Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

[Trippy]

Ugh. Maybe I'll buy it at full price. Fuck you, internet people. At least it's an arbitrary $10 less on Steam.

PC is typically $10 less than console versions.

[Sobelius]

I have a couple more obstacles -- last-last gen PC, no consoles, living off student loans. Otherwise I'd jump on this bandwagon. It does look fun.

TotalBiscuit shows off some gameplay.

I am concerned about the sharp decline in difficulty once you get to late game. Does the game continue in sandbox mode after you finish the 20th Story Mission?

Addressing only the difficulty: i haven't tried this but have read you can disable prompts for countering and dodging. I know I'd be in much worse shape without those.

[schild]

I'm just grabbing it on the PS4, fuckit. I'll get $15 back when I buy Evil Within next week anyway.

Scratch that, PC. I forgot that consoles price shit the same as retail boxes. Morons.

[Yegolev]

no dont this game is awful

[Sobelius]

I'm just grabbing it on the PS4, fuckit. I'll get $15 back when I buy Evil Within next week anyway.

These words totally fit the expression on your forum avatar!

[schild]

no dont this game is awful

TOO LATE, NERD.

[Sky]

Main thing holding me back is the lack of 970s and 980s.

[schild]

Ugh. Ok. Game might be awesome. Feels better than Arkham Asylum, but that might be due to the fact you're not always in cramped quarters and the camera angle is slightly more forgiving. There's nothing I hate more than Left Control for important shit though.

[cironian]

This is definitely a gamepad game, even on PC.

[Rokal]

I am concerned about the sharp decline in difficulty once you get to late game. Does the game continue in sandbox mode after you finish the 20th Story Mission?

It continues in Sandbox mode and Sauron's army is replenished with Uroks that seem to have post-game appropriate higher levels. I died a couple times while trying to finish post-game stuff.

You can always "Accelerate time" on the map screen if you think things have gotten too easy too. The Uroks will continue to level up each time you do it.

[Trippy]

I have a couple more obstacles -- last-last gen PC, no consoles, living off student loans. Otherwise I'd jump on this bandwagon. It does look fun.

TotalBiscuit shows off some gameplay.

I am concerned about the sharp decline in difficulty once you get to late game. Does the game continue in sandbox mode after you finish the 20th Story Mission?

As discussed above there are "easy mode" ability combos that become available at the later ability tiers. You can choose not to use them/pick them.

[Sobelius]

This is definitely a gamepad game, even on PC.

Not for me. I remapped keyboard to accomodate my typical layout and it works well for me.  I also suck using a controller.

[schild]

Where did you rebind L-CTRL? I don't know enough about the other abilities to really start randomly rebinding.

[Sobelius]

Another thought on increasing game difficulty: at start of a new game, force time to pass for a while before setting out. Give 'em a two year head start on you...see if Nemesis will build up a wall of worthy opponents before you get your first ability or rune...

[Sobelius]

Where did you rebind L-CTRL? I don't know enough about the other abilities to really start randomly rebinding.

Here's what I know I changed (Not at home so not sure of original keys. )

Left shift for sprint and associated abilities.
Spacebar for drain.
Left ctrl for climbing.(I think) Left-CTRl is just combat drain -- don't use it much
 'e' for object interaction.
 'c' for stealth. (yes, c is always crouch)
mapped a side mouse button to daggers

I remapped just based on basic moves.

[schild]

Hmmmmm, that sounds good. Probably gonna swap how you have drain/climbing, as spacebar is naturally a movement thing for me, but yes, I like this. C means Crouch. ALWAYS.

[Maven]

The mention of Ewoks in the Star Wars thread crossed wires with my search for Shadow of Mordor on Steam, and, well...

Shadow of Endor. Come on. It's fucking brilliant. Mass Ewok Genocide Simulator.

[Merusk]

It's really boring but if they are alone you can drain them over and over to kill them, even without brand.

Boring?  It's my favorite way to kill lone orcs. 

I always think "I'll swallow your soul" as I use them to refill my elf shots. 

[Merusk]

I am concerned about the sharp decline in difficulty once you get to late game. Does the game continue in sandbox mode after you finish the 20th Story Mission?

It continues in Sandbox mode and Sauron's army is replenished with Uroks that seem to have post-game appropriate higher levels. I died a couple times while trying to finish post-game stuff.

