Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Sarky · 02-10-2014 12:08pm

Very necessary too, if the hordes you have to deal with in the strongholds are any indication.

shreddedloops · 02-10-2014 1:42pm

irishmover wrote: »

If you just start aiming at the yellow mission markers and doing them you'll get up to speed fast. Can't be bothered explaining as it needs a spoiler and I'm on my phone!

You'll grasp it quickly.

Mounting the caurogors or whatever reason they're called is cool!

Thanks for that. The map/HUD/menus are very overwhelming at first. Still don't like the amount of icons on the mini map.

DirkVoodoo · 02-10-2014 2:32pm

Really looking forward to getting this tomorrow. Have PS4 and just learned about the US store. 2 things concern me:

1) Sony deciding to enforce their T&C and invalidating the content.
2) Not having a physical game to trade in.

Given the difference in price is 24 euro, and I will probably trade-in/sell this game for 15-20 euro, I'm strangely conflicted.

I know this is more console specific, so I don't want to distract from the excellent combat and orc-beheading talk that has gone on already.

Sarky · 02-10-2014 2:58pm

Interesting article on how Talion isn't any better than the orcs he brutally slaughters and terrorises. I have to admit, I occasionally get a Hotline Miami feel from the game; after a really tense exciting battle, you look around at all the bodies, and wonder what the f*ck is wrong with you that you enjoyed that so much. Worth reading alone for the sentence "I am the Jack Bauer of Mordor":

http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/1/6881161/middle-earth-shadow-of-mordor-torture-terrorism

Kirby · 02-10-2014 3:49pm

I get what you are saying but it doesn't quite hit home for me. In the Last of Us, a lot of people felt that way about Joel. Is he really a "good guy" when he's slaughtering and torturing all these people?

But that's the important distinction. Joel was killing people. These are Orcs. They are all bad. They don't have shades of grey like humans do when it comes to morality. In this fantasy world, Orcs are all evil and have no redeeming qualities so it's okay to slaughter them all. It's good even!

Sarky · 02-10-2014 3:57pm

That's just elven propaganda. I

Ratbag.

Dr. Mantis Toboggan · 02-10-2014 4:06pm

Sarky wrote: »

That's just elven propaganda. I Ratbag.

Have to respect any character called Ratbag.

Jamie OD · 02-10-2014 4:11pm

My first couple of hours have been Yakety Sax: The Game. I find a captain, become outnumbered and then get chased into another captain and his mates. It's great! Very satisfying to check an enemy off the hitlist. Also saw an orc captain get mauled to death by a wild caragor, which was cool. What wasn't cool was the same caragor killing the slave I was trying to rescue right afterwards.

jones · 02-10-2014 5:53pm

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Really looking forward to getting this tomorrow. Have PS4 and just learned about the US store. 2 things concern me:

1) Sony deciding to enforce their T&C and invalidating the content.
2) Not having a physical game to trade in.

Given the difference in price is 24 euro, and I will probably trade-in/sell this game for 15-20 euro, I'm strangely conflicted.

I know this is more console specific, so I don't want to distract from the excellent combat and orc-beheading talk that has gone on already.

I'm the exact same mate i set up a second US account today (tried to do it the other day but PSN was down) i'm afraid to purchase the US PSN credit now for those very reasons. Plus i'm going to florida next week so could just buy it over there and still have physical game to trade in if i wish.

But i'm thinking long term the only thing thats stops me going all digital is price so if i could buy via the US store i definitely would. Are they are any downsides to it apart from those mentioned?

Xyo · 02-10-2014 6:23pm

This game gets very infuriating once you lose a fight to one of the bosses, everyone gets a promotion everyone gets stronger and then the previous boss makes fun of me when I try again.

Dr. Mantis Toboggan · 02-10-2014 7:12pm

Xyo wrote: »

This game gets very infuriating once you lose a fight to one of the bosses, everyone gets a promotion everyone gets stronger and then the previous boss makes fun of me when I try again.

They're laughing at you!

bur · 02-10-2014 7:18pm

The intro hooked me immediately. But, seven or eights hours in, and it's just the same mission structure over and over, very repetitive.

Lucious Sweet · 02-10-2014 9:59pm

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Really looking forward to getting this tomorrow. Have PS4 and just learned about the US store. 2 things concern me:

1) Sony deciding to enforce their T&C and invalidating the content.
2) Not having a physical game to trade in.

What

First I've heard of this. Have they said something about this?
Hope not, all of my games are from US PSN

super_furry · 02-10-2014 10:06pm

Any idea of pricing for this in shops? Would hope to pick it up for less than €70 but not optimistic.

Shiminay · 02-10-2014 10:09pm

I've played about an hour of it.

I like this style of game anyway, so I'm enjoying it and whilst the controls have a standard feel and I don't need to "learn" how it works, it's still challenging, so I feel that's the dev's saying "yea, we know you know how this works, we're not gonna waste your time with basic and frustratingly easy low level mooks to slaughter to start unlocking abilities which will only make the beginning a bit boring." However, as we have seen many times in this sort of third person action with rpg elements, the mission types could well lack variety and the likelihood of repetition and the boredom creep means that people may not finish it and come away from it with a sort of "meh" feeling.

But, like I said, for now I'm enjoying it and I can see how it's going to present its own different challenges and style within the confines of both the lore and its mechanics.

Also, there's been a lot of talk of how well it looks and so on, I'm running an i5 2500k with 8GB of RAM and Crossfired 6950's (total of 2GB of VRAM to play with). I'm running on its recommended settings in 1080 fullscreen and it's behaving very well, no frame drops in my biggest fight which was around 20 Orcs and 3 Captains. They've done the important thing and that's make it run smooth first, pretty secondary and if you've got the horsepower, we've got super duper pretty mode for you to enjoy and I really admire and thank the developers for spending the time on that.

irishmover · 02-10-2014 10:51pm

I don't get this repetition crap. I've had to devise my own strategy for how I'm going to kill each warchief or captain.

