Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

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The game looks perfectly able of delivering plenty in the way of mindless, throwaway fun. I'll likely pick it up when it hits the bargain bin.
 
I won't credit the game for it's originality, but since I do love the gameplay aspects of AC and Batman Arkham series, as long as they game itself is fun I won't mind one bit. Plus, the Nemesis system looks very intriguing and if done right and fully developed, could actually turn into a really exciting feature though I am a bit skeptical about it.

Will keep an eye on this game in the future.
 
Being both an AC fan big time and of Tolkien, I'm very eagerly waiting for this one!
 
The last good LotR game I've played is... damn... The Return of The King for PC all those years ago. I have fond memories of that, anyway...

This game really looks like Assassin's Creed [with added crouching] - the animation when he walks on that line between the roofs looks identical. Not to mention that two swords on the back reminded me of The Witcher. I wonder if this is at all inpired by Peter Jackson's movies - the design of the orcs, armors and such look different. Perhaps it is more in vain of that Fellowship of The Ring RPG game, that no one remembers anymore : ]
 
The last good LotR game I've played is... damn... The Return of The King for PC all those years ago. I have fond memories of that, anyway...

This game really looks like Assassin's Creed [with added crouching] - the animation when he walks on that line between the roofs looks identical. Not to mention that two swords on the back reminded me of The Witcher. I wonder if this is at all inpired by Peter Jackson's movies - the design of the orcs, armors and such look different. Perhaps it is more in vain of that Fellowship of The Ring RPG game, that no one remembers anymore : ]

The game is completely devoid of any originality. Every design concept shown looks borrowed. Even the Nemesis system seems like a poor man's attempt at CDPR's story driving gameplay approach.
 
The game looks interesting for me, as I liked the AC saga as well as being a huge LOTR fan. I do hope, though, that they don´t mess TOO bad with the lore...
That said, I´ll wait to see how it turns out, and I´ll probably get it when it´s on sale.

Regarding good LOTR games...
I really liked Battle for the Middle-Earth 2. I played lots of LAN multiplayer matches with my friends on that game, it was really fun.
I also kind of enjoyed The Third Age, a RPG-ish I played back in my PS2 times. It was too linear for my taste, but the overall idea of following the steps of the Fellowship during their journey was fun for me.
 
The game is completely devoid of any originality. Every design concept shown looks borrowed. Even the Nemesis system seems like a poor man's attempt at CDPR's story driving gameplay approach.

Really? I personally don't see any parallels with the Nemesis system and CDPR.
 
Personally I think it looks AWESOME! Sure, it looks like Assassins Creed, but who cares as long as the gameplay is awesome.
 
One thing in this game that not butchering the lore is orc models, they look like tormented elfs.

Why an ordinary southern ranger have The Broken Sword? Why he marks the orcs with White Hand of Saruman? How can anyone come with that wraith 3ull5hith !
 
So they finally done raped the IP :/ As cool as this looks, I cannot help but shudder at what they turned The Lord of the Rings into. Couldn’t they just have set this in a universe of their own? Tolkien must be spinning in his grave.
 
looks kinda fun. I don't like all the eye sore crap all over the screen, like numbers and glowing stars above the enemies head kills it for me. I want games to look and feel real without that kinda flash.

It's a game. If you want realism, I suggest real life. Or ArmA.

Your preferences are irrelevant. It's good game design. They're providing feedback to the player on the actions he's performing. You don't have to do that with numbers, could be done with other means. Regardless, the player is notified that his actions are registered and have a certain effect.

Your post worries me. I really suggest you find another medium to enjoy if a game actually looks like a game is something that bothers you. Because that kind of mentality really bothers me. Realism does not equate good game design. Consumers lack of knowledge is what's hurting this medium and it's the reason CoD is the number one selling game over and over again. Try not to add to those fucking statistics yeah...
 
One thing in this game that not butchering the lore is orc models, they look like tormented elfs.

Why an ordinary southern ranger have The Broken Sword? Why he marks the orcs with White Hand of Saruman? How can anyone come with that wraith 3ull5hith !
Good visual design demands different characters being recognizable through, for example, their silhouette. From what I saw, all the different orcs are varied, distinct and have their own little quirks. I'm not really an expert on LotR or anything but considering I've read The Lord of the Rings books, seen the movies, read Bilbo, seen the two movies based on the book, read parts of the Silmarrilion, played a lot of different LotR games, I have to ask, what the fuck does an Orc look? Feel free to educate me. I've seen so many different interpretations and different kinds of orcs, that I'm not aware that there is a stock, generic orc that every orc has to look like. I mean there's Gundabad orcs, Morgul orcs, Uruk-Hai, Moria Goblins (which are stated to be Orcs) so I don't know what you're talking about there.

