So what exactly IS Shadow of Mordor

[ninja666]

I'm thinking of playing it, but don't really know if it's worth my time, so I have a few questions about it that I'd like to get answers for:

1. Is the storyline something original and mature, or the standard "you're a badass hero, go save the world from an evil guy that's evil because he's evil"?
2. What's the combat and gameplay in general like? What games would you compare it to?
3. How long is the main story/campaign, when you don't elongate it with pointless collectibles?
4. Is the game challenging (with definition of "challenging" being Dark Souls' "hard but fair" attitude)?

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

1. It's pretty typical AAA stuff so far. You're a very gruff, one-dimensional, humourless and often plain mean "badass" like in every other modern AAA game.

2. Combat is a slightly expanded and much more viscerally satisfying version of Arkham. Movement feels a bit like Assassin's Creed.

3. Dunno, not reached the end and couldn't give a good estimate anyway because I'm doing other stuff way too often. The story isn't where the fun is. Imo, the game would be even more awesome than it is if they ditched the story and focused more on the persistent world elements (Nemesis system, etc).

Basically, if you're playing the game for its campaign, you're gonna be getting a competent AAA action game but one that may well disappoint you. Play it for its sandbox and you get a GOTY contender. It's not even accidental, the real meat of the game is in the Nemesis system and hunting down captains and taking down forts. The campaign is really the side-content here.

4. It can be. You technically can't really die, much like Dark Souls and whoever killed you gets a power boost. Still, single combat is rarely difficult (though when it is, it's fun as fuck). Getting mobbed can end you very quickly though, since you don't seem to be that resilient.

 

[ninja666]

Basically, if you're playing the game for its campaign, you're gonna be getting a competent AAA action game but one that may well disappoint you. Play it for its sandbox and you get a GOTY contender. It's not even accidental, the real meat of the game is in the Nemesis system and hunting down captains and taking down forts. The campaign is really the side-content here.

Aww, that's a shame. I was really hoping for it to have something more in the campaign department. I really don't like repetitive sidequests being a core gameplay mechanic.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Basically, if you're playing the game for its campaign, you're gonna be getting a competent AAA action game but one that may well disappoint you. Play it for its sandbox and you get a GOTY contender. It's not even accidental, the real meat of the game is in the Nemesis system and hunting down captains and taking down forts. The campaign is really the side-content here.

Aww, that's a shame. I was really hoping for it to have something more in the campaign department. I really don't like repetitive sidequests being a core gameplay mechanic.

They're not really "sidequests" per se in a traditional AAA sense, though. Like, you aren't speaking to someone or stepping on a beam of light to get an objective handed to you like in Skyrim or GTA or something. Well, some aspects of the game kind of are delivered like that, but it's a lot more organic most of the time. Things change in the world without your input and every enemy is unique (and named) and you might end up running across them at any time.

Though I guess you are technically doing the same thing a lot (killing shit) there are so many different ways to go about it, and it's so utterly devoid of railroading that it doesn't feel repetitive. The best thing about it is the emergent narratives that spring up out of the game and the personal grudges you end up with against some of these orks.

The campaign missions aren't necessarily bad or anything, in fact most of them are pretty fun and can even be open-ended in their own right. It just pales in comparison to the emergent fun you can have in the sandbox.

 

[omega 616]

Basically, if you're playing the game for its campaign, you're gonna be getting a competent AAA action game but one that may well disappoint you. Play it for its sandbox and you get a GOTY contender. It's not even accidental, the real meat of the game is in the Nemesis system and hunting down captains and taking down forts. The campaign is really the side-content here.

Aww, that's a shame. I was really hoping for it to have something more in the campaign department. I really don't like repetitive sidequests being a core gameplay mechanic.

It's not, you make you're own little campaigns ...

Their is another thread about the shadow of mordor, it is about the nemesis system and peoples stories about it. Everybody who has played it has one, that one enemy who has **** punched you so much that you have nothing but pure hate for them and want nothing more than to kill them!

Usually you die and the game reverts to a previous save point, but in this, the game carries on. So, if you die to random shmuck #20,005 he gets a name from killing you, he goes from a nameless uruk to a captain, if he kills you again, he rises up again etc till you either kill him or he becomes 1 of 4 war chiefs (the big cheeses).

The actual campaign is there 'cos otherwise the game would be weird ... imagine gtaV without a story.

 

[ninja666]

Ok, I'll go a little off-topic here, but are system requirements for this game posted everywhere some sort of joke? The game is on par with Far Cry 3 when it comes to graphics level, and yet it requires at least a DX11 compatible 2gb GPU? Something's not right here.

 

[Flammablezeus]

It's definitely better looking than Far Cry 3. Far Cry 3 was all shaders and minimalistic design. It looked good for a cartoony game (not saying that in a bad way, I like the aesthetic even if the technical side of the graphics was a step down from Far Cry 2.) However, SoM looks good while keeping a more realistic design. Remember, this game was made for current-gen consoles as opposed to Far Cry 3 which was made for the last generation of consoles, so it's not unreasonable for there to be higher requirements. It's also optimised far better than most AAA games I've played in recent years, so don't expect it to be chugging along.

