Zero Punctuation: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - Mordoooooor

Skeleon

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Nov 2, 2007
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I saw TotalBiscuit's WTF on this and it looks interesting. Yeah, it seems a bit empty and repetitive, but like Yahtzee said, the fostering of the orcs' hierarchy might just be dynamic and intriguing enough to keep you invested. Hopefully there's enough randomness so that doesn't become boring too quickly, either. I won't buy it now, but I think I'll put in on my budget list. This has potential. And, man, a silver medal from Yahtzee? I mean... that's really damn high praise.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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Okay, so Yahtzee not only liked the game, but made a solid and funny ZP (one of the best in a while, at least) and made me really want the game.

Individually, not so big. Together?

I'm scared. The end is coming. Someone hold me.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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mysta02 said:
Kenjitsuka said:
Oh wow, this week I LOL-ed like I have not LOL-ed in a long time!!!
"IT'S MORRRRRDORRRRRR!!!!" You should make a t-shirt out of that!

Thanks Yahtzee, will play this game and revenge my way all the way up untill I am King of Mordorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

The shirt should have a picture of the Ranger, and say, "I simply walked into Morrrrrdorrrrr".
"And all I got was this lousy T-Shirt."
 

TheYeIIowDucK

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Mar 22, 2011
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LordTerminal said:
Okay now I know Yahtzee's not himself. Not because he admitted the game is good, but because he's demanding Condemned 2 on Steam. I thought he hated Condemned 2?
Yahtzee is a banana
 

Haru17

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Mar 1, 2014
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The story has some interesting parts and, while hardly being groundbreaking, is very well done. Troy Baker's voice acting was very convincing and it sold the whole 'I want to die, but I'll kill some orcs before then to help Gondor' motive. There's a lot of subtle movie dialogue reuse that was clever without becoming ironic and self-aware. And the ending... was anti-climactic as hell, that's the one criticism the Tolkein folks have that I agree with.

I don't know what plans for a sequel WB / Monolith has, but I really hope they leave Mordor and get a new protagonist. Talion worked for one game, but they really need to close the book on him and move on. I really want to play a good game in the other regions of middle earth as well.
 

FieryTrainwreck

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Apr 16, 2010
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Haru17 said:
I don't know what plans for a sequel WB / Monolith has, but I really hope they leave Mordor and get a new protagonist. Talion worked for one game, but they really need to close the book on him and move on. I really want to play a good game in the other regions of middle earth as well.
I've been so embroiled in this game that I hadn't even thought about the inevitable sequel. Strong as this first game is, they could do some real damage with a proper follow-up.

I definitely disagree with Yahtzee's assertion that the combat never becomes easy. You can cheese a lot because the AI isn't tuned to be very challenging, and you can reliably escape virtually any unfavorable situation without jumping through too many hoops. Turning off the combat indicators goes a long ways towards upping the difficulty, but I would definitely enjoy some higher difficulty settings.

I'm not so terribly annoyed by the storytelling, but it is meh. All in all, still an impressive game.
 

tzimize

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Mar 1, 2010
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thaluikhain said:
Heh, actually lolled 3 timed, both door jokes, and tallying bananas.

And, random enemies becoming important NPCs sounds sorta cool.
Its actually quite brilliant. A relatively simple system manages to save the game. I was a bit meh at the start of it, but that was because I was totally sidetracked by eternally spawning captains....and I just had to try to kill them all :s

After you get the domination trick and start to get captains of your own....well...the game really shines. I'm having loads of fun with it and imo the difficulty is GREAT. You can counter and combo around like crazy, and its very easy (like Batman AA), but even with max upgraded health a bunch of orcs or a nasty captain can still take you down in a flash if you're getting careless.

Great game, well worth the cash. Surprisingly enough.
 

