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Nov 20th, 2019 at 19:32:00 - Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PC) |
Summing up additional thoughts on the eve of defeating the Black Hand. My first entry was raving about the Nemesis system, so I’ll continue from there.
The Nemesis system becomes even more fun (and harrowing) as you gain more control over it. It’s like a giant toybox and you’re playing with action figures. The game lets you get a feel for the system in the first chunk of hours by killing captains and seeing how challenges work and how uruks move through the ranks. Then, you’re introduced to warchiefs. You have to kill all the warchiefs to move to the game’s second area. Warchiefs require special actions to be lured out into the open, so for example, you may have to “brutalize” his favorite uruk. Warchiefs in the second area, now these bad boys have elite captains for guards. When you lure one of them out, you’re in for a battle. But, you can kill their bodyguards by hunting them down beforehand so that the warchief comes out alone, or with just regular uruks.
The fun part really comes when you gain the “dominate” ability and are able to manipulate Sauron’s army. You can essentially mind control uruks and make them fight for you. They don’t just start hacking their brethren though; you have to activate them. This means you can strategize by queueing up dominated uruk around a captain, then give the signal and they all turn on him. It’s incredibly satisfying. So in that second area, your goal is not to kill all five warchiefs, but to dominate them. I suppose when you fight the Black Hand, then his bodyguards, the warchiefs, will betray him and make your fight easier. When you dominate captains, you can promote them, make them bodyguard of a warchief, or direct them to attempt to murder another captain. Long story short, if you want to, you can dominate Sauron’s entire army, orchestrate duels and things to level up your favorites, and really manipulate the Nemesis system. The potential for control is quite impressive.
This is all useful because some of the captains and warchiefs (and I’m sure the Black Hand) are difficult battles. Last night, I came across a warchief that was resistant to all of my attacks. How do kill him? I tried a couple times and I could get him to flee (he’s scared of me and of betrayal, so if you have a dominated captain betray him and you show up too, he bails). But even once he was fleeing, I couldn’t do enough damage to him before he escaped. My solution was to dominate about 20 uruks where he patrolled and turn them loose. He simply became overwhelmed as we all hacked at him. It is incredibly satisfying to creatively use the tools the game gives you to overcome obstacles.
All of the above is the best part of the game. Other things I enjoyed (story, characters, general mission structures, abilities, etc.). Abilities, for example, are drip-fed throughout the campaign. You’re always unlocking something new through completing story missions, and you will have enough power and currency to get most all of the abilities you want without any extra effort. Other things, though, were disappointing. Luckily the disappointing things are easy enough to ignore, though I wish I’d known out of the gate.
There are two kinds of collectibles in Mordor. I expected something to happen once I collected all of one of them because each piece uncovers more of a picture, that looks like some magical run on a wall (a doorway somewhere??). Alas, nothing happens, just a cryptic poem. Do not waste your time finding collectibles unless you want an achievement. The same goes for the weapon lore quests. I assumed that completing these (10 missions for each of your 3 weapons) would lead to a new ability or a stronger weapon or something, but no, nothing! It’s just some more narrative, while interesting, is not the kind of reward I wanted. Weapon runes are also quite useless. When you kill a captain, he drops a rune you can slot into a weapon. You start the game with some really awesome ones, and I used these the entire game. The ones I found, I hardly ever used. The game hints at more epic runes of the type you start the game with, but I rarely saw one (edit: My epic starting runes were probably from a DLC pack that I didn’t know I had. Why would these be automatically applied?!). Finally, I was disappointed in the second area. It’s the same as the first but with a new coat of pain (ooh, pretty Mordor by the sea instead of industrial Mordor). There are some harder creatures roaming around and some different terrain, but nothing functionally unique. Perhaps the main point is to give Sauron two sub-armies, but that seems to serve you getting the dominate skill and putting it to use only, as you deal with the armies in exactly the same way aside from now being able to dominate uruk.
And now that I’ve completed the game…
The last two “boss fights” are a joke. What a letdown! They weren’t even fights! QTEs get outta my face! So much for all the army buildup and investing in my skills for a final showdown. Sigh. This could have been epic.
