Month: August 2017

Okay I can finally answer this! I wanted to finish playing Story Mode and Brightlord before compiling my thoughts so here we go:

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THINGS I LOVED: 

1) Overall, the use of canon. 

“’The IP is not just window dressing,’ he said. ‘You can’t just take a game and slap an IP on it. When the time and care is taken to have gameplay that, as the person is playing the game, it reinforces or evokes the setting that the game occupies, you come to the end of the game and the game might actually become a part of your concept of the whole IP.’”

I really believe they tried hard to live by this concept throughout SoM. As a Tolkien fan, I felt very catered to. XD But also, rather than just shoehorn in as many book references as possible, they really carefully wove together a scenario that feels very in media res; the feeling of being really inside the events of the pre-trilogy timeline is what made it so remarkable to me. They didn’t just plop you in the middle of something already pre-fabricated by the movie franchise, they constructed something believable between the scenes.  And I LOVE all the details in the item descriptions, all the little nods to continuity, all the untranslated Sindarin, the building of your own wall of ithilden… the general trust the devs have that you’re familiar enough with Tolkien to know what’s what. You don’t HAVE to know it; it won’t damage your gameplay experience to just run around killing orcs, but the experience is so much richer if you’re part of the intended audience for the game, and that feels nice. I very rarely get to be the intended audience for anything.

2) The focus on the common inhabitants of Gondor and Mordor; the soldiery and the civilians. The use of the Outcasts to highlight the sometimes uncomfortable similarities between Mordor and Gondor made my little anti-colonial heart sing with joy. And the War Letters!!!  :’D Just exactly what I live for, in terms of humanizing orcs without making them cuddly. 

One of Talion’s charms (and he wasn’t exactly my favorite part of the game, but I’ll get to that later) is that he’s like very much just a guy manning the wall, doing his job, trying to raise his son, having family disputes with his in-laws, and trying to make a better life for himself and his wife. He’s like Beregond in that respect. He’s definitely got all the badassery of being a Ranger™, but his place in the overall scheme of things is not remarkable, and from that vantage point we got to see some of the daily grind of Gondor’s soldier during the Watchful Peace. And this is important because the daily grind has become so routine, so complacent, so relatable– and it’s what makes Sauron’s return so devastating. 

3) Again, overall, the dialogue and acting. 

Mind you, there were some NPCs that got a little wild with their accents and, er… enthusiasm. But on the whole I found the main cast to be on point. Like, hey! The opening cinematics actually got to me; ME, a jaded queer with no particular patience for heterosexual drama and fridged wives. It was also a wonderful bit of game design, having Talion’s memories introduce you to both the character’s backstory and the basic game mechanics (the two bits of awkward but necessary exposition that almost every game struggles to integrate) at the same time, while gradually increasing the level of peril. 

4) CELE-FUCKING-BRIMBOR

This Celebrimbor was Not My Celebrimbor™. But he was a delicious Celebrimbor. This was Celebrimbor at the Max Fëanorian setting; at his most distant, cold, and pragmatic; a Celebrimbor whose compassion and humanity were the first things to be devoured by the Ring. His ends do not justify the means in the slightest, but damn is it a thing of beauty to watch him go. 

He was such an interesting choice to be the catalyst for this story! And in retrospect, the perfect character, with the most untapped potential, for pitting against Sauron in an untold epic. We finally get to see the outcome of what the trilogy tantalizes us with repeatedly– the future that Galadriel sees for herself and what Gandalf warns us about, should they attempt to actually use the Ring for good. And we get to see its effects in real time: the longer Talion spends fused with Celebrimbor’s spirit, the less he questions his motives for building an army, the more he forgets his own more humble motivations, the more he merely echoes whatever sentiment Celebrimbor’s wraith whispers in his head. Celebrimbor’s influence IS the Ring’s influence; the terrifying result of that worst case scenario of a High Elf being corrupted by the dark lord’s power, if not his will; he is shining and terrible and a scourge of brightness that would enslave and consume everything it touches to fuel its fire. He is NOT a good guy. We are absolutely not playing heroes in this game– a game where the antagonist is Sauron. 