You can always "Accelerate time" on the map screen if you think things have gotten too easy too. The Uroks will continue to level up each time you do it.

There is also a sandbox mode on the main menu. No story just killing orcs and captains over and over.  It has ladders and ranking apparently but I haven't tried it yet.

[Reg]

This is the first game that's come out that my crappy old PC is too feeble to run.

Sigh. I guess it's finally time for a new rig.

[Threash]

I rebound l ctrl and shift to my mouse, helps to have a razer i guess.

[Rendakor]

I'm waiting for Steam sale; not because I don't think it's worth full price but because I've already got a lot on my plate and Borderlands 1.5 is dropping next week.

[Shannow]

The mention of Ewoks in the Star Wars thread crossed wires with my search for Shadow of Mordor on Steam, and, well...

Shadow of Endor. Come on. It's fucking brilliant. Mass Ewok Genocide Simulator.

 

[Sobelius]

Another thought on increasing game difficulty: at start of a new game, force time to pass for a while before setting out. Give 'em a two year head start on you...see if Nemesis will build up a wall of worthy opponents before you get your first ability or rune...

Bah. I tried it and nothing seems to happen. I had intelled a couple of orcs to reveal some of the army captains, but after a dozen "time passes", I could see no change in the power structure or power of any individual captain. 

Now that I think about it, it's probably a good thing. Monolith probably anticipated the possibility of a "new" player actively passing too much time early in the game and didn't want the captains to grow too powerful too early. Shrug.

[schild]

So, as a more "fun" sounding game. This is the movement of Infamous done right in the butt by a more refined Dynasty Warriors. I keep wanting Lu Bu to stampede out of a castle.

This is a very good game.

Arkham was terrible. Let's stop comparing the two.

[Trippy]

Arkham was terrible. Let's stop comparing the two.

We're not comparing it to the game as a whole, just the combat system.

[Koyasha]

As discussed above there are "easy mode" ability combos that become available at the later ability tiers. You can choose not to use them/pick them.

I really don't like this as a method of controlling difficulty, because abilities are fun to use.  In order to do this to increase the difficulty, I'd have to skip out on the fun of using cool abilities.  I'll probably try and play this way once, but I figure I'll get bored since it'll come down to slashing, countering, and shooting in order to not make things too easy.  Also, I think orcs cap out on Power at 20; I nurtured a couple orcs to that level by helping them in their power struggles and intentionally letting them kill me, and they didn't seem to go any higher, then I killed them.  The only enemies that seem genuinely dangerous to me anymore at all are ranged users, because their shots are a little hard to avoid sometimes.  If they're strong enough they can take me down in two hits, so I have to be careful with those.

This game, while good, would be so much more awesome if I was actually worried about the orcs that kill me and felt threatened by them.  I wonder how the moddability is and whether we're likely to eventually see a difficulty-increasing mod...

[schild]

Gollum almost immediately ruined the game for me. I've decided to just try my best to ignore this utter shit character.

This should not have been a licensed game, but new IP. It's certainly better than Mirror's Goddamn Edge.

[Ceryse]

The only real negatives about the game for me are the Lord of the Rings aspect (though it isn't as bad as I figured) and the gating of abilities and warchiefs behind the plot.

Still, almost 30 hours in.. I'm enjoying the game. A lot more than I did Assassin's Creed or the Batman games (neither series which impressed me much).

Also, I've had one crash. Just one. Cost me almost 4 whole minutes of gameplay.

WBPlay is bad, though. Half the time it doesn't seem to connect.

[Threash]

Gollum's inclusion is entirely redeemed by the Gollum song.

[schild]

WBPlay is bad, though. Half the time it doesn't seem to connect.

Have not even clicked the WBPlay button. Is there a reason to click it?

[01101010]

WBPlay is bad, though. Half the time it doesn't seem to connect.

Have not even clicked the WBPlay button. Is there a reason to click it?

Me neither. I tend to avoid these specific company "game accounts" because it is basically just there to get your email and autosubscribe you to shit. Does it actually provide anything?

[murdoc]

I think it gave me the alternate outfit.

[Trippy]

The Dark Ranger outfit was a "preorder" bonus but was basically just packed inside boxes/bundled with purchases. Supposedly you get an Bow rune for signing up for WBPlay.

[Rokal]

With WBPlay you get a rune that makes Orcs flee "more" when you Brutalize an enemy. 

Presumably it just increases the radius of the flee effect on Brutalize.