Middle-Earth: Shadow of War

[deama]

Am I the only person who found Shadow of Mordor to be an extremely shallow and boring experience that offered almost nothing except a generic action RPG that could have worked in any fantasy setting?

Never even bothered playing more than a few hours, didn't bother picking up Shadow of War. It seems all the controversy surrounding pay to win solidified my choice to not buy and confirmed it to me as being a horrible fall from grace for a series that wasn't that good to begin with.

Seems like I am in the minority here.

not surprised the patent exists, wouldn't expect it to hold up.

if you're curious about what patent lawyers have to say, here's an article about it:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ba135c6b-a845-4233-a23b-4439d00b9dda
tl;dr: They most likely skirted around the Alice test due to the original date of patent application

patenting abstract ideas is attempting to use the patent system as an ad hoc copyright system

This is why I will never purchase a WB product ever again. Patenting game mechanics is a HORRIBLE precedent, and it could start a veritable gold rush of companies patenting everything to the point where indie games can't even have grid inventories anymore, because that's owned by somebody.

I thought it was pretty decent, better than 1st one.

 

[Ezekiel]

Kind of impressed now that Westeros in Game of Thrones didn't have any blacks or Asians.

 

[Ezekiel]

This game is annoying and the combat is so dull. Don't know how I played through the whole first one and did so much side stuff years ago. Also find the first game's map so far nicer to look at.

 

[Agame]

Will there ever be a third game? Or did the completely seppuku series with the degenerate money grabs?

 

[Zombra]

Will there ever be a third game? Or did the completely seppuku series with the degenerate money grabs?

Probably neither. They completely ripped out the awful RMT store and gained a lot of prestige. That's not the reason there's no word of a 3rd game in this series. Maybe there will be someday, but Monolith recently announced work on a new title and they are a "one game at a time" studio. Go here to find out about the new game.

Also I'm not sure what a 3rd game in this series would look like. Feels like the series already kinda did what it set out to do.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

There's no room in the story for a third game.
And I'd rather they don't change that, as one of the few things I liked about the game was how it tied into LotR at the end.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I'd think they'd make another, although that doesn't mean it'd necessarily be directly related to what they were doing in the LotR setting. Also wouldn't really be all that surprised if their new Wonder Woman game was doing a lot of stuff they do in their Lord of the Rings games...only with Wonder Woman.

 

[Zlaja]

This game's story would have been a lot better if there were some nude scenes with Shelob. Don't care if it makes sense or not.

Didn't get better than this:

Spoiler

 

[Agame]

Will there ever be a third game? Or did the completely seppuku series with the degenerate money grabs?

Probably neither. They completely ripped out the awful RMT store and gained a lot of prestige. That's not the reason there's no word of a 3rd game in this series. Maybe there will be someday, but Monolith recently announced work on a new title and they are a "one game at a time" studio. Go here to find out about the new game.

Also I'm not sure what a 3rd game in this series would look like. Feels like the series already kinda did what it set out to do.

Fair enough, I never finished the second game anyway.

I really liked the setting, being in 'enemy' territory all alone. Would have loved to have a game entirely set in somewhere like Moria, so underground all the time.

 

[Zombra]

Fair enough, I never finished the second game anyway.

For whatever it's worth, I don't know how far you got:
When they overhauled Shadow of War and took out the real money store, they also retooled the endgame part. Where the original version was like "final act, now you have to do 36 fortress defense missions" ... the new version was like "yeah that is boring ... how about 4 really cool ones instead". So if that long ass endgame was the reason you never finished, you could probably load your save and get to the end credits within a few hours.

 

[Ezekiel]

Okay, I remember now what I liked about the first game as I'm getting more into the second. Being in the middle of the chaos you create. Wish it had a better combat system, though. Looks really nice at night. In-game night, not real night. Pushing my seven year old IPS photography monitor.

 

[Kjaska]

Instead of hate watching the amazon crap I threw on the OG trilogy and felt the urge to slaughter some orks afterwards. Re-installed this and instantly got reminded of how great the ork design is. Also the tools at your disposal make for a combat experience that never has to feel the same every encounter unless you yourself are a boring turd who only goes for the same tactic every time.

 

[Ezekiel]

You can take your brofist back, Zombra. Lost interest and haven't played it in a month now. Monotonous. Mechanically insipid.

