Middle of War: Earth Shadow - aka Batman Mordor Knight 2

No Pizza Rolls for me, but I am loving the game. Same open world mayhem generation from the first just with lots more places and lots more options.

The game shits too much on established lore so I’ll have to pass. I played the first game and it was terrible fanfic nonsense but nothing as remotely as bad as the Shelob thing.

Also I never liked the overdone open world model of Assassin’s Creed (with mission revealing towers and mission start icons and mini-game challenges, and everything. Fuck that noise)

I’m like 5 hours into it and I’m still not doing the ‘building armies’ stuff. It’s a fun game, but I’m getting increasingly annoyed by little things. The story and characters are, of course, awful. Talion annoyed me in the first game, and now I basically despise him.

The orc’s monologues are less original/charming this time around, and I mostly wish I could skip them. I don’t necessarily see myself playing anymore after my first session.

The orc monologues got pretty masturbatory. Two pages of text? Really? Man, we just need one-liners for these encounters.

Have you been beelining through the story or doing side stuff? I’m about the same distance in, maybe 4 hours, but deliberately doing only story missions, and have just got to the building army stage.

Reports on nGAF are saying you have to rebuild your army from scratch 5 times throughout the game as you progress and move to new areas.

I like it personally, even if the canon police riot over it.

It really does expand on Shelob a ton, making her more than just “Some Random Giant Spider.” I’m at the start of act 2 now and i’ve ended up liking her character quite a bit so far.

It took me a long time to get to this stage as well. I was doing all of the little quests and points of interest though.

Also on Nemesis if that matters.

Gaming With Character is back after a year long hiatus , new youtube page also…

Best reviews ever! 8.69253 outta 10

+1 like for the Hemingway reference. Subscribed (well, I already was). Endorsed.

Shelob isn’t ‘random giant spider’ in the Tolkien lore. Her origin as the offspring of the Ungolliant is very thematically important, and does come through in her actions.

Now, granted, the depth of that only comes if you’ve read The Silmarillion. But I have, so the sexy shelob thing really ticks me off something fierce. Like I would actively hate the game for it. I was able to get past the lore problems of the first game, and enjoy it for what it was. But this is a bridge to far for me, especially when combined with the other issues.

Nerd!

I don’t know enough Tolkien lore to have any reaction to this game’s BabeShelob other than: “Huh…?”

-Tom

Seems like this is selling well on PC. New peak of 66k players today.

http://steamcharts.com/app/356190

Around 300k owners.

I musta missed the Hemingway reference…

That doesn’t actually seem like the kind of number that would make the publisher of a AAA game with the LotR license very pleased, but I could be wrong.

I would expect this kind of game to favor console ownership.

And as someone who has read the Silmarillion multiple times the Shelob stuff doesn’t bother me. Retconning the fall of Minas Ithil to occur between The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings is a far more egregious change.

@mono may the heavens now grant you peace, Ranger, your death been avenged

LOL. Much obliged @Jack_Howitzer. Golm Death Bone had it coming.

I’m nearly about to stop playing this game due to tank enemies with shields becoming basically impossible to kill once they adapt to everything.

The worst one i fought can heal himself and also defied death. So after he defied death, he was immune to everything except basic attacks. Because he has a shield, he is basically immune to beasts even though he can be damaged by beasts.

So now i have an enemy which can probably 3 hit me and takes about half an hour to slowly beat down.

I wish there was a way to disable enemies adapting because it completely ruins the nemesis system when many enemies just disable their vulnerabilities mid fight.