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Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor |OT| One Title to rule them all
- Thread starter Levyne
- Start date
Pacing, yes. Atmosphere? No way. City felt like the natural evolution overall, pacing issues aside.
Sanctuary
Member
I beat AA in 2009, then again in 2011 after shelving City at the 80% point due to being bored to tears. I mostly wanted to replay AA just to see if I was just suffering series fatigue already, but that wasn't the case. Just picked up AA for $5 on Steam last week, because I was planning on replaying the series anyway and because I wanted to see how it looked on PC with the added physX effects (already had the other two games on PC). Looks so much better, but the textures are still ass console textures.
Anyway, I decided to start replaying it last night after finishing Shadow of Mordor, since I was having so much fun with the Mordor combat. And holy shit is the combat in the first game boring as hell, even though the combat in this game was directly lifted from it.
No way. The first game had such a killer, Bioshock 1 atmosphere that was leagues better. City felt like an evolution if they were trying to get you to feel like you were Batman in the comics or the cartoon series gliding around the city like he does in those. In terms of games as their own seperate entities however, AA utterly destroyed City for atmosphere.
Anyway, I decided to start replaying it last night after finishing Shadow of Mordor, since I was having so much fun with the Mordor combat. And holy shit is the combat in the first game boring as hell, even though the combat in this game was directly lifted from it.
No way. The first game had such a killer, Bioshock 1 atmosphere that was leagues better. City felt like an evolution if they were trying to get you to feel like you were Batman in the comics or the cartoon series gliding around the city like he does in those. In terms of games as their own seperate entities however, AA utterly destroyed City for atmosphere.
Jimmyfenix
Member
There was a captain who was very nice to me when we met. Shame I had to kill him.
Net_Wrecker
Member
I don't think the Nemesis system can work with a tightly paced campaign though. The whole thing sort of hinges on a loose player driven narrative. I think to make the most of it they need to drop the facade of a deep story and focus on episodic character focused arcs while framing it with a huge army building and deception meta-game. The story needs to be flexible in order to accommodate what the player is doing in the open world and what the Nemesis system is doing in response. Going away from it and the open world in the main missions only goes away from what the game does so well, something that all open world titles seem to love doing. The game should play to its strength.
Agreed on your second point. It feels like they just put down buildings on a map, there's no blending or 'lived-in' feeling of the landmarks on the landscape. Even the ruins seem a bit samey.
This game has some of the worst collectathon filler I've come across since Alan Wake's coffee thermoses and Assassin's Creed 1's flags.
- Hunting Missions (shoot 4 of this animal, shoot 4 of that animal)
- Scavenging Quests (Collect 3 of this color of plant and 2 of this color of plant, and 2 of this color of the other type of plant)
- Artifacts (I guess these are good if you care about the hidden memories imprinted on them, but I sure as fuck didn't)
- Slave missions
And crossing that stuff off your checklist is actually more fun than doing the story missions, because that's where combat and Nemesis system shine through the most.
I understand and mostly agree. The Nemesis system is such a unique thing that it really deserves to have its own type of game built around it. I think Mordor playing so closely to the Ubisoft book of open-world design worked against the full potential of the system.
MOTHER OF GOD
Jesus christ. Make sure you bring the Branded crew. ALL of them.
How random is it though? I had one captain get resurrected 3 times, but coincidentally he killed me the same amount of times. It seemed to me that the game recognised I'd had several attempts and was playing me for laughs i.e lets even up the score.
The interesting thing is he began life as a weedy non-entity who happened to get lucky with the final blow. Then, as he rose through the ranks he became a formidable opponent, not just better in combat but able to influence other captains and lead them to the fight. It's not often you see emergent gameplay have such tangible consequences.
Yeah it seems like everytime I absolutely destroy captains, they are beheaded the first time. The ones I have trouble with always seem to come back.
MOTHER OF GOD
Make sure to brand that mofo. He'll come in handy when Monolith releases the inevitable PvP orc battles.
Sanctuary
Member
The whole "sandbox" and "open world" trend that every developer and their grandmother--that were not trying to hybridize every fucking game with a first person element last gen--seemed to want to incorporate was one of the worst things to come out of last gen.
So many developers kept trying to make their game like GTA on top of adding in MMORPG "quests" that do not belong in single player games. I mean, how can people seriously be entertained by some of this shit, and do the developers build the "sandbox" first, then work on all of the padding last, after they realize they only have about eight hours worth of core gameplay? GTA bored me to death after a few hours, as did RDR, as did Infamous.
