokal]

I'm really enjoying it. The combat is much better than AC (Arkham combat + swords and quasi-spells) and the game doesn't bog you down with loads of exposition or shitty side-quests that have you doing stuff totally unrelated to the main game (crafting chairs or running messages between lazy npcs, etc.). The nemesis system is pretty amazing as well, but IMO your enjoyment of the game will depend almost entirely on whether you enjoy the combat.

[Ingmar]

AFAIK the Tolkien estate has never licensed anything from the Silmarillion to be used in a game or even in movies - this has been a long-standing headache/obstacle for Turbine - so take that into account when you're guessing.

[croaker69]

[Ingmar]

No spoiler tag? 

[Khaldun]

Yeah, man! That wasn't who I was guessing actually.

Oh well. Since I was already dialed into a pretty proximate kind of lore space, no biggie.

[Bann]

Which one of you guys is The Angry German on steam? I've had a few side missions to avenge you. Do you get any notification or anything on your end when I avenge you in my game?

[Strazos]

I already have this ordered - I'll have to let people know when my PS4, the game, and my TV all get to me down in Mexico. 

[Yegolev]

Do you get any notification or anything on your end when I avenge you in my game?

Yes.

I was killed by a particular Uruk who was promoted to captain, naturally.  Gunzda, a skinny guy.  Crossbow archer.  Nothing unusual, I suppose.

I run across this guy while trying to sneak somewhere.  Having done my "research" on known captains, I know he is vulnerable to stealth attacks, so I should be able to take care of that clown.  Except he and his twenty-uruk entourage see me in the bush and we get into a fight.  I eventually run after wailing on him a few times.  He is searching for me on a scaffolding, I botch the stealth attack and we trade blows quite a bit before one of his boys cuts me down.  Shit.

I see the guy again in more or less the same place.  This time he's alone, so I run up and stab his ass.  Suck it, Gunzda!

Welp, in another area I find another captain... Gunzda?  I manage to kill him again in an unmemorable way in a dark corner.

Shortly therafter, I'm sneaking to something and suddenly I'm taunted.  Gunzda!  Only this time, he's got a cloth bag strapped over his head and his lips seem to be missing.  He's ugly as fuck and pretty pissed at me.  Seems like he's also gotten himself some exploding arrows.  This fight goes pretty badly for me, although I almost win it.

Now I get to see my new Nemesis every time I go into the menu.  He's awful!

[Sky]

Which one of you guys is The Angry German on steam? I've had a few side missions to avenge you. Do you get any notification or anything on your end when I avenge you in my game?

That's pretty awesome. I really dig integration like that. Sleeping Dogs was really good in that respect.

[Nebu]

Which one of you guys is The Angry German on steam? I've had a few side missions to avenge you. Do you get any notification or anything on your end when I avenge you in my game?

I think that's Der Helm.

[lamaros]

This thread makes me want to buy a new computer.

[murdoc]

Which one of you guys is The Angry German on steam? I've had a few side missions to avenge you. Do you get any notification or anything on your end when I avenge you in my game?

That's pretty awesome. I really dig integration like that. Sleeping Dogs was really good in that respect.

I avenged Hawkbit tonight.

[Hawkbit]

Thanks!

I've been stuck in stats homework hell for the last four hours; I hope to get in soon to kill an orc before passing out.

[Cadaverine]

I tried to avenge Angry German, but died.  Stupid Uruk's with poisoned weapons. 

[Ceryse]

I picked up the game on a whim (rare for me these days.. I almost always wait for Steam Sales) and have been enjoying it more than I figured I would -- despite a complete dislike for the source material. The combat is fun, a bit difficult without being frustrating (despite using keyboard/mouse rather than a gamepad -- if it involves aiming, I default to mouse/keyboard) which surprised me. Camera can be a bit annoying to control at times, though.

Nemesis system is pretty interesting and is something I hope becomes far more common; I can see it being very useful in a number of other games.

Only times I've died so far;

Big, bad monster thing near where you start the game. I did not dodge well enough and had my body pulverized. I now simply avoid those.

Once to a pack of Caragors, as again.. I sucked at spacebar dodging as I would get too greedy in attacking.

Once to an archer during the bow quest where you have to headshot 10 archers.. and a captain showed up. Got a bit stuck on terrain pieces, lost a lot of health and failed the Last Stand mechanic (I wasn't expecting it and took my hands off the controls) when a no-name Uruk archer pegged me. He got promoted.. annoyed me a great deal. Right now the bastard is trying to duel another Captain for more power..

Almost died when I tried to interrupt a Game Hunt mission. I was late in attacking (he two-shot the Caragor), got him to almost dead before I had to flee due to being poisoned and surrounded by close to 40 Uruks. Survived that one with a sliver of health. After healing up, immediately went back and one-shot him from stealth due to his weakness and felt... tremendous satisfaction.

If it weren't for having to unlock certain powers via main quests.. I'd almost utterly ignore the actual plot.

[Margalis]

I'm not sure how the Nemesis system holds up long term but it really is a great idea. Open world games often have a problem with difficulty pacing - enemies scale with you, which is stupid, or they don't scale and then it becomes too easy, or different zones have radically different difficulty levels and the open world functionally isn't so open any more. This is a very clever way to do scaling enemies in a way that makes sense.

The idea of introducing essentially mirror images of the main character that also go through the game and level up at a similar pace is very smart. Really smart high level ideas are rare, so kudos to them.

[Lantyssa]

Which one of you guys is The Angry German on steam? I've had a few side missions to avenge you. Do you get any notification or anything on your end when I avenge you in my game?

I think that's Der Helm.

Tebonas!

(I believe it's Helm as well.)

