It’s cheaper in other outlets: GamesPlanet UK has it for around €40, which is okay, I think.
$17 on Steam…
I love this series to pieces, but I’m still not sure why the Nemesis system is award-winning.
It was the award for best nemesis system.
IIRC the Nemesis system won some gameplay innovation awards from DICE or GDC.
So the definitive version of this is now near $20 on Fanatical with the code BLACKFRIDAY10:
https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/middle-earth-shadow-of-war-definitive-edition
If I wasn’t keen on the first one because I’m terrible at the combat, might this one be better?
Ummm , I am pretty sure its more of the same , sadly. Probably stick to Space Games.
The combat is pretty darn similar (it’s again, largely ripped straight from the Batman Arkham games). I do ok at it myself (you do need to do a Brave Sir Robin and run away sometimes early on), but if you don’t like it I wouldn’t expect you’d like it in this one.
Thanks guys. Maybe I’ll give the original another shot first.
Also, this game is much more involved/complicated, because you can recruit orc captains and level them up via arena battles, then use them in armies to take over fortresses and stuff.
Oh hey this came out on the XBox Game Pass thingy in July. I always said I’d only play it for $5, so, here we are.
I’ve got about three hours into it and it’s kinda fun… but holy shitballs are the controls are terrible. Especially after playing Assassin’s Creed Origins / Odyssey.
Get this, you have to hold down space to run. And you want to run all the time because walking speed is a slow walk. You literally never, ever want to walk. So that means you’ll be holding down space all the time. Also, space is your speed boost button so you’ll need to tap it for a boost, then go back to holding it down. All the time. WTF.
Shift is the default button for stealth. Which is stupid, of course. So I tried to rebind it to Control, as God intended. Nope, the game says re-binding stealth to Control will unbind a dozen other things, so, you have to go and rebind those dozen other things before I’ll let you out of this menu. The game literally won’t let me rebind it until I bow to its demands. I had to conceded defeat.
I googled some and some people said try the gamepad, as it was clearly designed to be played with one. Maybe it’s better, but you still have to hold down A to run all the time. Hardly a win, there.
Also, the Orc Captains who just won’t shut the fuck up every time you meet them. Once I encountered four of them in combat, it was hell. I was surrounded by orcs, fighting for my life, then the combat stops for a full minute while some stupid orc goes off on his life story. There’s no way to escape out of it. It finally ends, I get off two hits, then it starts up all over again with a different orc captain. This happened two more times. WTF were they thinking?
This is really cool, though -
Especially after playing AC:Odyssey which is quite content to keep eating 100% of the CPU while backgrounded to the point where it even makes browsing the web painful.
Anyway, between the terrible controls and the captains who won’t shut up I’m thinking of calling it on this. The 100+GB install doesn’t help, either.
No they aren’t, they are nearly flawless for an action game.
Oh. I see what the problem is.
Try one of these.
Does it work better if you chew on the cable? Maybe I’ve been doing it wrong the whole time.
The controls in this one are much tighter than they were in the first game, in my experience. I haven’t had any of the significant input frustrations I had with the first game. That said, I’m playing with a 360 controller.
Personally I’ve been hugely enjoying it, especially the vastly expanded Nemesis mechanics. They got strategy game in my action game, which is totally great.
The controls are “janky” compared to stuff like the Creed games. I got used to them eventually but definitely would hope any future games the developer redesigns/modernizes them
Also got round to this now it’s on gamepads… Having a lot of fun so far. Going to read this thread and see what everyone thought :)
By “gamepads” do you mean the Switch or something? Because I would think it had been on the main consoles since the beginning.
Gamepass
Indeed, GamePass :) I tried reading the thread but the chunk I skimmed was all about microtransactions so I gave up and am assuming I’m the first person to play it.
And it turned out to be pretty good :)
Quite a rich set of systems, with your wraithiness also lending a zip to movement and combat that’s welcome. If I were smarter I’d have played one fewer Assassin’s Creed and swapped this in instead.
The only bum note is how the ending is presented as… not really the ending :/