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Nov 15th, 2019 at 07:05:04 - Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PC) |
The famed Nemesis system. Wow. First impressions: Sauron’s army has a bunch of captains. They have varying “power” levels. If you kill one, you get that much power, a resource that unlocks new tiers on the ability tree. It wasn’t too long before a captain killed me (I got in a scrap with two at once, actually). The one that killed me increased in power and became, formally, my nemesis! The next time I fought him, he was even harder, but I was stronger too and made short work of him. The second one that survived our encounter gained a lesser amount of power. This may add a sort of risk/reward for creating nemeses that get stronger so that you can then kill them for more power. I suppose this could easily spiral out of control if they become too powerful.
When you kill a captain, another uruk can take his place in the hierarchy. I think this happens over time; one spot was vacant for a couple hours then filled. You can also learn captains’ strengths and weaknesses by gathering intel, either from finding it or from interrogating captains and other uruk with special markers. Strengths are obviously good to know; I came across one captain whom I couldn’t parry. Weaknesses are even better though because, not only can you exploit them, but if you kill the captain with a specific weapon weakness (often weak to ground executions with the blade or combat executions with the sword), they’ll go down in one hit and they’ll drop a nice rune for that weapon.
At this point, I’m curious how randomized the captains are. Do they have names that give them specific strengths and weaknesses (like “the coward” might give them the easily terrorized trait) or is each uruk a pre-determined character? I have similar questions about the runes, which you can slot into your weapons to receive benefits (additional critical strike chance, resistance to poison, etc.).
My first impression of Shadow of Mordor is extremely positive. The Nemesis system is already blowing my mind with possibilities and gives the game a “hunting” feel. Interactions between uruks, human slaves, and local wildlife (which I have already killed, been killed by, has killed a captain for me, and has ravaged uruks and humans alike) make Mordor vibrant and deadly. The minimap is busy with icons, though most are herbs and other things that I’ve already learned to filter for the most part. There are a few collectables and quests per area, which so far have all been interesting. There’s a wonderful lore book. Gollum is here. Really excited to play more.
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Nov 11th, 2019 at 19:21:08 - A Hat in Time (PC) |
Wow, this was a surprise hit. 3D platformers generally aren't my thing, but I adore A Hat in Time. This is the best of this genre I've played since the two Super Mario Galaxy games. The game has very positive reviews, but I still had it pegged as "too kiddie" or "meh 3D platformer not as good as Super Mario Galaxy so who cares." Neither of these is true! It might have a cartoony art style, but it's function is more cuteness and humor.
This gist of the story is as follows: You, Hat Kid, are flying home in your spaceship when you have an accident and all of your time pieces (like fuel) fall to the surface of the planet below, scattering to the different places there. You need to go recover you time pieces so you can get home. Not easy! There's another kid, Mustache Girl, who wants to get rid of all the bad guys. When you don't immediately help her, she vows to crush you. You proceed to go world by world collecting your time pieces, leading toward a final confrontation.
The worlds are really creative! The first one is Mafia world, which is populated entirely by big, stupid mafia men. They like to punch things and keep it simple. Sets the tone for the game. The next world is Dead Bird Studio, where two birds (a wild-west owl and a disco penguin) compete to make the best movie and win a film award. Naturally, you star in both of their films and uncover a sinister plot while doing so. Then, probably my favorite, was the graveyard level because of the boss. You sign your soul away to this Oogie Boogie type character, who makes you do tasks for you and eventually tricks you! He was definitely my favorite character. The fourth world was a strange one. In every other world, there are "acts" that you complete in order, but in the fourth world, Alpine something something, you get to free roam. There are a handful of time pieces, but you explore the world without much structure to find them all. I appreciated this change of pace, but the conclusion was unsatisfying. The characters in the world didn't have as much personality as previous worlds, which made the exploration less exciting. The final world is...well, you'll have to play to see that one.