I recommend watching TotalBiscuit's video on Youtube. He goes into great depth showing the meat of the game without giving away so much that you'd go in knowing everything.

 

[ninja666]

If that's the case, I might as well kiss gaming goodbye. I don't have the money to throw away on new parts every 8 months because of a new marketing gimmick every now and then. I bought this PC a year ago. It could max out every game up until the recent fad of horrendously big requirements, starting with the release of Wolfenstein: The New Order.

AMD Athlon II X4 2.8GHz
4GB RAM
AMD Radeon HD series 7770 1GB

 

[Ferisar]

If that's the case, I might as well kiss gaming goodbye. I don't have the money to throw away on new parts every 8 months because of a new marketing gimmick every now and then. I bought this PC a year ago. It could max out every game up until the recent fad of horrendously big requirements, starting with the release of Wolfenstein: The New Order.

AMD Athlon II X4 2.8GHz
4GB RAM
AMD Radeon HD series 7770 1GB

You can run the game fine on Medium and it will look good on Medium. Wolfenstein had a known issue with AMD cards on release that required waiting for updated graphical drivers, after which it should have run on your card just fine at near-max settings (This is me speaking from experience, because I have a card of the same series as you. It chugged real bad until I got the updated drivers)

These aren't gimmicks, honestly, and I'm feeling the brunt of it with you here. I bought my PC a year ago, and my GPU is going to get punished with new releases from the triple-A side because they've all upped their game since the bottom line bar got raised (Those dang consoles!). I'm lucky that the rest of what I have will probably bear along for quite a bit.

Either way, Medium in SoM looks fine, good even. The ultra texture packs aren't meant for mid-range systems, and never will be. You might be bottlenecked on RAM if anything else, but don't quote me on that. What would be nice is if the game had a demo benchmark tool so you'd be able to see if your system can handle it, but that's too benevolent of most games to keep with them.

 

[ninja666]

You can run the game fine on Medium and it will look good on Medium.

I'd be fine with medium, as I'm not really a graphics whore type of person (some games from late 90s still look good to me), but I really can't run this game. It requires DX11 and my card supports only up to 10.1.

 

[laggyteabag]

1. In terms of story, it is basically the "I MUST GET REVENGE FOR THIS THING THAT THIS PERSON DID!". It isn't really anything new or original, but I do like how they have made player deaths line up with the story.
2. In terms of combat, it is pretty similar to the Arkham games. And by "very similar" I mean "exactly the same".
3. I completed the game in about 17 hours. This includes some side missions, and a lot of captain hunting, but I would imagine that you can probably complete it in about 10-15 hours if you concentrate solely on the main missions. Not much in terms of replayability though.
4. To start off, it can be quite challenging, especially if a group of enemies attack you at once, or if you go toe-to-toe with a particularly strong captain. There is a huge case of power creep for the player though, making the game a cakewalk during the late hours of the game. Probably worth noting that there isnt a difficulty slider either, just one standard difficulty (you can artificially make the game harder by turning off the "COUNTER" prompts in the menu, however).

 

[ninja666]

It'll run fine.

Will it run at all (let alone "fine") despite the aformentioned lack of support for DX11 on my GPU? I've read some forum topics that people who have a DX10 card can't run the game at all.

 

[ninja666]

Then get a card that does. This is only going to happen more and more as time goes on. Might as well get ready for it now.

You know, not every country has electronics so cheap you can get money for a new computer part by passing up two six-packs of beer. This PC is all I have and I won't be able to afford anything better for the next couple of years.

 

[laggyteabag]

It'll run fine.

Will it run at all (let alone "fine") despite the aformentioned lack of support for DX11 on my GPU? I've read some forum topics that people who have a DX10 card can't run the game at all.

Then get a card that does. This is only going to happen more and more as time goes on. Might as well get ready for it now.

As much as it sucks to say it, this is the harsh truth. DX11 is very much so a standard by now, and more and more games are going to have it as a requirement. You would be looking at about £140 to get a better GPU (GTX 760/ R9 270X), or about £250 to get something super futureproof (GTX 970), but £100+ isn't exactly something that you can just stumble upon, and if I am honest, I really wouldn't spend £100+ just to play this game.

 

[EmperorZinyak]

I'm thinking of playing it, but don't really know if it's worth my time, so I have a few questions about it that I'd like to get answers for:

1. Is the storyline something original and mature, or the standard "you're a badass hero, go save the world from an evil guy that's evil because he's evil"?
2. What's the combat and gameplay in general like? What games would you compare it to?
3. How long is the main story/campaign, when you don't elongate it with pointless collectibles?
4. Is the game challenging (with definition of "challenging" being Dark Souls' "hard but fair" attitude)?