I groan every time I see the words "free roam" and "open world". I'd rather have quality over quantity.
Jimmyfenix
Member
I would argue gta v had both quality and quantity.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
Sanctuary
Member
The problem with me is that I've always been a completionist. Long before any of this achievement/trophy nonsense, and games like that are just awful for someone that's as compulsive as me in that regard. I want to finish everything, and if I start skipping most of the "content", I feel like I'm somehow not finishing the game. But almost all of the side missions bore me to death, so I usually just quit playing entirely. I just chose to say "fuck it" and just started ignoring the missions I didn't mop up with this game, because there wasn't any point and I was almost finished anyway.
Yes, Rockstar games, including and especially RDR and GTA V, are mostly exempt from my far-reaching generalizations about open-world game design.
They are the masters.
Completely disagree. I honestly thought it was worse than GTA IV, but not much worse. Rockstar seem to have lost the magic they had in the Vice City/San Andreas days
mgs2master2
Banned
Good luck. Sounds like a bitch.
MOTHER OF GOD
I had one of those (who was a war chief) and had my strongest war chief come with me. Even then it was a bitch.
Admiral Woofington
Member
only way to brand him is to find one of those gigantic creatures, find the dude, and kill him with it. You can't bring a caragor because fuck that the caragor will make him angry and you can't grab him lol
This game sometimes, I'm glad this never happened to me
Take number 2.
This game is FUN. If Monolith was going to hit a homerun with any one aspect of the game, they certainly did with the combat along with the touted nemesis system. I never got bored of killing orcs, even after finishing off the map objectives and the various achievements. I find this was partially due to the progression of combat upgrades as you go through the game. It is immediately obvious how every new ability or rune is going to help the player in an engagement. By the end of the game previously dangerous multi-captain encounters become a lot more viable to survive through, and the number of risks the player can take dramatically increases. The level of difficulty decreases significantly, but I feel that the game never got easy enough to be boring. Especially true if you change your mindset to can I survive this battle to how stylishly can I win this battle? That all said, once fully powered with all of the upgrades, there isnt much the game can throw at the player to really pose much challenge.
The addictive combat carries the game through the bland story missions of the game. The voice acting and cutscene animation feel like wasted efforts on this game which really doesnt seem to want to know what it wants to tell in terms of a plot. The missions just feel like excuses to kill orcs, which for the most part is all I really needed from them, I suppose. Most of the time youre just given an npc to follow and a general objective to do x of y things while killing orcs. It would have been nice to have a little more variety and a stronger finish to the plot. The game certainly ends on less than a whimper. The ending is so quiet and abrupt that its hard to even be mad. But still certainly something that should be much improved in a future entry. The side missions suffer from a similar problem, but I feel that the limited scope of those tasks was generally more acceptable. Specifically, the slight difference in focus of the sword, bow, and dagger side objectives were interesting enough to make me want to complete all of them without it ever really feeling like a chore. The slave-rescue missions did, however, get a little long in the tooth and I found myself counting down how many more I had to do to finish out the bar. Never a good sign. The colored plant collecting also seemed like an undercooked concept. By late game all the plants were just a health restore and the color and type hardly ever mattered.
The size of the maps in the game are also limited, but I didnt really feel that the scope of the maps was strictly an issue. They were compact enough to not be tedious to cross or explore, but more damning was that they were lacking in interesting landmarks and came across as a somewhat bland. The general aesthetic of the areas were good and some of the vistas in the second map especially were really quite beautiful. It just feels like a waste to pepper the land with same-y looking ruined buildings and strongholds that felt like they could have been randomly generated. It felt like they started with a blank plot of land and took too few passes adding and subtracting from the template.
On the other side of the coin, the orcs found within the nemesis system were highly varied and interesting. Not only that, but the emergent personal storytelling between the various players and their nemeses help to supplement the weakly written story of the game itself. The sharing of unique experiences within this OT is proof enough that the nemesis system, to some extent, provides a more interesting narrative (or at least collection of stories) than what is explicitly written. In fact, I feel like the greatest story missions of the game were ones that simply let the player have full control and allowed any method to complete an open-ended goal involving the warchiefs. The game also does a great job in transitioning the player from participant within the nemesis system to director of the orc armies throughout the course of the game. Moving from simply experiencing being hunted by a specific orc or some such and going to manipulating the system through branding was really neat, and I only wish that branding opened up sooner. The late unlock of this ability didnt really bother me, but I also saved a lot of the side-objectives for the very end of the game and likely didnt have to wait as long as players that began completing those sorts of things much earlier than I did.
