Shadow of Mordor: 9 Years Later
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
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To try everything Brilliant has to offer-free-for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/Whitelight/ The first 200 will get 20% off Brilliant's annual premium subscription. Shadow of War is on the radar, but you can expect a video on Dishonored next.
No, I will not check that out.
Thank you for entertaining me at work for at least an hour yet again, Whitelight.
Fantastic video, butt clenched for the shadow of war one
But what about Arkham Knight?
Oooooooh yes dishonored!!!
The Nemesis system was great! I remember in Shadow of War there was an orc that had Iron Will I wanted to dominate. So I attempted to humiliate him to get rid of it. On our next encounter he still had Iron Will. So I humiliated him again. Eventually this went on long enough that he eventually became proud of it and started wearing hand prints all over his armor as a badge of honor. I had legitimately gained a rival in this orc.
You mean a nemesis ?
yOu MeAn A nEmESiS?
For me it was Pigug the Merciless. At first he was just an ordinary orc, but then he killed me, and quickly rose up the ranks to become a captain. I went after him multiple times, hoping to get some revenge, but he had so many immunities and strengths, as well as four powerful bodyguards, all of them whom true threats in their own right. They would always kill me before I could deal any proper damage to Pigug.
What eventually happened is that I went after each of Pigug's bodyguards and turned them to my side, but kept them serving as his bodyguards so that no new orcs would take their place.
When I lured out Pigug for what I hoped would be our final confrontation, I immediately popped the heads of his former bodyguards so that we could have a proper one-on-one fight.
It wasn't easy, but I eventually managed to bring him down. And thankfully, he never came back from the dead.
And now, after all this reminiscing, I want to go replay Shadow of Mordor.
That sounds bad ass asf!!!!
i killed the same archer 10 times and he only ever came back stronger, but i started humiliating him too and killing him still and it was fun, but he was super op in the final battle
If I may? I was a senior environment artist on Shadow of Mordor, and Shadow of War. The intent was not to follow the movies or books, but to dig into the Silmarillion, and other aspects of the Tolkien universe. Truth? Michael DePlatter was lead design, which is why it plays like Assassin's Creed.
Philip Straub, the art director on it, had a few things to say about it. I asked him about it, in a post-mortem.
I quipped. "It's like you're running through a fantasy painting!"
His reply, was, "That was the intent."
"Ah!"
Ack! All those gates, the ruins? Made those. Marwen's cave was particularly a favorite I worked on.
The lighting team was awesome in this regard.
Ack! Things to know about its development, Anthony Lampa, and Latasha Tobias, combined, made things look great. I told them (LaTasha had worked on Disney's "Tangled." a bar-none lighting phenomenon.
I just... made all the big things for them to light, and I told them. "All these things look like crap, until you lit them!"
Anthony's response was, "Well, it wouldn't look like anything if you hadn't made things for us to light.""
"Touché, mon ami. Tou, frigging, ché."
You people did an amazing job! the environments were staggering, especially in shadow of war.
Is there any intention on making another or is the series ended
The Nemesis System is one of the greatest things in gaming, and having it only in Shadow games is crazy.
Warner Bros being evil at its evilest
The system got copyrighted, thankfully, the copyright is near being lifted
@@senshi_dev_art Near being decades away
@@dean_l33 unless they reinstated copyright right after, it should be ending this or next year I believe, if they did...FUUUUUUUUUUCK
@@senshi_dev_art The nemesis system got patented in 2021; the patent can last up to 2035 if Warner Bros. decide to pay for the fees, which they probably are.
"Mordor goes hard, and it goes nowhere else"
The best descriptor of this game by far
I'd kill for a modern LotR game where we can explore other more aesthetically pleasing places in Middle Earth.
The nemesis system being locked away from us is the biggest crime.
Absolutely a fucking crime against gaming. So much potential
It's a fookin disgrace I tell thee.