1. You're a guy, you kill other guys, characters are generally forgettable. However, the main story is far from the focal point of the game. One of the biggest features of the game is the "nemesis system", where named orc captains grow in power independent of your actions, and will remember their encounters with you. If they kill you, they'll be sure to remind you the next time they see you. Unless you decapitate an orc, there's a chance they can come back, and will be covered in scars and angry at you.
2. Combat is like the Arkham series, if you've played it. Animations are fluid and fun to watch. Stealth in the game is very simple, as the orcs are blind and deaf, but I think they need to be blind and deaf because there's so damn many of them that stealth would be impossible otherwise.
3. I'm gonna say about 20 hours, but the game is very replayable. I spend a lot of time messing around outside of the main story.
4. Combat is generally what you make of it. What I mean is that if you play smart and try to find out the weaknesses of Captains before engaging, exploit the environment by luring orcs near campfires and then blowing up the fire, and pick off archers in stealth before engaging, you'll be rewarded with easier fights against the Captains. However, if you charge in suicidally and try to fight a Warchief and all of his bodyguards, you'll most likely be humiliatingly killed. There are definitely a few encounters that I had to run from.

 

[ninja666]

Just don't buy Mordor and put the money you would have spent in the new graphics card fund. Then do the same for the next 3 full price releases, and bam, you have yourself a brand new GTX 660.

Hell, do it another 2 or 3 more times or so and you have enough to buy nvidia's most recent GPU, the GTX 970, which both outperforms it's more expensive older brother, the 780.

Dude, just stop. Please. I don't live in the US, UK or any similar country. Prices are entirely different here and are pretty far from what you're comparing here.

 

[Louzerman102]

Middle-earth shadow of Mordor is Orc Murdering simulator 2014. It simulates Orc murdering very well with its nemesis A.I. system but anything else is beyond the scope of the developer's vision.

1."you're a badass hero, go save the world from an evil guy that's evil because he's evil"? Welcome to 1954 Tolkien fantasy where Sauron is Lucifer and it's all a Catholic Bible fanfic.

2. The Batman Arkham games meets Assassin's Creed

3. 8 - 10 hours to do just the main missions but it's an open world game so just doing main story is "playing the game wrong."

4. Challenge varies biased on player actions and the perks the orc captains roll. If you want to play hard mode attack the war-chiefs without taking out the captain supporters first.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

1. One-note revenge story. Gruff, angry man. I mean, there's nothing especially wrong with it, and I don't mind it all that much. It's just a little bit of a cliche.

2. Pretty much already answered. Think Arkham games, but more satisfyingly visceral.

3. My first playthrough was 16 hours and I'd guess a good amount of those were spent on side missions, so I'd say 10-11 hours just trying to go through main missions as fast as possible.

4. It becomes less challenging as you adapt to the game and gain more powerful abilities. Once you get used to the combat and have the ability to turn uruks to your side things tend to get a lot easier.

 

[Agayek]

1. Is the storyline something original and mature, or the standard "you're a badass hero, go save the world from an evil guy that's evil because he's evil"?
2. What's the combat and gameplay in general like? What games would you compare it to?
3. How long is the main story/campaign, when you don't elongate it with pointless collectibles?
4. Is the game challenging (with definition of "challenging" being Dark Souls' "hard but fair" attitude)?

1) Kinda sorta not really. The story boils down to "main character watches his family be murdered in front of his eyes, wakes up a couple days later and swears to kill the guy responsible so that the curse keeping him alive and separated from his family can be broken". There's some real depth to it, but it's mostly in the subtext. The story is basically about a guy with a death wish who literally cannot die embarking on a bitter quest to break the curse placed upon him, but they never go into of the real issues such a thing is so ripe to discuss, which is a shame.

2) It's basically "Assassin's Creed with Arkham-style combat". Movement in the wider world is very heavily inspired by Assassin's Creed (you can climb just about anything, jump off things, stealth kill orcs, etc). The open combat is pretty much ripped straight out of Arkham City (which makes sense, because they use the same engine I'm pretty sure). It's a free-flowing two-button affair, with an "attack" button, a "counter" button, and a combo meter that, every 8(5 with upgrades) hits allows you to use a special finishing move.

I adore it, to be perfectly honest.

3) Roughly 10 hours for the main story campaign, but that's honestly a pretty small portion of the game. Playing with the Nemesis system, avenging yourself on Uruks that have killed you, mind controlling captains and setting them against each other, etc all tend to organically rise to the forefront of the gameplay experience, for me at least.

4) Kinda. The game is "hard but fair" insofar as it's pretty easy to die, and when you do, it's pretty much always because you fucked up in some fashion, and it's generally fairly clear what you could have done to escape that death.

It's not nearly as difficult as Dark Souls is though. There's a few occasions that can get dicey (for example, early on I got ambushed by 5 separate Uruk captains at the same time and was thoroughly bent over a barrel), but those situations are random, organic outcomes of the open world setup rather than any intentional design.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

AMD Radeon HD series 7770 1GB

Are you sure that card isn't DX11 compatible? I'm sure all the Radeons from the 5000 series onwards were. A quick Google search shows DX11 benchmarks, too.

DX11 has been the standard for new graphics cards since 2009, so if you bought your rig a year ago I'd be very surprised if it were only DX10. There have already been some games that were DX11-only even before the launch of the new consoles.

What operating system are you using?

I dunno how well the game runs on PC, though, since I'm playing on PS4.