[Shannow]

Picked it up. Haven't even delved into main plot line. Game is hard! I seem to spend more time running away from crowds of angry Uruks than anything else.

Unfortunately my son caught me playing this and is now angling for PC time so he can play too. (go back to Destiny ya brat!).

How exactly do I initiate a vulcan mind meld with an Orc? Tracked a cpl who have intel but I get a little too stabby before I get a chance to go all Jack Bauer on them..

[01101010]

Damn you all... Moment of weakness.

So far... this game is pretty tasty. Executing orcs is quite visceral and satisfying no matter how many times I do it. The sneaking thing is a bit of a stretch, but everything else is damn good. Died once to some troll that I decided to try out. Got wtfstomped. Died again to that damn dog while I was on some stalk Gollum mission. So far, this seems worth the coin.

[murdoc]

I have never bought a 'season pass' for any game, but I went back and bought it for this. I am really, really enjoying it.

[Yegolev]

The tutorial pages will show how to do things as long as you've seen the tutorial already.  Grabbing a uruk and holding the "grab" button will give you additional options.  Interrogate will be one of these sometimes.  Regular jerks will just give you names of leaders.  Worms (green highlight) will give weaknesses/strengths, or you can find intel laying around on the ground sometimes.

I die a lot in the final moments of taking down a captain because I inevitably try to grab them and do something cool.  I really, really need to just stab the shit out of them because the uruk ranks are getting a WEE BIT out of control.  I'm actively avoiding my nemesis.

Rode a carragor today.  Hard to control.

Edit to say that I still get a rush when a captain yells something specific at me.  Usually it's something like "'Ow many times do I 'afta splatter yer guts on the ground 'efore ye learn?!"

[Shannow]

ahh the grab button that's right.

It is playable with a keyboard and mouse but a pita. Think I'm gonna try my controller tonight.

[Venkman]

Damn you people. I promised myself I'd stay away from this thread. My kids need clothes dammit!

Or, as it turns out, $50 less of them right now 

Downloading.

[Yegolev]

Protip: Don't pick fights with captains that you don't have intel on.  Obvious?  Yes.  Do I take my own good advice?  Sometimes.

[01101010]

Protip: Don't pick fights with captains that you don't have intel on.  Obvious?  Yes.  Do I take my own good advice?  Sometimes.

While true for the most part, I accidentally started a fight with a captain last night while roaming around picking off random orcs walking about. Luckily, he was weak to executions which I managed to get off. He actually wasn't that much of a challenge, however it did unnerve me that all the sudden during the opening of the fight it dropped into the close up dialog screen and he started taunting me. I then realized I probably should rethink the fight, but it was going so smooth and well that I let it carry on. Definitely got lucky and it was pretty satisfying.

[Yegolev]

The game says you can't exploit weaknesses or vulnerabilities that you haven't discovered, so I find that interesting.

I managed to find out the hard way that Whatshisname the Angry requires me to parry multiple heavy blows in quick succession.  That's something that requires a bit of a heads-up.

[Khaldun]

If you can manage to isolate a captain, I think almost all of them can basically be battered with chain sword attacks, except for the guys you have to spacebar over. It just takes a long time and you need to avoid giving most of them the room to open up with whatever it is that they do. I do find that almost nowhere stays clear of regular grunt orcs for too long, which is another nice element in the game--the coming and going of orc forces feels pretty organic, there isn't the artificial game-y sense that you've cleared out an area so it stays cleared.

What's also fun is if you've almost got a captain down but he manages to open up enough space to run away and you don't have any elfshot. I chased one guy pretty much across the whole map and straight through a stronghold, trying to keep from being brought down by the army of guys following me.

I have a bad situation right now on the map where for whatever reason, at least three captains are hanging really close with each other all the time--even if I get one of them alone, the other two coming trotting up pretty quickly.

[Ceryse]

I have a bad situation right now on the map where for whatever reason, at least three captains are hanging really close with each other all the time--even if I get one of them alone, the other two coming trotting up pretty quickly.

I had a pretty bad situation earlier today where the captain I wanted dead (had spent an hour leveling him up for a shot at a good rune) was close to three other captains, in a Stronghold filled to the brim with uruks. Found some caragors a bit away and lured them with the elfshot attract until some of the uruks noticed the caragors. Entire stronghold descended into chaos shortly thereafter as three caragors occupy masses of uruks and a couple captains pretty well (unless if one of them is strong against monsters, which one of mine was). Bought me enough time to go in, insta-stealth kill the target captain (the reason I used him as a farm target), and managed to mostly bring down another captain before the caragors were dead. Focused on the wounded captain and got the hell out of dodge after he dropped and I'd gathered the runes.

Of course, later on I ran into one of the two captains I hadn't killed and was taunted for running away.. which made killing him all the more enjoyable.

[Shannow]

The cave troll hanging near my starting tower has killed more Orc captains than me. :P

[Maven]

Damn, I missed the discussion on the 'outrage' of this game. Carry on with your fanaticism! I might pick this up based on the praise, putting aside the standard fantasy racism trope and justifying morally-dubious actions because 'they're the evil ones."

[Venkman]

Man, I could watch that benchmark video a few more times. Gorgeous, and like Ezio transplated from Italy to Lara Croft's most recent island.

Jeezus, openiing sequence, awesome. Rest of the game could suck and I already love it.

[Sobelius]

Man, I could watch that benchmark video a few more times. Gorgeous, and like Ezio transplated from Italy to Lara Croft's most recent island.

Jeezus, openiing sequence, awesome. Rest of the game could suck and I already love it.

Yeah -- was pretty impressed with the whole opening backstory fusion of past/present/whereami?  Need to remap the key combos or something -- don't like playing Twister on the keyboard just to do necessary combos (and I refuse to use a controller on my PC).