The thing we’ve had of next gen minus graphics
For reaaaal
WB is probably one of the worst companies period
The stealth for me was such a huge part of my enjoyment of the game. While I was learning how to play and didn’t have all of the unlocks I used stealth a lot more. To me, it made sense that as Talion learned his powers even died a few times he would grow less patient and move away from sneaking around. Stealth would become less of a factor in the same way that later in the game I was usually walking or running straight at enemies and hacking them down with ease. Great build up to the power fantasy imo
Yoooo that's how my first playthrough went. The stealth is so fluid
The orcs are also really stupid and it's easy to abuse the last known position system with the open world.
Nah. Stealth is still great and crucial in higher difficulties. Taking out snipers before a fight on brutal difficulty is a life saver, and any open combat becomes literally unmanable without a couple minutes spent thinning the herd when you can only make about 1 mistake before you have to run away.
🤣
My nemesis ended up being a random crossbow orc that got a lucky shot on me while I was running at low health, and that dude haunted me always lurking in the shadows popping out whenever it was inconvenient to finish me off and make himself even more powerful at one point I think he even one shot me. When I finally killed him, I was overjoyed when he came back to life I ran away in terror lmao
Borok the Camper
Dude, same. That bastard was nigh undefeatable by the end and he so loved to pop up while I was fighting another captain. With a horde of minions right behind, of course.
Sounds like making you run in terror was his strategy for shooting you in the back again.
i killed the same dude 5 times i took off his head the second time he came back with a bag over his head. i burned him to death he came back burned and scared of fire. turned out he was considered invicible for a damn story mission so pissed when i figured that out and finally killed him.
The more you interact with an orc, the more likely that they will come back to life or get a buff
I still remember my ultimate nemesis. Ugluk Swordmaster, who was immune to *literally* everything, except the AOE groundslam ability. So, I had to painstakingly gain a combo from nearby orcs and drain his immense health bar slam by slam. When I finally did so, and branded him, he became my number 1 Warchief and top enforcer. It was, truthfully, the most satisfying thing in the game.
He then returned as my bodyguard in Shadow of War, and proceeded to betray me in the late game, gaining Iron Will so I couldn’t brand him. I shamed him, in an attempt to remove his Iron Will, but after the second shame, which drained his power immensely, it dawned on me that further shame him threatened to drive him insane, and remove his power to the point he wouldn’t be a threat. The thought of a long, arduous quest to restore his power was distressing to me, and I decided Ugluk deserved to die the death of a champion. I gave him a death threat to raise his power, and killed him. It was a story spanning over 3 years, and it was entirely unscripted.
Shadow of Mordor was way too good at making killing orcs satisfying. Killing orcs never got truly boring - it got dull and tedious, but once you get stabbing and head chopping, you never really want it to end. You want the waves to keep coming, even to the point of ignoring captains so you can keep killing the smaller guys. I remember scouting the very biggest fortresses because they guaranteed the biggest combos.
(Y) same
It's truly an empowering moment when at first you were just sneaking in guerilla style to then just charging in a stronghold and painting the walls and the ground red while unleashing your special ults. They nailed the power fantasy pretty nicely.
Adding some enemies variety, like other creatures, giant spiders of actual huge size to fight, of the Shelob's brood, with the special attacks of being caught in web, the other enemies like "lesser wraiths" victims of Morgul-knife for example, to fight visible in the Unseen the wraith-world to make it more interesting (kind of like the old Legacy of Kain, Soul Reaver which had different enemies for spectral and material realms :)), the Barrow-wights as sort of powerful mini bosses haunting some tombs or so on, the evil spirits possessing things, the Silent Watchers the magical statues with ability to make magical barriers...all book elements of Tolkien world lore they could have added to the gameplay of those games. Also more varied side activities in the free roam.
@@fantasywind3923 I'm pretty sure that all spiders of Shelob's size have died in between the timespan of the First to Third Ages, as Shelob is mentioned to be the last of Ungoliant's brood and only those were massive if I understand it correctly. Silent Watchers would only be an annoyance when trying to break into Strongholds, not really an interesting enemy (especially considering Sam had to use the Light of Galadriel to be able to make it past their barriers). I cannot comment on Barrow-wights as I do not remember them being mentioned. And Lesser Wraiths could indeed have been interesting.