Truly a game that is narrowly focused on its primary gameplay mechanics. The tertiary components are, as a whole, somewhat lacking. Depending on how much you value the aspects of storytelling and world building, that could significantly affect how you take to the game as a complete product. Even the music seemed a bit like an afterthought. The extent to which one enjoys the game's central combat and orc army manipulation systems will determine the extent that they forgive the other shortcomings.
This game is FUN. If Monolith was going to hit a homerun with any one aspect of the game, they certainly did with the combat along with the touted nemesis system. I never got bored of killing orcs, even after finishing off the map objectives and the various achievements. I find this was partially due to the progression of combat upgrades as you go through the game. It is immediately obvious how every new ability or rune is going to help the player in an engagement. By the end of the game previously dangerous multi-captain encounters become a lot more viable to survive through, and the number of risks the player can take dramatically increases. The level of difficulty decreases significantly, but I feel that the game never got easy enough to be boring. Especially true if you change your mindset to can I survive this battle to how stylishly can I win this battle? That all said, once fully powered with all of the upgrades, there isnt much the game can throw at the player to really pose much challenge.
The addictive combat carries the game through the bland story missions of the game. The voice acting and cutscene animation feel like wasted efforts on this game which really doesnt seem to want to know what it wants to tell in terms of a plot. The missions just feel like excuses to kill orcs, which for the most part is all I really needed from them, I suppose. Most of the time youre just given an npc to follow and a general objective to do x of y things while killing orcs. It would have been nice to have a little more variety and a stronger finish to the plot. The game certainly ends on less than a whimper. The ending is so quiet and abrupt that its hard to even be mad. But still certainly something that should be much improved in a future entry. The side missions suffer from a similar problem, but I feel that the limited scope of those tasks was generally more acceptable. Specifically, the slight difference in focus of the sword, bow, and dagger side objectives were interesting enough to make me want to complete all of them without it ever really feeling like a chore. The slave-rescue missions did, however, get a little long in the tooth and I found myself counting down how many more I had to do to finish out the bar. Never a good sign. The colored plant collecting also seemed like an undercooked concept. By late game all the plants were just a health restore and the color and type hardly ever mattered.
The size of the maps in the game are also limited, but I didnt really feel that the scope of the maps was strictly an issue. They were compact enough to not be tedious to cross or explore, but more damning was that they were lacking in interesting landmarks and came across as a somewhat bland. The general aesthetic of the areas were good and some of the vistas in the second map especially were really quite beautiful. It just feels like a waste to pepper the land with same-y looking ruined buildings and strongholds that felt like they could have been randomly generated. It felt like they started with a blank plot of land and took too few passes adding and subtracting from the template.
On the other side of the coin, the orcs found within the nemesis system were highly varied and interesting. Not only that, but the emergent personal storytelling between the various players and their nemeses help to supplement the weakly written story of the game itself. The sharing of unique experiences within this OT is proof enough that the nemesis system, to some extent, provides a more interesting narrative (or at least collection of stories) than what is explicitly written. In fact, I feel like the greatest story missions of the game were ones that simply let the player have full control and allowed any method to complete an open-ended goal involving the warchiefs. The game also does a great job in transitioning the player from participant within the nemesis system to director of the orc armies throughout the course of the game. Moving from simply experiencing being hunted by a specific orc or some such and going to manipulating the system through branding was really neat, and I only wish that branding opened up sooner. The late unlock of this ability didnt really bother me, but I also saved a lot of the side-objectives for the very end of the game and likely didnt have to wait as long as players that began completing those sorts of things much earlier than I did.
Truly a game that is narrowly focused on its primary gameplay mechanics. The tertiary components are, as a whole, somewhat lacking. Depending on how much you value the aspects of storytelling and world building, that could significantly affect how you take to the game as a complete product. Even the music seemed a bit like an afterthought. The extent to which one enjoys the game's central combat and orc army manipulation systems will determine the extent that they forgive the other shortcomings.
MOTHER OF GOD
You best come rolling deep when taking him on, bring everyone and I do mean EVERYONE.
That won't work, it says resistant to monster attacks.