The Broken Sword? Don't know what that is. Some kind of mythical heirloom or? I do find it interesting that he's carrying two swords though. I wonder where they got that idea ^^

Yeah I agree, that was the first thing I thought about. I'm gonna assume that it's incidental. You leave a scorch mark on the enemies in the Wraith world. That mark just happens to be an impression of your hand since you had to grab an enemy with your hand in order to perform whatever action we're talking about. I don't know. Who knows, maybe there's a significant lore point behind the similarities.

I'm gonna assume that leet speak translates to "bullshit"? Well like I said before, I'm no expert on LotR lore but what I'm gonna say has nothing to do with ones knowledge of a certain universe's rules or norms. I'm a proponent of taking certain ip's and just going bat shit nuts with it. Experiment, have fun, go wild. Someone said "hey! What if you could play a half human, half wraith in the Middle Earth fantasy setting?!" And on paper, that doesn't sound too bad to me. Wraiths are an aspect of LotR that hasn't been explored much, if at all. I find the concept quite intriguing. Mind you, I'm gonna assume the game's gonna be shit because 99% of all LotR based games are shit but the premise is cool. A human is left for dead, saved by a wraith, the two merge and embark on a quest of fury and revenge. It could work. And I'm sure they'll explain it in the narrative. If not, just consider this game a spin off (which it is) and nobody has to get hurt. Yay!

So they finally done raped the IP :/ As cool as this looks, I cannot help but shudder at what they turned The Lord of the Rings into. Couldn’t they just have set this in a universe of their own? Tolkien must be spinning in his grave.

Eh, I think they raped the IP far earlier than this :p

But I do agree, they could've set this in an universe of its own. Created a new franchise from scratch if they so desire. Though I'm really tired of how every game that comes out these days has to be a big multi game IP without any end. Milking the dumb filthy peasants to the end of times. Ah well, c'est la vie.

Though I don't think that Tolkien would mind. I think he'd be kinda excited to see his work flourish even today and exist in multiple mediums. I mean if we were talking about Alan Moore than yeah, he'd be pissed :p But good ol' JRR would probably just be happy to see that his work is still relevant. Taking artistic liberties with an old IP is kinda necessary I think. You need to be bold and do new shit. Otherwise, it'll stagnate and become dry and shit. Like so many other franchises has. So I'm all for change and new shit being introduced.
 
It's a game. If you want realism, I suggest real life. Or ArmA.

Your preferences are irrelevant. It's good game design. They're providing feedback to the player on the actions he's performing. You don't have to do that with numbers, could be done with other means. Regardless, the player is notified that his actions are registered and have a certain effect.

Your post worries me. I really suggest you find another medium to enjoy if a game actually looks like a game is something that bothers you. Because that kind of mentality really bothers me. Realism does not equate good game design. Consumers lack of knowledge is what's hurting this medium and it's the reason CoD is the number one selling game over and over again. Try not to add to those fucking statistics yeah...

arma's still a game, so your opening sentence is moot.

and it's not good game design, otherwise, we'd see it in a lot of games with good game designs. no, apparently it only shows up in bargain bin crap and call of duty and their counterparts in other genres.
 
Dude I will not ever play cod or that other game. You do not understand what I want. I want it to look like a movie not a simulater dude GTA V's little details make me believe I'm in a real open world. Shadow of Assassins Creed looks like the sims with all that clutter!!!
 
Taking artistic liberties with an old IP is kinda necessary I think. You need to be bold and do new shit. Otherwise, it'll stagnate and become dry and shit.
I strongly disagree with that. For one thing, once every two or three generations at the latest your audience is “reset” and you can just more or less retell the same story. There’s a reason why his books are still read by new people more than fifty years after their release. But even ignoring that simple truth, there are so many options open to them that they have not yet explored but which would stay far more true to the lore than ... than this. Like, what about a game following a Ranger of Ithilien on his defense of the Gondorian borders during the Third Age? Or for that matter, why not simply explore the previous ages? There’s huge potential there and, if you wanna do crazy stuff, there’s the place (well, the time) to do it because of less chance of fucking up existing plots.