@@apossiblyhereticalalphaleg3595 the Shelob is named the "last daughter of Ungoliant" but her own offspring is also quite sizeable, not all would be rivaling her in size certainly but the great spiders of Mirkwood are huge much bigger than any 'ordinary spider', then there's also the case of Ungoliant herself having offspring with other creatures of spider form:
"...fleeing from the north she went down into Beleriand, and dwelt beneath Ered Gorgoroth, in that dark valley that was after called Nan Dungortheb, the Valley of Dreadful Death, because of the horror that she bred there. For other foul creatures of spider form had dwelt there since the days of the delving of Angband, and she mated with them, and devoured them." Silmarillion, obviously they would probably not survive the destruction of Beleriand, but Shelob herself fled from there and settled in the area of Mordor, then had her own children, entire brood. The spiders in The Hobbit were large enough to attack and capture Dwarves and Bilbo almost:
"Something like a strong sticky string was against his left hand, and when he tried to move he found that his legs were already wrapped in the same stuff, so that when he got up he fell over.
Then the great spider, who had been busy tying him up while he dozed, came from behind him and came at him. He could only see the things's eyes, but he could feel its hairy legs as it struggled to wind its abominable threads round and round him. It was lucky that he had come to his senses in time. Soon he would not have been able to move at all. As it was, he had a desperate fight before he got free. He beat the creature off with his hands-it was trying to poison him to keep him quiet, as small spiders do to flies-until he remembered his sword and drew it out. Then the spider jumped back, and he had time to cut his legs loose."
...
"Suddenly he saw, too, that there were spiders huge and horrible sitting in the branches above him, and ring or no ring he trembled with fear lest they should discover him. Standing behind a tree he watched a group of them for some time, and then in the silence and stillness of the wood he realised that these loathsome creatures were speaking one to another. Their voices were a sort of thin creaking and hissing, but he could make out many of the words that they said. They were talking about the dwarves!"
...
"...he scrambled up-only to meet an old slow wicked fat-bodied spider who had remained behind to guard the prisoners, and had been busy pinching them to see which was the juiciest to eat. It had thought of starting the feast while the others were away, but Mr. Baggins was in a hurry, and before the spider knew what was happening it felt his sting and rolled off the branch dead."
These sort of things as enemies in game would be perfect :). I envisioned the use of Silent Watchers as exactly these security devices, but the thing with those enchanted statues is that they can serve multiple purposes, they can sense and detect intruders, observe, so this would spice up the stealth element of the game, they can sound the alarm and trigger the invisible barriers, the magical barriers themselves to pass would be nice obstacle and so on. They could also serve as the defensive feature for fortresses of your own upgrades. Barrow-wights in book are connected with the Witch-king who is a necromancer so having them in this game would also make sense, in any case as I said the game protagonist Talion being possessed by the spirit of elf-lord Celebrimbor IS in many ways like one of these wights, because in essence the Barrow-wights are corpses/remains of the people buried in the barrows possessed by evil spirits, they have various powers, spells to use and could be formidable enemies....the lesser wraiths even more so, they could be permanently invisible in the Unseen the wraith-world and one can imagine shifting between planes and having to face them there, the lesser wraith also using some cloaks or what have you to manifest in visible world...the Morgul-knife itself is something very fascinating and shame it wasn't utilized in the game in any way, even in story...well becoming this lesser wraith was something that almost happened to Frodo
“They tried to pierce your heart with a Morgul-knife which remains in the wound. If they had succeeded, you would have become like they are, only weaker and under their command. You would have became a wraith under the dominion of the Dark Lord.”
So from lore perspective all those things are covered, and could have been implemented nicely into the gameplay to add variety and excitement and new possibilities enrich the game world and do it faithfully to Tolkien's vision :), win win situation.
My favorite story with the Nemesis system was in Shadow of War not in Shadow of Mordor, but I still felt like I should share it here. I played partway through the game on release but gave up on it due to the lootboxes that they infested the game with. But after they removed them all I decided to give the game another shot.
There was this powerful legendary orc named Hoglig the Machine and he lived up to his name. It took me several tries to take him down and when I finally did I decided to convert him, I needed a powerful ally to control the region after all. I had planned to make him the overlord when I finally take the castle and for now I put him as my personal bodyguard in case I needed aid. Eventually I got into a tough fight where I was trying to take out a captain and got ambushed by another. So I finally called in Hoglig to mess them up and teach them a lesson, instead he saw the moment of weakness as an opportunity to betray me and he took me down but not before I took out the other 2 captains that were in that fight. So I planned my revenge and killed him and I thought that was the end of it.