Watching Celebrimbor’s memories of him accepting Annatar into Eregion make it clear how perfectly they compliment each other. They way they seamlessly work together and admire each other’s work makes it that much more poetic in Brightlord, when he and Sauron are snarling at each other over the battlefield like a dog growling at itself in a mirror, with coordinated dialogue exchanges that are inversions of each other’s logic that meet in the middle at a stalemate.  

5) The willingness of the game to let you play out this storyline which is so completely doomed is one of its most satisfying aspects to me. Not only is the outcome of your struggles known to fail (the Trilogy still has to happen, after all), you get to watch the playable character slowly lose a struggle to retain his humanity. And the more you lose, the more epic your powers become and the less you want to question why you’ve gained them. But at the same time, as a player, you’ve been given the opportunity to look into the lives of the (admittedly unpleasant) orcish army, and gain an unexpected understanding of their motivations and values, maybe even sympathy and respect. This knowledge comes to you at the same rate as your power over them increases; you have to be aware that you are abusing their loyalty every bit as much as Sauron, if not more. 

The game makes you step right into those shoes yourself. It feels so, so good to cut a swath of destruction through a fortress, and swagger around the map knowing that every little triangle on the map has turned blue. It feels awesome to be able to subdue and dominate any orc or beast that falls under your hand. You are a fucking unstoppable force of nature and woe betide the fools who stand in your way.  –And at that point the game will remind you, gently, that you are controlling the minds of sentient creatures against their will. And the voices of Talion’s dead family will quietly ask why he’s doing this. You find yourself gradually pulling away from all the humanizing influences on Talion’s journey, relying more and more on the council of a dead elf and his quest for vengeance, in which you are only a convenient vessel. You get to experience the decline to Wraithdom first hand, and it’s extremely illuminating. 

And in Brightlord the dramatic hubris is even more pointed. You know you’re outmatched, but Celebrimbor’s confidence is infectious; the equal playing field is an illusion, but you somehow still think you can win, because the rush to the head is just that sexy. For a hot second you believe that canon isn’t real and nothing can stop you. The game makes it seem like you’re powerful enough to actually challenge the dark lord; it lets you capture all the pieces and control the whole board, just so at the end your opponent can flip the table and force all the pieces down your throat. 

6) The soundtrack. *_*  The lyrics in the Black Speech oh my god. 

7) Gameplay in general! I feel like the nemesis system has been thoroughly discussed in gaming circles already, but it really did make things interesting and challenging. The fact that each player death had lasting consequences (making your enemies stronger and rearranging the board so you had to gather more intel) made the stakes higher and the random fights more intense. It’s a very well balanced game imho! You feel very powerful and effective but DAMN can that turn around on you in a second if you get cocky. Aside from a handful of times when the actual game controls failed me in stupid ways, all my deaths felt fair. I got over-confident, I let myself get swarmed, I ran out of resources, I failed to account for the presence of one or more Captains, I died. My enemies wore a shit-eating grin and got fancy new armor, and I had to work harder to track them down and deSTROY THEM FOR THEIR MOCKERY. Every time a captain reemerged from the grave with an increasingly fucked up face it was a great moment. XD I mean they will totally ruin your day but it’s still a thrill to see one of those unkillable bastards across the field and be like YOU AGAIN. ALRIGHT YOU FUCKER. LET’S DANCE. 

Loved the Caragors; riding them is a fucking delight but running into them on the ground was appropriately pants-wettingly terrifying. 

The scenery was just breathtaking, especially the Sea of Nurnen. The environments were great fun to climb all over and explore. Every time I had to go into a cave they put the fear of god into my sinner’s soul. Great sound design. A++ 

8) UNNFFFF SAURON’S CAPTAINS THO. 

Appropriately, they felt like extensions of Sauron’s personality, mannerisms, and combat techniques– making them all disproportionately hot. They were believable additions to the Dark Lord’s arsenal, and they even made a convincing case for the non-canonical blood magic as a feature of Sauron’s necromancy. I really liked them as mid-game bosses; the fight with the Tower was So Good, So Choice, So *Mwah!*, and THE THING AT THE END, THE THING THE BLACK HAND DOES? I WAS NOT EXPECTING THE THING AND IT WAS INTENSE. They were definitely my favorite NPCs in the game.