Fdzzaigl

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Mar 31, 2010
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Krantos said:
Fdzzaigl said:
The Nemesis system is great, but the OPness of the boring Talion character sorta kills it for me tbh.
Pro-tip: Turn off visual indicators for attacks (the little icons displaying when the enemies are going to attack). Makes the fights tons harder, but still doable as the enemies do telegraph their attacks pretty well. What ends up happening is you have to pay pretty close attention to all the orcs you're engaging to be ready for the counter move. When fighting a handful this is pretty simple, but once you get 10 or so orcs trying to kick down your back door it becomes legitimately challenging.
I could do that, but then I don't really watch the icons anyhow. Honestly I just spam right-click when I feel like something is going to attack.

Deliberately gimping yourself to make the game harder is also not what I would call good design tbh. They should have added a difficulty slider.

But I guess it's the design of the stealth mechanics and the whole "hack a ton of orcs into pieces" that sort of rubs me the wrong way. I also find Mordor sort of boring to roam around in (though that could be expected).

All in all, what they went for works very well, except the poor main characters and storyline. It's just not necessarily my thing, I disliked Arkham City as well really.
 

Marik Bentusi

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Aug 20, 2010
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Krantos said:
Fdzzaigl said:
The Nemesis system is great, but the OPness of the boring Talion character sorta kills it for me tbh.
Pro-tip: Turn off visual indicators for attacks (the little icons displaying when the enemies are going to attack). Makes the fights tons harder, but still doable as the enemies do telegraph their attacks pretty well. What ends up happening is you have to pay pretty close attention to all the orcs you're engaging to be ready for the counter move. When fighting a handful this is pretty simple, but once you get 10 or so orcs trying to kick down your back door it becomes legitimately challenging.
Different guy here, but this doesn't seem to do much for difficulty since the Get Out Of Jail Free card still works:

- mash Spacebar until you're at least at the edge of the orc horde
- run away to the nearest herb to regain all your health
- re-enter battle

It's especially simple if none of the "You don't get a last stand QTE to survive"-trait captains show up, since that QTE is a pretty easy point to call it quits and the only inconvenience that arises from that is that you have to waste a bit of extra time so the cooldown on it can reset. If you get the elven speed upgrade you might as well not even bother dodging arrows while running away, they'll just not be able to catch up with you.

I really enjoyed the game during my first playthrough, especially in the beginning, but as I both gained ridiculous skill upgrades and a better mastery of the game mechanics, the game just quickly ran out of bigger things to throw at me. I think this game loses a LOT of its appeal if you don't die and thus don't make personal enemies (and you won't get that effect if you die on purpose); wish there was a much more difficult NG+ or just plain difficulty levels.

Sorry, I think that kinda turned into a ramble in the last paragraph there.
 

Barbas

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Oct 28, 2013
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This was one of his funniest reviews yet. I was in stitches after the last "MOOORDOOOR"...look, it's the simple things in life, all right?
 

LoneWolf83

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rasputin0009 said:
thanatos388 said:
It's strange, the only fanboys worse than Nintendo fanboys are Tolkien fanboys. Who to this day insist that the eagles are totally not bullshit.
The eagles weren't bullshit. From what I remember, it was Gandalf's original plan to use the eagles to fly the ring into Mordor. But he kept the eagle plan as a secret from the rest of the Fellowship in case any of them got captured. Then everything went to shit in the Misty Mountains which is why there was a trilogy instead of a short story.

And no fanboy is worse than a DoTA fanboy.
The problem is that was never stated in the film. It doesn't matter if it worked in the books, it did not work in the film because there was no foreshadowing and at no point did was it ever stated in the films why they couldn't use the eagles. It's called an adaption induced pothole, they leave something out that is critical for another part of the story thus making it a plot hole. It's still an issue in the films even if the books adequately explain it beforehand.
 

