Shadow of Mordor (Shadow of War)

Sephiroth_dude · 05-10-2017 5:51pm

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/middle-earth_shadow_of_war/b/playstation4/archive/2017/10/05/game-informer-review-middle-earth-shadow-of-war.aspx

9.5

Mickeroo · 05-10-2017 6:00pm

M!Ck^ wrote: »

If grinding and bloated is your idea of being fun.....

Not sure what you're on about,. I'm just glad it's looking like the game might actually be good after all the controversy if the reviews are anything to go by.

Generic Dreadhead wrote: »

Well to be fair, I changed from "Day 1 pre-order" on this to "Maybe pick it up at X-mass" so will check HLTB to see what the consensus is

I'd be surprised if the main campaign isn't doable in a similar amount of time to the first game's if you ignore the extra stuff. Think I spent about 30 to 40 hours on the first but would have been under half that if I hadn't bothered with all the filler.

Generic Dreadhead · 05-10-2017 6:06pm

Mickeroo wrote: »

Think I spent about 30 to 40 hours on the first but would have been under half that if I hadn't bothered with all the filler.

Was there much filler?

i killed all the captains in the 1st region, branded/killed all the ones in the 2nd and did the whole upgrade path for the Bow and Sword (sidequest thingys) and had my main skill tree totally done and that was like ~16 hours

They said the games final act is 15-20 hours (I'm guessing thats the "Shadow Wars" referenced earlier) in the video review i posted above. I don't know how that reflects on the 1st 3 (?) acts though in terms of runtime

Mickeroo · 05-10-2017 6:17pm

Generic Dreadhead wrote: »

Was there much filler?

i killed all the captains in the 1st region, branded/killed all the ones in the 2nd and did the whole upgrade path for the Bow and Sword (sidequest thingys) and had my main skill tree totally done and that was like ~16 hours

They said the games final act is 15-20 hours (I'm guessing thats the "Shadow Wars" referenced earlier) in the video review i posted above. I don't know how that reflects on the 1st 3 (?) acts though in terms of runtime

Did you get all the trophies/achievements? If I hadn't bothered doing that I would have finished up at around similar playtime to yourself I'd imagine. It seemed on par to the likes of the assassins creed games in terms of filler to me.

Generic Dreadhead · 05-10-2017 6:20pm

Mickeroo wrote: »

Did you get all the trophies/achievements? If I hadn't bothered doing that I would have finished up at around similar playtime to yourself I'd imagine. It seemed on par to the likes of the assassins creed games in terms of filler to me.

Nope. But I had 87% of the base games trophies when I finished. Didn't have/play the DLC at the time

Zapp Brannigan · 05-10-2017 6:55pm

Cancelled my pre-order. I can wait until Christmas for this to drop in price.

Falthyron · 05-10-2017 7:40pm

Yeah, I have enough games to be playing at the moment... (Dishonored 2 + Death of the Outsider, South Park: Fractured but Whole in a few weeks, and then Wolfenstein 2). Then a fair few indie titles to get stuck into as well (Transistor, Edith Finch, Sexy Brutale, Darkside Detective).

Shadow of War can wait. When I am craving a massive open world game with plenty of filler, I'll pick it up with a discount (hopefully!).

A part of me wants this game to fail though. The dirty practices (Charity DLC, and the loot boxes) have really put me off the game. I want to see more repercussions for following through on these kind of business models. Then again, people, jobs, etc. Its hardly a 3D animator's fault for what a publisher decides to do. I'll buy it on discount, that's a fair middle-ground! :pac:

jcd5971 · 05-10-2017 8:02pm

J. Marston wrote:

Flicking through the reviews here...

J. Marston wrote:

and I'm seeing phrases like...

J. Marston wrote:

Wasn't going to buy it anyway but those reviews have put me off it anyway.

Huh?

Reviewer: this game is actually really good.

Marston: well thank **** I dodged a bullet there.

jcd5971 · 05-10-2017 8:05pm

Honestly it seems like some people here are determined to see the worst in this game no matter what reviews it gets.

J. Marston · 05-10-2017 8:10pm

jcd5971 wrote: »

Huh?

Reviewer: this game is actually really good.

Marston: well thank **** I dodged a bullet there.

They're generally positive but I'm put off by the comments like "bloated" and "gigantic time sink" and "Bigger but not necessarily any better than the original".

2Mad2BeMad · 05-10-2017 8:15pm

happily get this game day one, looks like alot of fun
and if its anything like the 1st game well then its money well spent

jcd5971 · 05-10-2017 8:16pm

That's fair enough, just was looking at the links and thinking these are all positive.

Its getting very good coverage I have to say. I will get it on launch anyway.

And I suppose I should give a bit of feedback to you lads that are going to hold back for a while.

Although as you'd safely guess from my profile pic I'm a huge huge lord of the rings fan so may be biased.

06-10-2017 8:16am

Mickeroo wrote: »

Not sure what you're on about,. I'm just glad it's looking like the game might actually be good after all the controversy if the reviews are anything to go by.

Sorry, wasn't very clear

Alot of those reviews contain the words bloated and grind; this is a direct consequence of the microstransactions IMO

Mickeroo · 06-10-2017 8:49am

M!Ck^ wrote: »

Sorry, wasn't very clear

Alot of those reviews contain the words bloated and grind; this is a direct consequence of the microstransactions IMO

In fairness only two of the review blurbs in that link used those words and even then they said it was a good game regardless so I'm not too bothered.

