Lord of the Rings: Shadow of Mordor

Is anyone else interested in this game? It's building up to be a pretty good Batman: Arkham action stealth title clone, and therefore, most likely the best LOTR game ever made. I'm keeping an eye on it, although I probably won't pick it up at launch. 

Here's information on the (pretty rubbish sounding) season pass, and a video:

• Exclusive 'Guardians of the Flaming Eye' Orc Warband mission:
  
  
  
  • Players will face Sauron's elite Defenders before the Black Gate and earn the Rising Flame rune
    
  
  
  

• Early access to the Trials of War challenge series:
  
  
  
  • Players will test their skills against select legions of Sauron's forces in this series of challenge modes and build their legend as gamers post their best score on the Challenge Leaderboard
    
  
  
  

• All new story missions with hours of gameplay:
  
  
  
  • Lord of the Hunt - Hunt the wild beasts of Mordor as player's discover hidden lairs, earn unique runes and face off against powerful monsters.
    
  • The Bright Lord - Play as Celebrimbor, the great Elven smith of the Second Age, and battle against Sauron and the might of his forces
    
  
  
  

• Access to future content:
  
  
  
  • Including runes, skins and additional future add-on content.
    
  
  
  

I'm looking forward to Shadows of Mordor but I think I will be either waiting for the inevitable price drop or just shove it on my Chrimbo list. I've got the Collector's Eds of Destiny and Dragon Age: Inquisition on order so money will be tight the next few months

I'm kind-of looking forward to it. Lotr games haven't covered themselves in glory before (Two Towers film tie-in and Lego aside   ).

It looks alright but for me the best Lord of the rings game so far is  The Third Age which was on cube, ps2 etc   I loved that blooming game...

I also had a soft spot for the old spectrum one  lol

I would say Lego LOTR is the best game in the series. The Battle for Middle Earth games are decent as well, but I'm not really a massive RTS fan, so couldn't say they are a favourite of mine. I have been quite enjoying War in the North recently. It's a poor game, but I've got into it, and been really liking it despite its obvious flaws.

I've got War in the North in my pile of shame. Picked up a collectors edition (massive ice troll (?) statuette    ) in an Amazon sale c18 months ago. Never opened it!

Both tie-ins on the GameCube were decent but I prefer Two Towers. I had Battle for Middle Earth, completed it but didn't think it was great (licence carried it - I doubt I'd have bothered but for that).

I used to love the EA PS2 Two Tower game. It was epic!

The Return of the King one wasn't half bad either.

Sometimes a love of the sorce material can pull you through nearly anything, sometimes its just the cherry on the cake but sometimes it can actually make you more pissed off with stuff because it doesnt live up to what your holding it against...

I am a real lord of the rings geek I first read the book when I was 8 and I even have elvish tattoo'd on my wrist....

I hope the games good because Id like to take any opportunity I can to see more of that world

I actually pre-ordered this today! 

I really like the look of this.  The enemy system sounds really interesting and the combat looks great.  Mix that in with Assassins Creed style exploration and this is right up my street.  Cant wait.

I was watching some streams of this yesterday and it looks really quite good. Going on the Christmas list I think!

Ladt ime i looked uou can get it on console for around £35 and I paid £20 for the PC version.

This was not on my radar at all until some of the reviews started showing up and after reading about the (awesome sounding) Nemesis system, I just HAD to pick this up.

Game arrived earlier today but due to bad planning on my part, I've not had a chance to give it a look yet.

Some early impressions will follow once I do manage to get some time with it.

The urge to get this game is growing but I need to save my pennies for my Dragon Age: Inquisition collectors edition.

Loads of love around for this and from what I've read and seen it's right up my street.

Some spoiler free initial thoughts have now been posted in the 'Early Impressions' thread.

Traded in a bunch of stuff and bought this yesterday. Really enjoying it so far but I'm struggling at the moment because I have been trying to take down a few of the Warchiefs.

In my various attempts I have seemingly created an army of orc killing machines due to the number of times I have died. I now have a group of high level captains that all seem to be hanging around together so that whenever I attack one suddenly they are all there and I get quickly killed

Free DLC this week:

• Play as the Black Hand of Sauron
  
• Epic Runes including:
  
  
  
  • One with Nature – Immunity to Poison attacks from Uruk Captains or Ghuls.
    
  • Ascendant – Double Focus Time for slow motion ranged combat.
    