DirgeNovak

I'm anticipating DmC. Flame me.
Jul 23, 2008
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That was your funniest review in a long time. "Don't forget to kill the whores" had me in stitches.
I really want MOOORDOOOOR, but I'll wait for a price drop, as WB doesn't deserve the $70 after the shitty YT policies they pulled with this game.
 

freaper

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Apr 3, 2010
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DTWolfwood said:
Anyone else ever get an Orc that didn't speak but just creepily smiles at you when you meet?

Still my favorite Orc i've encountered as it was only be damaged by stealth attacks lol
I had one that didn't talk as well! He would just grunt and wheeze and giggle creepily, so I made him my ***** :p
 

Xenominim

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Jan 11, 2011
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It really is a fun game, I just hope they tweak what needs fixing in the sequel instead of simply adding in more fluff like the Creed games have. The storyline they present is interesting on paper, but in-game it's so choppy and poorly told that you really don't care about the main missions at all and only the orc Ratbag and Gollum have any sort of personality.

Difficulty also needs a slight tweaking, yes if you screw up even late in the game you can die quickly to a powerful captain, but in practice you can rinse most captains by then with a single good combo, and if things get even moderately difficult there is nothing the orcs can do that prevents you from running away as they can't chase you up the sides of the numerous cliffs/buildings in the game. A sequel needs some climber and mounted orcs that can run you down if you try that, or maybe even some sort of wraiths of their own that can keep up with you. Add in some trolls tamed or otherwise and a few other monsters to the landscape for variety. The only bit I'd like to see added to Talion's arsenal at that point would be a couple of traps to better take advantage of captain weaknesses instead of hoping they wander into areas where those weaknesses exist.
 

Fursnake

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Jun 18, 2009
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Pretty good ZP this week, I got some laughs out of it. "Shadow of Mor-or-or-or-dor is a solid...ehh (sigh) action adventure..." that really cracked me up.

The game is pretty solid and I am enjoying it. One complaint I have heard is that it gets repetitive and while I can see how that could be the case for players not all that into this type of gameplay and/or not into the Lord of the Rings franchise, it is right up my alley. The Gollum voice bugs me, while it sounds like a decent mimic of Andy Serkis, the more I hear it in the game the more it makes me think of that "Gollum sings Wrecking Ball" video on Youtube.
 

Azahul

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Apr 16, 2011
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I really enjoyed this game, even if the story was pretty terrible. I've continued running around the map fighting orcs since completing it, and even with every upgrade unlocked it's still pretty entertaining.

LoneWolf83 said:
The problem is that was never stated in the film. It doesn't matter if it worked in the books, it did not work in the film because there was no foreshadowing and at no point did was it ever stated in the films why they couldn't use the eagles. It's called an adaption induced pothole, they leave something out that is critical for another part of the story thus making it a plot hole. It's still an issue in the films even if the books adequately explain it beforehand.
It's easy to infer the reasons the eagles aren't used, even in the film. Sauron can clearly control the weather, is an "all-seeing eye" that can both spot enemies from afar and paralyze them with his gaze, has a host of flying monsters, and the target location requires getting past heavily fortified fortresses.
 

ZZoMBiE13

Ate My Neighbors
Oct 10, 2007
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Krantos said:
Fdzzaigl said:
The Nemesis system is great, but the OPness of the boring Talion character sorta kills it for me tbh.
Pro-tip: Turn off visual indicators for attacks (the little icons displaying when the enemies are going to attack). Makes the fights tons harder, but still doable as the enemies do telegraph their attacks pretty well. What ends up happening is you have to pay pretty close attention to all the orcs you're engaging to be ready for the counter move. When fighting a handful this is pretty simple, but once you get 10 or so orcs trying to kick down your back door it becomes legitimately challenging.
That's what I did for my second playthrough of Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. It changes the whole dynamic of the fights.

I wouldn't want to do that the first time though. The prompts served as good training wheels to learn the timing and whatnot. But it's a lot more exciting and empowering to watch for their tells. When you land a good 100 hit combo without the aids turned on it's very exciting.