To soften all this a bit: I like what I’m seeing in this trailer and if they can deliver on the claims in the video then it’s probably going to be a great game gameplay-wise. However, the fact that they insisted on basing it on the LOTR universe really bothers me and will presumably detract quite a bit of enjoyment from my experience of it.

Oh and I also agree with fracturedearth, there is no point in having numbers and stuff flashing up on the screen. You know that you get XP for enemies because you get XP for every enemy. Wonder how many more you need until the next level? Check the respective menu. Wanna know if you killed the enemy? Check if he’s still moving. This kind of additional feedback is really unnecessary and the “traditional” visual cues are already perfectly suitable to the task at hand.
 
There's only two ways you can make a good LOTR game.

One is to make it a 2D adventure game with beautiful graphics. Something similar to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c5QrnYYk3Y but with modern standards.

The other way would be to make it like The Elder Scrolls. A huge open world with lots of towns, readables, herb lore, roadside inns etc.

The biggest problem is that in Middle Earth while magic is present, it's not everywhere and I really doubt they'd take that into account. Wizards for instance are very special beings called Maia, who are in a lot of ways angels in the flesh of old men. The way I see it only Bethesda could make a worthy LOTR RPG. Skyrim and TES4 are the closest we'll ever get to the LOTR feeling.
 
Eh, I disagree. There’s more than those two ways. I’m sure exploring certain aspects of the LOTR story and universe via different viewpoints (e.g. my Ranger of Ithilien suggestion) could be the basis of a good game as well. Some of the Game Boy Advance games were also pretty nice and those don’t fit either of your categories either.
 
Good visual design demands different characters being recognizable through, for example, their silhouette. From what I saw, all the different orcs are varied, distinct and have their own little quirks. I'm not really an expert on LotR or anything but considering I've read The Lord of the Rings books, seen the movies, read Bilbo, seen the two movies based on the book, read parts of the Silmarrilion, played a lot of different LotR games, I have to ask, what the fuck does an Orc look? Feel free to educate me. I've seen so many different interpretations and different kinds of orcs, that I'm not aware that there is a stock, generic orc that every orc has to look like. I mean there's Gundabad orcs, Morgul orcs, Uruk-Hai, Moria Goblins (which are stated to be Orcs) so I don't know what you're talking about there.

The Broken Sword? Don't know what that is. Some kind of mythical heirloom or? I do find it interesting that he's carrying two swords though. I wonder where they got that idea ^^

Yeah I agree, that was the first thing I thought about. I'm gonna assume that it's incidental. You leave a scorch mark on the enemies in the Wraith world. That mark just happens to be an impression of your hand since you had to grab an enemy with your hand in order to perform whatever action we're talking about. I don't know. Who knows, maybe there's a significant lore point behind the similarities.

I'm gonna assume that leet speak translates to "bullshit"? Well like I said before, I'm no expert on LotR lore but what I'm gonna say has nothing to do with ones knowledge of a certain universe's rules or norms. I'm a proponent of taking certain ip's and just going bat shit nuts with it. Experiment, have fun, go wild. Someone said "hey! What if you could play a half human, half wraith in the Middle Earth fantasy setting?!" And on paper, that doesn't sound too bad to me. Wraiths are an aspect of LotR that hasn't been explored much, if at all. I find the concept quite intriguing. Mind you, I'm gonna assume the game's gonna be shit because 99% of all LotR based games are shit but the premise is cool. A human is left for dead, saved by a wraith, the two merge and embark on a quest of fury and revenge. It could work. And I'm sure they'll explain it in the narrative. If not, just consider this game a spin off (which it is) and nobody has to get hurt. Yay!

Yes orcs have different tribes but all of them created as elf by Eru then cursed by Melkor. Gundabad or Morgul all orcs look like a twisted elf because they are. Orcs from this game are caricature of elfs so i like it.

Don't you saw the first promotional illustration of the game? They drew exact copy of Narsil, sword that protected by heirs of Isildur.

Yes i said bullshit. I used numbers because i didn't know the mods reaction to such words in this forum until you use it. Unlike you i dont belive they can write a good story about a wraith, after all middle-earth dont have sparkling vampires or goody-goody Drizzt Do'Urdens.
 
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