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Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PC/PS4/PS3/360/XB1)

Mercedes

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Cue a brand new game I absolutely can't wait for, revealed with the latest issue of GameInformer.

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As movie audiences gear up for the next installment of The Hobbit, gamers now have their own Tolkien project to get excited about. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is on its way to a game screen near you on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. Developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, we feel the upcoming game showcases some of the gameplay innovation potential now possible on next-generation consoles through its groundbreaking Nemesis System.

While many previous games set in Middle-earth have revolved around the major events or characters depicted in Tolkien's books, Shadow of Mordor offers a new chapter that fits comfortably between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Players control a lone ranger by the name of Talion as he journeys deep into the heart of Mordor in the days before it transforms into a blasted hellscape. Along the way, developer Monolith is exploring a fascinating next-gen approach to enemies, encounters, and storytelling, one in which every player shapes their own story through the choices they make. The Nemesis System assures that every enemy you fight is a named foe, and if they survive their battle with you, they continue to grow, improve, and act in the world, even as you attempt to do the same with Talion. Our cover story recounts our extensive look at the game in action, from combat and leveling to story and setting.

GI, via NeoGAF

So it's an open-world action game set as a prequel to the Lord of the Rings, back when Mordor wasn't the uninhabitable Orc homeland that it is during the movies, made by the guys who brought us F.E.A.R and Condemned, Monolith Productions. And our hero is a Wraith-infused Ranger...

Just tell me where to pre-order, Monolith, and I will.

Also, before anyone is wondering, yes, there is apparently no Wii U version of this game coming, being confined simply to both generations of Microsoft and Sony's consoles, as well as the PC.

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Ronin

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A Lord of the Rings game developed by Monolith, you say?

Definitely worth looking into.
 

Ventus

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A Lord of the Rings game developed by Monolith, you say?

Just as a headsup, Monolith Productions =/= Monolith Soft.
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This isn't worth my time to be honest. Last couple of LotR games were touted as amazing, when in reality they weren't so. Opinions and other shizzle aside, Monolith Productions better show that they can be true to their word.
 

Mercedes

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Ventus said:
This isn't worth my time to be honest. Last couple of LotR games were touted as amazing, when in reality they weren't so. Opinions and other shizzle aside, Monolith Productions better show that they can be true to their word.

Well unlike recent LoTR games, like Snowblind's War in the North, Monolith's actually a good developer, and the project seems much bigger. :P Peter Jackson's involved, somehow, and in a pretty cool turn of events so is Weta, who did costumes and design, and CGI like Gollum, for the Lord of the Rings movies. So it's going to look the part I'd hope.

Also a summary by a GAF member, Derrick01.

-Every enemy has a name, rank and memory. If you don't kill them in an encounter for whatever reason they will remember you later on and change their tactics, not only getting stronger in level but learning new immunities. Enemy dialogue changes because of your previous encounters as well.

-Enemies have their own jobs to do and their AI allows them to do certain things on their own. For example an Orc you have to kill may be dueling another at one point or he may be doing whatever his higher ranking officer assigned him to do. It all progresses in real time with or without your interference.

-If an enemy kills you in battle you don't "die" in the traditional sense. You do eventually respawn but time in the world passed (they didn't say how long). During this time the enemy that killed you was likely promoted because of him killing you or he could have been killed somehow (like losing one of the duels I mentioned above).

-If your objective is to kill a high ranking warlord you can do it in several ways. One way would be chipping away at everyone under his rank and either killing them or making them become "agents" for you which will enable you to launch ambushes on their base or possibly even assassinate the warlord by making his 2nd in command your agent. However it's not guaranteed, the 2nd in command can fail and be killed but he may have partial success as well which takes a chunk of the warlord's health away to make your battle easier.

-The combat seems like it takes cues from the Batman games. They mentioned there was a rhythm to it and you get to keep a combo multiplier going.

-It's fully open world so it has all of the stuff you'd expect. XP, skills, sidequests, random events (hell the whole game is basically a random event with that nemesis system and the AI working on their own even when enemies aren't on screen).