Oh, and. Ratbag. Rest his soul.

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THINGS I DID NOT LOVE:

1) Fridged wives all over the goddamn place. 

2) Fucking…. Torvin. I already said my piece on him. That’s an axe I’ll be grinding for all of time, so nothing new there. 

3)  I dearly loved the inclusion of the Sea of Nurnen, I really did. It was such a great world-building detail to expand upon, so crucial on a basic level to the mustering of Sauron’s army. I FUCKING LOVED THE FISHING VILLAGE. And I love the idea of a Queen of the Shore, a kingdom with a mixture of outcasts and indigenous residents in Mordor that were here before and will be here after the Dark Lord.  But the actual characters that they fleshed this area out with were such Vanilla Fantasy stand-ins…. the unfortunate part of filling in what Tolkien left out is that you have to be able to match his level of world-building, and that is… not an easy feat. Even so, the construction of the folks in the Harad Basin seemed especially lackluster, with no depth to their culture or visual development, just a bunch of generic fantasy barbarian stuff thrown together in a blender. Also they were all white, which… I mean, it’s the Harad Basin, come the fuck on y’all. We are FIRMLY in the territory of people who are canonically dark skinned. 

 4) KEY. BINDINGS. HOLY. SHIT.

 THE NUMBER OF TIMES I SCREAMED BECAUSE MY FUCKING RANGER DECIDED TO STOP WHAT HE WAS DOING AND STICK TO A GODDAMN WALL IN THE MIDDLE OF A CRUCIAL FIGHT SEQUENCE WITH 3 PIXELS OF HEALTH LEFT……. 

*breathes* (ꐦ ಠ皿ಠ )

Okay. When the controls worked, they worked super duper smoothly and it was just short of the Witcher in terms of satisfying combat, and just short of Dishonored in terms of satisfying stealth mechanics, which is praise I do not give lightly. 

And I understand that you were working with a large set of actions that all had to be mapped to a keyboard in a reasonable fashion so that everything is in reach of the WASD keys and you don’t need special hardware or an extra six fingers just to play your game. I understand. And for the most part, you did great! The game was pretty good at intuiting what action to perform based on context! Mostly!

HOWEVER. ALL I ASK IS THAT IN SHADOW OF WAR, YOU UNPAIR JUST, LIKE, TWO ACTION CONTROLS FROM EACH OTHER. JUST ONE OR TWO!! Just so I don’t end up fucking taking a flying leap into the void when I was trying to shoot an arrow, or start to STEALTHY SNEAK when what I want to do is stab a man on the ground before he gets up, or draw my bow when what I need to do is block a sword swing, or START. CLIMBING. A FUCKING. WALL. WHEN I NEED. TO. RUN. (┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻  CELEBRIMBOR  YOU USELESS SLUT

5) I appreciate Talion’s relatively humble origins and his position as just one of the rank and file of Gondor, but holy shit, is that Mister Deadwife Everyman With Sad Manpain played the fuck out. 

 I mean, I didn’t hate him, he certainly had some endearing, even poignant moments, but he just wasn’t especially memorable on his own. Especially considering that when you stack him up with literally every other generic game protagonist on earth, he blends right in with the wallpaper. I probably wouldn’t have noticed or minded as much, except that playing the Brightlord DLC made me realize with acute clarity how exciting it is to play as a character whose backstory I am actually invested in. 

 I also didn’t especially appreciate the attempt to wedge a generic, disposable wife-stand-in character into his life as a Manpain Enhancer. Again, it wasn’t the worst thing ever, it was just predictable and boring. 

ANYWAY– I could probably say more, but this was already longer and more rambling than I intended. XD 

I am definitely looking forward to Shadow of War, I’m excited to see where they’re going to take this story and how they’re going to reconcile it with canon– of IF they reconcile it with canon. Either way I’m sure it will be interesting and I will get to “befriend” more orcs with my Magic Elf Hand.  :3