One of the best action sandbox I’ve played this year doomed itself with lazy writing.
Released on September 30 2014, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is 10 years old today, and it's still the best blueprint for the LOTR franchise.
Honestly, just a fantastic game/series (aside from the blunder of Microtransactions/grinding). The system with the orcs was amazing.. which it would be implemented in more games.
They patented the system, sadly. What that means legally I am not sure. But people don’t want to test the water.
I feel you bro. The experience got better once I tried it on PC, but I'm still probably only going to finish the Galadriel DLC and not the main campaign.
Me too lol. I beat Mordor, never beat War lol. I have it though so I could always go back and play it. I genuinely think the time will come that I can beat my backlog. Maybe when I hit the lotto and can just play video games all day, on my yacht.
This game convinced me to buy a new console. There was a huge difference between the previous gen (Xbox360/ PS3) & the latest gen (Xbox One/ PS4) . The Nemesis System was only available in Xbox One/ PS4 . That was how a generation shift should be.
Unfortunately, the open worlds in games like Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, Halo Infinite, and the original Assassin's Creed do more harm than good.
I legitimately loved Halo's switch to open world. They made traversal of the map entertaining, and everything involved just tied into the (what I consider) awesome gunplay.
The entire time I really felt the slow takeover of the map, and all the little steps forward felt satisfying.
I don't know what more people really want there, considering the setting and story. A handful of soldiers hunkered down on enemy territory; slowly trying to win the battle.
I agree I liked the switch to the open world, it was large with beautiful land scapes. However, it did feel a bit empty, and wasn’t as action packed as I would have liked. A lot of the bases felt like fillers instead of something of wonder. Let’s see what 343 under new management does from here cause Halo needs some updating
I'm surprised they scrapped the Slipspace engine. I thought the graphics looked great, the sandbox physics were as good as ever, and the AI worked well. Clearly a lot of work went into it and it appears to have been optimized for the new generation of GPUs. The only issue I had with it was the lack of environments, would have been cool to have different biomes on the ring to explore. A bit more variety in missions would have been nice, maybe some timed events where you have to manuever a banshee through forerunner architecture or some mongoose speedruns would have spiced things up.
I think R* are the only ones who have made compelling open worlds. I can’t stomach most open world games and how boring they are with busy world. It’s like a flex to make this massive environment, but it’s extremely boring to traverse and play in. GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 blew me away with how incredible their worlds were. Elden Ring was the only other game to give me that sense of awe.
GTA V and unfortunately, Saints Row the original have had some of the most aggressive open world features where the world doesn’t feel so bland. To me what makes GTA V so special is the way the characters react to the world around them vs how the world reacts to them. For example, in GTA when you switch to Franklin and he walked past an attractive female he responded “ damn you fine” or in Saints row you can run up in the pawn shop flash a gun and watch them respond by raising their hands in the air, or they press the silent alarm making you have to run away from the cops. Halo infinite doesn’t have those kind of moments that make you feel apart of the world it just feels like it’s there.
Trevor talking to random vegan npc: "You suck c*ck, but you don't eat meat.... It don't make sense to me "
Classic. Such a shame we won't get that humour again now that R* have gone all in on virtue.
AC Odyssey with the next gen patch is pretty incredible, especially if you like a sea shantie. Lol.
I’m back on an open world kick after Horizon. I don’t know what clicked in me but exploring the map and seeing the detail work has me loving open worlds again. Playing AC Odyssey on hard and really enjoying it and the map. Reinstalling RDR2 tonight because damn, that map is just incredible for sightseeing.
Halo Infinite felt off. It's like the developers didn't know what they really wanted to do
Depends on which open world titles u play, most of em are shitty AF, but I honestly admire open world genre, sometimes to just take a break from fighting and missions you explore n see details you haven't noticed before cause you were too busy body at first, then boom finding some dope equipment or things to sale
GF365: "Most games are not perfect and that may be because of a character or an enemy. Here are 10 mediocre bosses in great games."
The Pursuer from Dark Spuls 2 was great, I think the author just sucks at games.
I completely disagree toward the end. Now, I'm a person that prefers narrative driven games and I can stomach some of the worst gameplay provided a story is engaging and well written, but to say that a poorly told story isn't enough? No, not every single game needs a complex and well told story. It really depends on the game whether or not the story is that important to the overall experience.
The poorly told story that comes to an abrupt close with a half assed boss fight was certainly a damper on the overall experience, but that alone isn't what kept the game from being excellent. Would you ever fault a fighting game or a Duke Nukem style game that's all about gameplay and style for having a bad story? Gears of War 3 is one of my favorite games of the last generation and in my opinion, the story fell way short of what they were trying to achieve. That whole "emotional" moment with Dom for me was laughable at best.