I thought GTA V improved on IV in almost every way possible, except for the plot. Niko's tale of revenge was more compelling to me than the bank-robbery escapades of three underdeveloped protagonists.
They are entertained, in droves. All those titles you mention sell a lot. Infamous less so, I guess. It works. GTAV and RDR are some of my top games from last gen, easy. But so were games like Portal 1 and 2, Uncharted 2 and other linear games in general. Free roam and open world don't mean there isn't quality there, just means it isn't your thing.
Sanctuary
Member
I can honestly say that I never ran across an orc with no weaknesses, even among all of the level 20 Warchiefs that had a bunch of immunities. It's too bad the strengths and weaknesses never come into play when it's orc against orc though (like the bodyguard vs Warchief betrayal missions).
Net_Wrecker
Member
Absolutely. It's a tired way of designing open worlds and is really exposed in a game like this where the core of it is dependent on a dynamic relationship between the player, allies, enemies, and random world elements. I think they can blow a sequel wide open and do something really special if they get away from what's become the "open world recipe."
It's still a bunch of stupid fun though.
I don't see it. GTAV felt like every other open world game with more money and time thrown at it. Lots of context sensitive animations and voice acting, but the same old same old.
I completely agree with this. Mordor is the kind of game that almost anyone can have a ton of fun with and is extremely easy to recommend, but I have no fucking idea how it got a 9.3 from IGN.
Just because the basic combat and Nemesis system are so well done, I can't forgive all the other GLARING shortcomings for a near-perfect score.
I had an insane amount of fun for 15 hours, but now only a bit less than 2/3 through the campaign, I've completely run out of steam to finish the damn thing.
Admiral Woofington
Member
Jesus Christ missed that part. So yeah he's unbeatable? I don't know if strength/weaknesses apply to other orcs though so maybe bringing your crew to fight him might be the way to go
The GTA series just has so much personality about it, that it's always been easier to forgive the mission structure. Even the original 2D GTA where you basically had absolutely no real goal and there weren't even really any actual missions.
GTA has ALWAYS done world building better than almost any other game out there.
-Stranger-
Junior Member
Should I buy this on payday? Not sure if I should or put the money towards The Evil Within.
Seems like you'd have to...whittle him down with regular attacks (stun and the flurry, ending before the combat finishing last hit or some such) and then throw him off a cliff, lol.
Edit: Oh wait, invuln to ALL combat attacks, nevermind ><
bigboss370
Member
Admiral Woofington
Member
seems like a piece o cake if you have your sword special ability
Combat Master means he won't get hurt by that.
MOTHER OF GOD
Send him a death threat--that'll show him.
MOTHER OF GOD
How quickly does a captain with the Monster Slayer attribute kill Graugs? That would be my first attempt. That and fall damage off of cliffs (can he be grabbed long enough to throw him elsewhere)?
razgriz417
Member
just started this today (Destiny still has its hooks in me) and man the combat is fun. I don't think I'm very far into the story or unlocks yet (still don't have the 3rd row of powers yet) but I was wondering something about runes, does the type of kill you do to a captain dictate which type of rune drops? I seem to be only getting dagger and bow runes
bigboss370
Member
ah that is true. hope i meet him in the game, would love to take him on
Ripping the head off a captain with the graug eat move is so fucking satisfying.
Also, I was scouting for lower level Uruks to turn into canon fodder bodyguards... found one chilling in a fireplace with a couple of other Uruks. I was just starting to aim and then suddenly a Caragor jumps in, pins the captain down, gives him a bite and in the process he moves the captain to the fire, and then the captain dies of the burns. Amusing.
Also, I was scouting for lower level Uruks to turn into canon fodder bodyguards... found one chilling in a fireplace with a couple of other Uruks. I was just starting to aim and then suddenly a Caragor jumps in, pins the captain down, gives him a bite and in the process he moves the captain to the fire, and then the captain dies of the burns. Amusing.
This post in the steam thread reminded me of another nitpick.
I would have loved a quick-restart instead of having to run to the missions start point each time.
I would have loved a quick-restart instead of having to run to the missions start point each time.
Oh my god, you need to do this! Do this and show us what happens.
It says resistant to monster damage so that probably won't work. Plus he's got heavy attacks, so I doubt anything will last long against him. As far as throwing goes, don't you need to get them weakened first before you can grab them?
Hmm, maybe you can poison his grog? Also go rolling in with everyone you can, turn his body guards, his archers, his mooks, just throw wave after wave of dudes at him.