  • Elven Grace – Increased defence which halves the damage of enemy strikes.
    
  
  
  

I need that Elven Grace rune ASAP!

cal_el wrote:I need that Elven Grace rune ASAP!

TBF, you level up so quickly once things get going it won't be long until you're overpowered.

That said, the One with Nature rune sure as hell would have come in handy during my playthrough.

Ok guys I've been playing this and even out in a fair amount of time but I'm just not getting into it. The constant stream if enemies is just depressing and it is getting frustrating. The nemesis system is just boring me. The stealth is borderline broken. The combat is sub Arkham style but you end up getting over run by enemies anyway and the map is small and really grey. 

What tips can anyone give me to make this game more enjoyable? Or to make it easier as I die so often. I want to finish it and get to the end but it's a struggle to play!

Wolvieware wrote:Ok guys I've been playing this and even out in a fair amount of time but I'm just not getting into it. The constant stream if enemies is just depressing and it is getting frustrating. The nemesis system is just boring me. The stealth is borderline broken. The combat is sub Arkham style but you end up getting over run by enemies anyway and the map is small and really grey. 

What tips can anyone give me to make this game more enjoyable? Or to make it easier as I die so often. I want to finish it and get to the end but it's a struggle to play!

You've reached the wall. It happened to me, it becomes unrelenting for a while and you will die a fair few times. But then something will snap and you'll go on a glorious revenge mission to kill all the Orc Captains and Warchiefs in one epic session and then the game will open up even more for you

You're just underpowered at the moment, do some of the side stuff and use the nemesis system to find and pick off the weaker captains. Also if you can, take out the more powerful ones by exploiting their weaknesses.

I managed to kill an Orc captain that killed you Cal  it came up as a vendetta mission on the map. 

Still struggling with this and had to force myself back to it now that AssCreed has arrived. Probably my most disappointing game this year.

I've unlocked the second area now, and the 
Game really has hit its stride now. I even had some fun playing it! About time. The Wall is very much present and takes far too long to overcome, but hopefully the game remains fun to the end now. The prospect of a new area does make it feel much fresher and has inspired me or play more.

I'm afraid to say, I am giving up with this game. 

After 23 hours of effort, I have decided that the amount of time to put in to the game, times the amount of fun I have playing the game, divided by the small amount of time I have to play games, equals not really worth playing. Also, the fact that late on into the game (literally I have two main missions and a handful of side missions to go) it throws a complete brick wall at you, is just poor gaming. To progress onto these few remaining missions, you need to brand 5 warchiefs. The effort to do this, as my handy equation above dictates, just makes it not worth the effort. 

Shadow of Mordor leaves me very conflicted. I was really looking forward to it, but its not that great. But its not a bad game either. I think if you click with it, you love it. And for a brief moment of time, I did click with it, and wittled through the game. It wasn't without putting that effort in though. The opening is poor, not really doing a very good job of introducing things or the games concept to you. Plus the unremitting difficulty on an unlevelled up character makes it absurdly hard to really get into the game. My love of the IP got me through those early stages, however, I don't think it was as Tolkienesque as it could have been, and more familiar characters or locations could have been involved. Same with the storylines, which are short, trite, and don't really do much, although cutscenes are very well presented, which almost makes it a shame they don't do anything interesting. 

Eventually, after really slogging through, and levelling up and upgrading, and getting my head through the nemesis system - which is the total crux of the game - I suddenly stopped dying and flew! I rattled through orcs, missions and assassinations like a master, and finally - finally! - it lived up to its promise, and you felt like a badass, and could do anything, and it was actually fun. And again, just as I am now reaching the end, it throws down that one wall again. Despite giving it a shot many times over the last few gaming sessions, I've not managed to progress past this bit, and have decided this is wasting my "precioussssssss" gaming time, on a mission I'm not enjoying, on a game that hasn't really earned my love, but which I battled through to try and enjoy and momentarily did. It's not a bad game, but its certainly not for me. It's a shame to get so close to the end, but not make it, but the amount of time to complete that last hurdle is not worth it. Not when I'm only getting a few hours of gaming in a week, and I would rather be finishing off Alien or Unity, games I am loving.

I really need to go back and finish this off!

When I play it I have a lot of fun despite the very grind intensive parts of the game. Like you say Wolvie when it works it is great but there is a lot of plodding about and filling in the spaces between it being an awesome gameplay experience.