I don't understand how people cried over that, but does that alone keep Gears of War 3 from being one of my favorites of recent memory? No. On the flip side, something like The Last of Us certainly wouldn't have been the same kind of experience had it had a poorly told story with weak characters. It really depends on the type of game it is, what tone it's going for, and how closely they try to tie gameplay mechanics and story together.
Ok, let's check out the author's own shoddy writing.
Right off the bat we get this...
"tinkering with an established canon’s can turn hardcore nerds into rabid beasts."
So tinkering with an established canon is can? Right.
"This builds up your combo meter so you to pull off special moves almost immediately."
So you to pull off? What?
"I don’t care where a game get’s its ideas from..."
A game get is its ideas from. Ok.
"so I’m happy that there’s something to take it’s place for now."
Something to take it is place for now. Doing well so far.
"It’s awesome to meet up with an orcs..."
An orcs? Wow, you managed to make a singular into a plural at the same time.
"whereas I am not going back to that desert island in Black Flag to get that forgotten collectibles.."
And you managed to do it again. What linguistic prowess.
(The next bit is off the analysis record)
"Talion is the same gritty, gravelly voiced, overly depressed protagonist that we’ve met a thousand times before. I do wish developers would stop using the Max Payne story arch, or at least develop it beyond that basic formula."
Oh woe is me, a developer uses what has traditionally been well received when sales data is analyzed as a main character. When shall we have a purple midget lady, who for some reason has a beard, suffering from a random mental disorder like Disassociated Identity Disorder going around slaying mythical creatures like orcs with extreme prejudice? Why can't we at least play as the completely original concept known as the Scottish Dwarf who wields a hammer?
Honestly, that complaint is its own trope. I know some beautiful women, I bet I can start a Kickstarter with one of them as the spokesperson trying to sell my youtube series called Tropes vs. Tropes in Video Games, get 160K and take 3 to 4 years to produce 5 youtube quality, pseudo-academic videos about just this kind of complaint. But I digress.
(Continuing analysis)
"Finding out who he was and how he ended up as a wraith was one of the high points of the game adds some interesting facets to the Lord of the Rings mythology but it’s not enough to redeem the writing."
Can you guess what's wrong here?
"Shadow of Mordor feels like it was written by committee, they’ve taken a standard character archetype, inserted the recognisable figures of Gollum and Sauron, and set it against a backdrop of pure cliche."
Punctuation issue here, guess where.
End of analysis
"And please, no more miserable men on quests for vengeance!"
MORE DIMINUTIVE PURPLE WOMEN WITH D.I.D. AND BEARDS ON QUESTS FOR... MEDS? I don't know.
Anyway, I'm no English teacher. I definitely don't have a perfect command of grammar, syntax, and every other aspect of writing. My purpose with this is to say to you that one who barely knows how to write themselves has no real business trying to tell others how to write, whether it be grammatically or in literary style.
This seems like a lot of nitpicking, and so I showed you what that really comes off as.
The story was fine, the ending to the game was fine. Never understood how people could freak out over either.
Neither were particularly amazing (and indeed, seem positively barebones now that I'm in the middle of an epic Dragon Age 3 run), but to say that the writing or story ruined or even particularly impacted my enjoyment of SoM would be woefully untrue.
That game lived and breathed on the combat and the Nemesis-driven vignettes that punctuated the encounters. The storyline wasn't epic, but it would be fairly hard to jam a 'new, epic story' into the Tolkien world without annoying a lot of fans. I'm fine with the light approach they took to storytelling, and don't think it impacted the quality or enjoyment of the game at all.
I bought this the other day and I think it's a fantastic game. The way it works with the nemisis system is just inspired. I applaud game developers that come out with original and innovative ideas such as this. It is immense fun conquering that system.
The story was better than most of the games I've played this year, it's not going to win any awards but it's more than servicable.
The gameplay is key though, and with that I think SOM makes great strides.
A great game.
The story is well written, the problem is that it´s bad told. I've not finished the game yet but what i think is that the story is simple and is filled with tons of mission to make your time worthy, the thing is that those mission have nothing really important to tell, the story doesn't move forward but the writting is still good and the whole world is very rich in terms of story.
For what I can see, the main story should last like 90' in a movie. Bad guys kills you and your family in a ritual, you must seek revenge. The End. It doesn't seem to happen much more than that.