The main mechanic of the game involves equipping different hats with different abilities. The basic hat points you toward your objective. There's one that lets you sprint, another that lets you toss bombs, another that lets you see previously invisible platforms, and so on. Then you pin "badges" onto your hats, which give you still more abilities, such as the ability to shoot a grappling hook. That one is absolutely necessary, while others are optional. Some of the hats are like this too. There's a final hat that I never crafted that (probably) lets you stop or rewind time. There are also other (useless?) badges you can buy. You can switch between hats on the fly and easily equip different badges to suit the situation.
My one gripe with the game is, as with most 3D platformers, the platforming. That has to be tight! The controls here were definitely good, just not great. Hat Girl especially has this annoying habit of hopping when you land from a jump, which makes it unnecessarily tricky to jump multiple times in succession. This made avoiding moving obstacles difficult at times. I was able to abuse her getting stuck on walls to get higher, and then other times it's difficult to judge distance for jumping. Platforming could be mildly frustrating.
Anyway, I'm definitely surprised by how excellent the game is. If you like 3D platformers at all, you need to play it. It's a relatively short one (took me ~12 hours), and you could easily sink some more in to collect every time piece. I finished with 26/40, which is the minimum required!
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Nov 11th, 2019 at 08:50:32 - What Remains of Edith Finch (PC) |
If I could insert a little emoji with hearts for eyes here, I would. What Remains of Edith Finch is a fascinating exploration of a family's history, misfortunes, and quirky (possibly cursed) house. You play as the titular Edith Finch, who has returned to her family's home to do some combination of uncovering truths and getting some closure. All of her family is dead and/or gone. Most of them died tragically. You'll explore the house, finding secret passageways, poking around dead peoples' preserved bedrooms, and reading very sad, shocking, and surreal diary entries, letters, and other "remains." You'll also wonder how one family can have the same copy of so many of the same books in their house, especially cookbooks (my favorite: A Viking's Belly).
I played this with my girlfriend (the first game we've ever completed together?!). She likes story-driven games and classic JRPGs, so I've set some aside to play together, or to at least play in her company. I've been playing Earthbound on and off at her house for half a year, and just wishlisted Chrono Trigger. I never owned an SNES as a kid, OKAY?! This was better than the last game I tried to play with her, Pony Island, which had way more puzzles and demanded more precision than I remembered. She thought the story was neat at least. Anyway, we were both enthralled by the vignettes in the Finch home, understanding the family tree, and piecing together what happened to each of the characters! The family tree is difficult to wrap your head around at first and it took us half the game to get a good grasp of who was married to who, of what the "leaves" were, and so on. Paying attention to who Edith is talking about when she calls someone "grandpa," for example, will really help.
Some of the vignettes were really creative, such as the "Tales from the Crypt" comic inspired home invasion murder of Barbara. Others let you play with toys (the bathtub scene, the kite scene). These vignettes often begin innocently enough, then take a dark turn. Eventually, as you realize what is about to happen, they can become very distressing. My favorite vignettes in order were:
- (King) Lewis. Good lord, the twist on this one...
- Molly. This is the first you encounter, and although the controls for the cat were a pain, the monster totally makes up for it. Very surreal.
- Gregory. Bath time. Play with a toy frog.
- Calvin. The dread from knowing what's going to happen here was awful. And who hasn't wanted to swing all the way around?! Very relatable death.
I didn't dislike any vignettes, though Gus's (punk rock 13-year-old) was silly and a little confusing. The game did leave me with questions:
1. Is the Finch house really cursed? Or is the family cursed? If either is true, then WHY is it cursed? This will require some deep thought about the story and characters...
2. Where is Milton?! I think he died crawling through secret passageways in the house...
3. Can we visit Edie in the old folks' home? Is she still alive there?
4. Assuming Edie and Milton are dead, then Kay is the only person alive (maybe). What happened to her after the divorce?
5. Did Edith's kid make the same journey through the house as she did, reading her diary along the way?
I would LOVE another game just like this. Also, I need to acquire a PS4 and play The Unfinished Swan, these devs' first game.
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