-You get to use normal melee combat, stealth with a dagger or ranged with a bow. How you level those up depends on what you took the target out with. A stealth kill will get you a special rune to use on stealth skills, direct combat will get you a melee rune and so on.

Please be good, please be good, please be good. <3
 

Justac00lguy

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Sounds interesting I guess, I'm not familiar with the developer so I can't necessarily say that I'm interested in them doing this project.

I'm a fan of the Lord of the Rings series in general but their games, bar the movie based game: Fellowship of the Ring, were all quite poor and even the game I mentioned was nothing special. I guess time will tell, words are just words at the moment, they may make the game seem amazing but I've been fooled by such hype before - what I'm trying to say is that I won't jump to any conclusions until I see actual gameplay.
 

Mercedes

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Gameplay walkthrough! Pre-alpha, mind. And is a little bit gory for people who don't like that.

[video=youtube;Bl9J_ewx3Rg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl9J_ewx3Rg[/video]

Looks very awesome, all the mechanics seem great! Pays homage to a lot of other franchises, seems quite Assassins Creedy, but the Nemesis system is really creative and I'm excited to use it.

I was iffy about the Wraith stuff to begin with but seeing it in action it does seem to add a lot more than the generic stuff I expected, looks like it'll add a lot to gameplay. And finally we see a cape not clipping into the model, yay for next-gen! I expected some cool things from Monolith and it doesn't look like they'll disappoint. I love LoTR too so having Peter Jackon and co. involved I hope they do make a cool world. Too early to say anything but we might be seeing a good LoTR game finally, plzplzplz be true.
 
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Another high-profile game skipping the Wii U? Yet it's also coming to last-gen consoles? Why am I not surprised?

I'm going to say this right here and right now, because I know where this is going.

This is a thread about a Lord of the Rings game. Not about the WiiU, and not about why it's not on the WiiU. Please refrain from making another thread go wildly off topic.

Carry on.
 

CraptainFalcon

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I've never read any LotR books or the Hobbit, but I have watched The Two Towers. This game looks sick. Assassin's Creed: Middle-Earth style!
 

Mercedes

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I've never read any LotR books or the Hobbit, but I have watched The Two Towers. This game looks sick. Assassin's Creed: Middle-Earth style!

Lol, yeah! You should watch all the movies, they're really good, and the director Peter Jackson is actually involved with this. To kind of keep it on track. :)

I really like the look of how you don't just get a big objective marker basically saying 'Assassinate him'. You actually need to find the people in charge, scout them out, use them to find out who's really in-charge and take him down by going after people beneath him. The climbing and combat looks fun but not exactly original, very much Assassin's Creed meets the Arkham games, but that Nemesis system seems so creative and fresh I can't wait to play this game!
 

Curmudgeon

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-Every enemy has a name, rank and memory. If you don't kill them in an encounter for whatever reason they will remember you later on and change their tactics, not only getting stronger in level but learning new immunities. Enemy dialogue changes because of your previous encounters as well.

A game is rewarding me for my OCD kill-everything-on-the-screen tendencies?

Where do I sign up?!
 

Justac00lguy

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I'm liking the grandeur of the project; however that comes with consequences if the game isn't fully up to par. You know the old phrase: "The bigger they are the harder the fall". I get a feeling that this could happen given the ambition and scale. Though, I'm not jumping to conclusions, let's just hope it delivers what it promises.

I'll be interested in the lore as well most likely as that is one for the series' strong points in my opinion. I'm also really loving the concept of the game and scale their going for; however, for some reason I keep seeing this as they've basically mirrored Assassins Creed gameplay and traversing. Even the animation look similar, even that special ability that they showcased is strikingly similar to one seen in the AC series.

I'm sure it has enough to differentiate itself from that series; I just hope they're not copying it too much.
 
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I'm actually pretty hyped up for this game. Found out about it yesterday when Adam Sessler did an interview with one of the game developers.

[video=youtube;TipIJ75tE_I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TipIJ75tE_I[/video]

It pretty much is an Assassin's Creed clone, along with taking elements from other beat em up games like the Arkham franchise and implementing an interesting leveling up system from what I have seen.
 

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