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Post by geneweigel on Feb 28, 2017 7:43:39 GMT -5
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Post by GRWelsh on Feb 28, 2017 8:32:14 GMT -5
I does look good. Did you finish the first one?
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Post by geneweigel on Feb 28, 2017 9:26:46 GMT -5
Yes, I played the hell out of it. Out of the highlights I'd say the detail of the orc personalities was great. The ghostly speed of the undead play (You're a ranger thats kept alive by the spirit of Celebrimbor the elf who made the one ring) was very addictive with arrow abilities that can make you magically appear where you aim in the distance and fast mounted combat.
Ultimately, I think it started as a STAR WARS vehicle that fell through then repackaged for LOTR. The new troll creatures were almost exact rancors. The new wargs were not exactly wargs more reptilian (dewbacks). The Celebrimbor thing is very ghost of Ben Kenobi and the ghost powers are parallel to jedi powers.
That said, there is a lot of good fantasy style in this game but I have the feeling that it was not originally so. With the sequel, will starting development in LOTR be a good or bad thing? I don't know. I just hope it doesn't go South like so many bad fantasy franchises (Dungeon Siege, Diablo, Warcraft, etc.)
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Post by GRWelsh on Feb 28, 2017 9:51:47 GMT -5
Yeah, it's a different premise for a LOTR game, that's for sure... I like the idea of developing the interior of Mordor as a sandbox. So, you've made a Ring of Power with Celebrimbor's wraith, and now you're going to challenge Sauron with it?
I've been playing LOTRO for years, and they're just now on the verge of doing Mordor. But I feel like SHADOW OF MORDOR stole that thunder...
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Post by geneweigel on Feb 28, 2017 12:33:45 GMT -5
It did the Southern sea area as well as the Black gate but it left the general interior plus Barad-Dur and Cirith Ungol/Shelob's Lair alone. So who knows? That would be interesting if they made Barad-Dur into a dungeon style atmosphere with various magical experiments.
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Post by GRWelsh on Feb 28, 2017 12:48:21 GMT -5
LOTRO does a pretty good job of detailing the primary sites from the books, so I expect them to do Cirith Ungol and Barad-Dur. They did Angmar when the game first came out (2007!) but rather than being a cold, snowy waste with some ruins, it was a lot more like how I envisioned Mordor to be... lots of black towers and fortresses, orc armies, hill-men, volcanic looking rock cliffs, and steaming mineral pools... a vibrant 'evil community.' I surmised that they were doing Angmar-as-Mordor on the assumption the game would never last long enough to grow the map south all the way to the real Mordor... But we're finally almost there. LOTRO's strengths are the visuals and soundtrack and attention to lore, but the gameplay is often a grind, boring and not challenging enough... That's my biggest complaint: don't just hand me everything on a mithril platter!
It's looks like SHADOW OF MORDOR and its sequel address this with a tactically challenging game.
So, you challenge Sauron with a new Ring of Power, and we know you have to fail in the end... but how will that go? Perhaps you will fail, but only after accomplishing something crucial to the plot... Helping Gollum escape, perhaps? Or getting information to Galadriel about how to get past the Watchers? I'm thinking it will have to be something like that: you are the 'untold hero' who didn't bring down Sauron yourself, but did something important that allows others to do so later.
This trailer makes me think of an 80's movie action hero... "I'm coming for you, Sauron... and this time, it's PERSONAL!" (spits out cigar and starts striding towards Barad-Dur).
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Post by Scott on Feb 28, 2017 21:15:08 GMT -5
We have the first one, but I've never played it. Watched Gavin play for a bit, but never got around to starting it myself.
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Post by geneweigel on Apr 21, 2017 13:58:31 GMT -5
I just watched a bit of gameplay of this and its pretty interesting. Like a small scale army-based siege strategy combined with all the original game's elements: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xg2-NC8IjwNow its starting to look like one of my D&D games! |
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Post by GRWelsh on Jan 10, 2020 12:38:31 GMT -5
In our generation, you're officially old not when you get gray hair or your AARP card, but when you'd rather watch the cutscenes of a video game than play it! So, I'm officially old. I just watched the cutscenes movie for SHADOW OF WAR and enjoyed not having to fiddle around with learning gameplay, solving annoying puzzles, repetitive combat, etc. They play fast and loose with the lore in this story, but I didn't mind since it is a solid tale with an intriguing premise. The concept of two beings inhabiting one body united in their desire for revenge was a good one. The voice acting for Celebrimbor was great, although I think that personality was a lot more like Feanor than Celebrimbor (in the books, Feanor and Curufin were the proud assholes, and Celebrimbor was a decent guy). Carnán was very well done, and in line with nature spirits of Arda such as Goldberry being "river-woman's daughter" of or Caradhras being a mountain spirit. Her cadence of speech was off just enough to hint at the archaic. Giving the orcs and trolls a 'bloke culture' was a good choice as well, as it allowed them to provide some comic relief and there was a precedence set for this in THE HOBBIT and to an extent the orcs of Isengard and Cirith Ungol. There was a clever nod to the old controversy over whether balrogs have wings with the answer of: "They sort of do, but not really!"
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