 

[1451]

Shadow of Mordor is better.
The sequel filled the game with chores to make it seem bigger.
And everything became prettier and lighter.
No more darkness, blood, and grit.
I had hopes for lord of the rings gollum but it was delayed sadly.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I think Shadow of War is the best action game of the 8th console generation (I didn't play DMC5). At least when you're playing it on the hardest difficulty, which you should be. Shadow of Mordor is too easy by comparison. Shadow of War actually encourages you to move stealthily and avoid enemies, because you can easily get raped in combat, and death actually has some consequences. You even have to choose between certain upgrades, instead of merely acquiring them all at once, so there's actually some RPG customization in gameplay. The characterization of the orcs is way better in Shadow of War, too. In Shadow of Mordor, even when you branded orcs they'd still talk as if Sauron were their lord. Not just to maintain a cover, either, they'd do it among themselves. Shadow of War fixes this and has way more variable dialogue in general.

 

[Zombra]

LarryTyphoid I agree with all that, except I don't think the converted uruks talking about Sauron in Mordor was a mistake. To me it seemed that they were super brainwashed and hallucinating, and literally believed they were all still serving Sauron even as they killed each other. It was an extra layer of horror I appreciated and enjoyed.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

To me it seemed that they were super brainwashed and hallucinating, and literally believed they were all still serving Sauron even as they killed each other. It was an extra layer of horror I appreciated and enjoyed.

Never thought about it that way, but it makes sense.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Haven’t played Shadow of War, and enjoyed Shadow of Mordor, but the writing in it was so monumentally stupid and fundamentally anti-Tolkien that I can’t really understand complaining about the game’s internal narrative consistency.

 

[Cyberarmy]

This games writing feels so close to Tolkien's after watching that new TV abomination. Rings of Power my ass...

 

[rusty_shackleford]

the story ending of Shadow of War was very well done imo

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Haven’t played Shadow of War, and enjoyed Shadow of Mordor, but the writing in it was so monumentally stupid and fundamentally anti-Tolkien that I can’t really understand complaining about the game’s internal narrative consistency.

I think the general idea of the story is pretty cool. It shouldn't have been a Tolkien game, though. It could've been a cool and unique fantasy story on its own, but instead it's some weird schlocky LotR fanfiction. Gollum's appearances were really forced as well. The only Tolkien crossover I liked was Talion becoming a ringwraith at the end.

I'm still reading LotR, and haven't touched the Silmarillion, so I'm a Tolkien noob, but if you want a game more faithful to Tolkien, try the roguelike Sil.

 

[Zombra]

Great Deceiver was talking elsewhere about "hamster wheel" games that entice you to keep playing forever with grinding goals such as gear progression, and it made me think about Shadow of War .. which I have been playing again recently.

For me, this is not only a game that is easy to keep playing almost forever, but is fun to keep coming back to. Even though there are long term goals such as getting closer to the gear level cap, eventually conquering all the forts, etc., that's really not where the greatest strength of this game is, particularly at the ridiculously high Gravewalker difficulty level.

Because it's not about reaching the endgame or getting the best gear ever. It's all still in the Nemesis system .. emphasis on "system". There's so much variety it's still surprising me hundreds of hours later. Unscripted, the game systems continue to generate new relationships and circumstances, new enemies, new combinations of strengths and weaknesses to overcome. Every time I get revenge on a guy who killed me, somewhere along the way some fresh grunt gets a lucky shot and creates a new enemy to get revenge on. Loyal mind controlled thralls break free and rebel. Some tricky assassin jumps out right when I'm in the middle of an hours-long hunt and screws everything up. Some high level guy surprises me by calling in a bodyguard and kills me again and levels even higher. Or my plan goes off perfectly and I finally get the satisfaction of taking him down. I almost get killed but a legitimately loyal follower rescues me at the last moment with a sniper shot from across the map - and then gets eaten by a caragor a moment later. And yes, sometimes a new piece of loot drops which gives me an opportunity to try a new weird combination of abilities. I just never really know exactly what's coming next after all this time and it's somehow still fresh. Just amazing work.

And all this with ZERO expectation of me spending real money, buying DLC or cosmetics or anything like that. It's frankly astonishing that Monolith hooked me so well, in a way absolutely free of predatory anti-consumer practices. I already have all the DLC and honestly I've never played most of it because it goes way further into scripted territory. The base game is simply bottomless.

 

[deama]

We're probably gonna have to wait a few decades until this nemesis system is used again in another game lol.

 

[Multidirectional]

I think Shadow of War is the best action game of the 8th console generation (I didn't play DMC5).

Even if you didn't play DMC5, which is lightyears ahead as far as combat goes, I am sure you could still find action games that are better than this piece of shit. I couldn't stand playing this stinker for longer than hour before uninstalling. It's one of those games that was really off-putting right from the start.
Didn't sleep very well last night so can't brain too well now to remember all the games, but Sekiro definitely qualifies as action game and beats the fuck out of this for sure. Or even something like Nier Automata. If I actually tried I'm sure I could come up with more action games that are superior.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I can't comprehend how anyone can call such a sticky combat system "the best action". The only good thing about it was that there were hard counters.