Penn · 06-10-2017 9:02am

M!Ck^ wrote: »

Sorry, wasn't very clear

Alot of those reviews contain the words bloated and grind; this is a direct consequence of the microstransactions IMO

But most of them said the bloat and grind only starts to occur in the endgame, in order to get the 'true' ending, but that the game up to that point doesn't require any grind or microtransactions at all.

06-10-2017 9:42am

Penn wrote: »

But most of them said the bloat and grind only starts to occur in the endgame, in order to get the 'true' ending, but that the game up to that point doesn't require any grind or microtransactions at all.

That's fine. But that doesn't make it ok.

jcd5971 · 06-10-2017 7:04pm

Penn wrote: »

But most of them said the bloat and grind only starts to occur in the endgame, in order to get the 'true' ending, but that the game up to that point doesn't require any grind or microtransactions at all.

end game in literally every game is about drinding to get best gear sets and builds etc.

Sephiroth_dude · 06-10-2017 7:53pm

I'll get for it christmas, I'm gonna be getting AC origins in a couple of weeks.

mrkiscool2 · 06-10-2017 9:37pm

jcd5971 wrote: »

Honestly it seems like some people here are determined to see the worst in this game no matter what reviews it gets.

Yup, not going to deny that is me. To me, no matter how good this game is, the sh1tty practices have turned me off it so much. WB are money-grabbing asshats who don't deserve my money. If I do pick it up, I'll be buying it second hand and not investing any money into Microtransations or DLC. I'm getting sick and tired of, not only microtransactions in almost every AAA game but also this loot box culture, where you don't even know what your hard-earned cash is getting you. It's vile.

Venom · 06-10-2017 11:37pm

mrkiscool2 wrote: »

Yup, not going to deny that is me. To me, no matter how good this game is, the sh1tty practices have turned me off it so much. WB are money-grabbing asshats who don't deserve my money. If I do pick it up, I'll be buying it second hand and not investing any money into Microtransations or DLC. I'm getting sick and tired of, not only microtransactions in almost every AAA game but also this loot box culture, where you don't even know what your hard-earned cash is getting you. It's vile.

100% agree. This lootbox crap in full price games needs to be knocked on the head from the get go or we will suffer it for years down the line. Not gonna touch this game until a steam sale.

07-10-2017 12:16am

Exactly the issue. If people continue to support this crap by purchasing the game day one then it will only get worse. That's honestly why I'm so passionate about not supporting this game.

Sonics2k · 07-10-2017 11:53am

M!Ck^ wrote: »

If grinding and bloated is your idea of being fun.....

I'm pretty sure they just mean it's a massive game.

Honestly, very few AAA games these days are in any way grindy, that's a rather old-school way of doing games.

Falthyron · 07-10-2017 12:28pm

Sonics2k wrote: »

I'm pretty sure they just mean it's a massive game.

Honestly, very few AAA games these days are in any way grindy, that's a rather old-school way of doing games.

When a game is described as 'open-world', it almost implies 'grindy' (The Witcher III, being the only clear exception I can think of). Developers know they have to fill this open world with stuff (otherwise, what would be the purpose of having such a massive space to play in?), but they also don't have time to produce deep and varied content alongside the main story. You only have to look at the likes of many UbiSoft titles described as open world, the new Batman games, the new Tomb Raiders, etc. Most of them have filler like: collect 200 items, find all the 'X', unlock every area, see all vistas, etc., etc. Very few games actually have quality side-quests or things to do that complement the main story or yield a decent reward.

Sticking the 'true ending' behind a wall of tedium is lazy, and a cheap way of justifying the 'open world', 'hours and hours of content' marketing that games of this nature market themselves as. Having said that, the 'open world' elements of Shadow of Mordor were okay, iirc. Collecting parts of the weapons, the various challenges, freeing the slaves, and the runes, weren't too bad. But if Shadow of War follows Batman and the 200 Riddler Trophies then its a bad omen for what else the game has as filler.

Sephiroth_dude · 07-10-2017 1:24pm

30 for pc on g2play, very tempting .

Sonics2k · 07-10-2017 3:56pm

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

30 for pc on g2play, very tempting .

Give it a few weeks and that'll drop to €20 or less

degrassinoel · 10-10-2017 7:39pm

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

30 for pc on g2play, very tempting .

lol said i wouldnt but i bought it for cheap this morning and it's pretty good - well, it's more of the same SoM with some nifty new sh1t and garrison missions like they had/have in WoW.

streaming a bit here if you're interested

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX_0dVxzEeM

Sephiroth_dude · 10-10-2017 7:56pm

degrassinoel wrote: »

lol said i wouldnt but i bought it for cheap this morning and it's pretty good - well, it's more of the same SoM with some nifty new sh1t and garrison missions like they had/have in WoW.

streaming a bit here if you're interested

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX_0dVxzEeM

Same here, very stuttery on my rig on though.

Dcully · 10-10-2017 8:52pm

PC users, how does it operate with mouse and KB?

I played the first game with a pad untile the pad broke and i never got past maybe 20% of the game as i just lost interest.

Sephiroth_dude · 10-10-2017 9:56pm

Dcully wrote: »

PC users, how does it operate with mouse and KB?

I played the first game with a pad untile the pad broke and i never got past maybe 20% of the game as i just lost interest.

I just tried it there and found it awkward too be honest.

keane2097 · 10-10-2017 10:02pm

I played through the first one with a mouse and keyboard and it was awkward as ****.

Shadow of Mordor (Shadow of War)

Comments