Also, if possible record this fight because I want to see it!
No, you can still hurt him with regular attacks. Combat masters aren't invincible, you just can't use finishers.
Dawg, If you were playing on Steam I'd ask you to let him kill you so I could brand him in my game lol.
Well I'm pretty sure I've come across my first glitch. And a somewhat annoying one at that.
I've been getting ready to kill a Warchief in the second half of the map (Sea of Nurnen), so in preparation for that I've been branding captains and then commanding them so they go through initiation to become a bodyguard for the Warchief I'm after. Usually this sends you on a quest to help your branded Captain succeed and get promoted to bodyguard. I have done this four times previously so it's weird that there's a problem now.
The problem came up when I had a branded Captain and was doing one of those "initiation" missions where the Captain tries to "bully" the other orcs into following him. Every time I started this there are six or so orcs with the yellow markers over their heads, indicating they need to be taken out. The first time I killed all the marked orcs and then my captain just stood there, and the quest didn't end when it should have. I used the wraith vision to check the area and no one else was around. I thought it was weird so I dominated the Captain and sent him to do an initiation again. When I backed out of the "Sauron's Army" screen after the domination it sent me on another initiation quest, the same kind. Same thing happened again - all the orcs were killed but the quest didn't end. So I shut off my PS4, restarted the game and tried it with a different Captain - but it gave me the same glitch. So my plan to take out the Warchief with the help of some bodyguards wouldn't work as it was impossible for me to get one promoted to the rank of bodyguard.
I'm hoping this was just a one time case, it'd be annoying if it was impossible for me get any of my Captains promoted to bodyguard.
I've been getting ready to kill a Warchief in the second half of the map (Sea of Nurnen), so in preparation for that I've been branding captains and then commanding them so they go through initiation to become a bodyguard for the Warchief I'm after. Usually this sends you on a quest to help your branded Captain succeed and get promoted to bodyguard. I have done this four times previously so it's weird that there's a problem now.
The problem came up when I had a branded Captain and was doing one of those "initiation" missions where the Captain tries to "bully" the other orcs into following him. Every time I started this there are six or so orcs with the yellow markers over their heads, indicating they need to be taken out. The first time I killed all the marked orcs and then my captain just stood there, and the quest didn't end when it should have. I used the wraith vision to check the area and no one else was around. I thought it was weird so I dominated the Captain and sent him to do an initiation again. When I backed out of the "Sauron's Army" screen after the domination it sent me on another initiation quest, the same kind. Same thing happened again - all the orcs were killed but the quest didn't end. So I shut off my PS4, restarted the game and tried it with a different Captain - but it gave me the same glitch. So my plan to take out the Warchief with the help of some bodyguards wouldn't work as it was impossible for me to get one promoted to the rank of bodyguard.
I'm hoping this was just a one time case, it'd be annoying if it was impossible for me get any of my Captains promoted to bodyguard.
Sanctuary
Member
Trivial, not viable. Unless by "multi" you mean more than three at a time, which should almost never happen unless you purposely set that up.
The level of difficulty explodes its own head. The game starts out kind of challenging before you have a handful of first tier and a few second tier skills. When you first unlock the final tier and can grab the double special skill, you suddenly feel like a badass ranger.
Once you however start grabbing a bunch of the tier four and five skills the difficulty just starts to plummet, even if it's still "fun". Near the last fourth of the game though I was starting to get extremely bored because there was zero challenge to be found, and I had kept hoping long before entering the second half of the game that there would be even a single fight that would make great use of, or even need some of those skills. There never was.
I also never used the wraith explosion skill. I probably would have stopped playing if I had bothered to use it over executions or combat branding.
Winterblink
Member
That pit fighting mission was fucking rad. Was recording it so had to crop out a highlight.
http://www.twitch.tv/winterblink/c/5243191
Heads, everywhere
http://www.twitch.tv/winterblink/c/5243191
Heads, everywhere
Yes, very much this.
Once you get double Combat Branding, trivial really is the best word to describe the combat. Don't get me wrong, though, I really did love the 15 hours it took to get to "God Mode". There was a really nice sense of progression. I just happened to burn myself out before I reached the end of the campaign.
Yeah, initiation missions are very buggy, it seems.
I think there's two ranks of Combat Master. The first one blocks finisher, the upgraded one block every melee attack. I had nemesis, Gham The Serpent, that had that. I could spend ages using flurry on him and it wouldn't take the slightest damage.
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