It's not the same gun ho hack and slash for every fight. I've killed a couple of captains and a warchief without causing an alarm. Brutalize is great for that but I had to figure out how I would do that.

People who just run in and spend the next half hour fighting 50 orcs with just block attack and execution as their abilities won't have the same experience I'm having. That would get repetitive fast. Which I don't think is necessarily what this game wants you to do.

froog · 02-10-2014 11:44pm

froog wrote: »

so what to do with an overpowered captain? i have this one prick that's killed me several times, he's level 20 and can only take damage from arrows and explosions apparently but i tried shooting him and not a scratch. just avoid him like the plague?

finally killed this bastard. i actually killed him by explosion but apparently he didn't die. he turned up again and mocked me for not finishing him off. so i dropped some bees on him, watched him scream like a bitch and run away from all his friends, then hacked him down from behind.

very satisfying.

dreamers75 · 03-10-2014 1:06am

is it an RPG or a murder sim with tacked on options to murder people?

Kirby · 03-10-2014 6:21am

Orcs aren't people!

Or so the elves keep telling me....

Skerries · 03-10-2014 7:29am

dreamers75 wrote: »

is it an RPG or a murder sim with tacked on options to murder people?

It's a fantasy action game with tacked on ability levelling up ala Batman

Kimbot · 03-10-2014 8:34am

For anyone looking for the PS4 or Xb1 versions in a shop today then Argos is the cheapest:

Argos: 61.99
Smyths: 64.99
Gamestop: 69.99
Xtravision: 69.99

If you can wait for delivery then the cheapest I have found is WOWHD (Brutal delivery times according to a few people here lately)

But on WOWHD its on 42.39

irishmover · 03-10-2014 8:46am

This game is a lot of fun.

just finished all the main missions of the first map. Now moving to a new area in mordor with a whole new army. This game will get a lot of replay with all the side missions.

Corvo · 03-10-2014 10:34am

Damn you all to hell - really want this now.

froog · 03-10-2014 10:46am

finding it quite hard to take on anything more than 3 orcs at a time. should it be possible to take on several at once if your reactions are good enough? I have a lot of leveling to do yet though

kearneybobs · 03-10-2014 10:48am

Just after getting my new GTX 970 and want to try out the Ultra settings. Recommended specs say you should have 6GB of VRAM which the 970 doesn't have. Wanna still try it out .
Is there any way to verify I'm actually running ultra settings?
Tried it out earlier with the 3GB ultra dlc downloaded and was getting 60fps @1080p. Made me think that it was defaulting to high settings.

Skerries · 03-10-2014 10:55am

froog wrote: »

finding it quite hard to take on anything more than 3 orcs at a time. should it be possible to take on several at once if your reactions are good enough? I have a lot of leveling to do yet though

I'm a few hours in and taking on about 20-30 of the bastids and even had one fight with 5 captains involved before inevitably getting my arse kicked

irishmover · 03-10-2014 11:06am

froog wrote: »

finding it quite hard to take on anything more than 3 orcs at a time. should it be possible to take on several at once if your reactions are good enough? I have a lot of leveling to do yet though

Yeah no offense but I think you might be doing something wrong. Should definitely be able to handle way more than 3 orcs!

killanena · 03-10-2014 11:33am

I got it on PC at release, Loving the game itself but I've only one complaint, if you want to play on ultra you need to download another 3gb on top of 35gb and it says it requires 6gb of video ram (graphics card ram) which is ridiculous. The game looks good on ultra but not THAT good.

Im about half way through it. Love the story, adds a nice filler between the hobbit and lord of the rings. I am also very interested in the upcoming dlc which is set in the second age of middle earth.

oh and I have 1 other complaint, they could have expanded a bit more on the uruk (orcs) and their culture. I mean they did a bit but they could have pushed it a lot further. Also the maps could have been a bit bigger. I've played about 4-5 hours and already feel like I've seen it all multiple times.

Sarky · 03-10-2014 11:43am

I think the point is that orcs don't really have much culture. They're inherently evil, they hate beautiful things, and only really enjoy destroying things and proving themselves stronger than their rivals. You won't get much in the way of culture from that. Still, it might have been nice to depart a little bit from Tolkein's ideas to give them just a little more something.

That said, I found Old Scorchy the last time I went relic hunting. If there are a few more bits and pieces of orc not-quite-culture lying about with as many interesting stories behind them, I'll probably be satisfied.

irishmover · 03-10-2014 11:46am

killanena wrote: »

I got it on PC at release, Loving the game itself but I've only one complaint, if you want to play on ultra you need to download another 3gb on top of 35gb and it says it requires 6gb of video ram (graphics card ram) which is ridiculous. The game looks good on ultra but not THAT good.

Im about half way through it. Love the story, adds a nice filler between the hobbit and lord of the rings. I am also very interested in the upcoming dlc which is set in the second age of middle earth.

oh and I have 1 other complaint, they could have expanded a bit more on the uruk (orcs) and their culture. I mean they did a bit but they could have pushed it a lot further. Also the maps could have been a bit bigger. I've played about 4-5 hours and already feel like I've seen it all multiple times.

You sure you're half way through? I've played over 9 hours and I'm just half way through the main story now. Although I did do a few side missions so maybe its possible to get to where I am now with just doing the main missions. Read my spoiler from a few posts up and let me know if that's where you are.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

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