An interesting story about gaining a powerful ally only to be betrayed by him and work to enact my revenge. But many hours later I was playing a story mission where I have to take out a necromancer, he brings back dead orcs as mindless husks of their former selves and who did I see among the ranks of his mindless army but Hoglig the Machine himself. Despite it not being required for the mission I couldn't let that stand. Hoglig had his personality stripped from him and his corpse was now being puppeted around and forced to follow some necromancer's whims. I vowed to put him to rest, because despite his betrayal he had earned my respect and I wouldn't let myself finish the mission without completeing my real task. It was a tough mission, but I put Hoglig down and got my revenge on the necromancer.
I'll never forget that moment of seeing Hoglig as a mindless zombie staring blankly at me and the rage I felt towards the necromancer who caused it.
The final Zog (Necromancer Orc) story is always such a fun one. Seeing so many old nemeses in one place, even if they were little more than mindless husks, was such a fun surprise when I saw it for the first time.
Wow, that's a good story. A perfect emergence of it from the systems and the narrative; glad you've experienced and shared it!
I don’t know man I’ve had experienced like this before and there’s nothing really deep about. It’s just a typical video game moment.
@@zzodysseuszzlet the man have his fun smh
@@wompwomp1658it’s kinda hard to when i played these games BECAUSE of stories like this only to find out that people were exaggerating. Now granted shadow of war did have better nemesis stories but not by much.
In your talk about the Nemesis system, I remembered my nº1 Nemesis in this game, and it was in my first run. A tough son of an orc that had no weaknesses, almost all resistances, a metal shield and a poisoned weapon, who hated me too so he was always a pain in the ass to fight, that returned from the grave at least 3 or 4 times, stronger, to the point that the only way to damage him was to play around and using basic attacks because averything else he blocked. This fucker made my life hell playing this game, and I do not remember the name because it was years ago but I will always remember his head covered in red fabric with ropes, his metal armor and shield and his green lance. In the final fight I almost got to a choke point so tought I almost dropped the game, but I finally killed him and now my Talion lives knowing he is king and top of the chain in SoM.
Mines was a sword master who also had no weaknesses apart from stealth and exacutions enraged him safe to say i had to play as an assasin stealth killed him 3 times and on the 4th he came back bag over his head literally invincible fun times
@@teghanhamill5747 and yours at least had stealth weakness, that makes it interesting hahaha
@@ginebraman yeah but climbing on a tower and jumping off of it 5 times tends to be tedious lol
perhaps dont pick up shadow of war as you will likely fight him again as everyone's nemesis from the first game comes back for a rematch lmao
@@generalgrizzly7914 not the case. That bastard was in my ps3. I got both now on pc so he's dead for good
The fact that I still remember my nemesis from the first game: Ronk the Judge, still astounds me. What an amazing game.
As someone who's put 200+ hours into shadow of war, pretty much every negative listed in the video in was fixed in SOW. Truly the GOAT developers
I have around 300 hours in shadow of war spred across 3 sepreate playthroughs where I deleted my file simply to play through the beginning again. Its so enjoyable and I still load it up to play for a few hours again and again to this day.
Except the campaign is still incredibly weak in shadow of war.
@@iiReaperv2 True, but I'd say they improved on it by not making that the main focus and instead making the nemesis system plus sieges the main focus. The narrative is almost side content in War
Game is still slow and restrictive. Like damn does it take a long time to get out of that intro tutorial
@@zzodysseuszz Not really. If you're talking about the first city, you can blaze through that in 15 mins if you ignore all the nemesis stuff. I have to actually go out of my way in that first part to hang around and fight captains until I feel satisfied and move on to Nurn.
I once got overwhelmed by 2 captains appearing mid fight with a captain well over my level inside a stronghold I hadn’t properly planned for, in my attempt to escape got sniped by a very low level orc that had only the long range accuracy perk, and by killing me he immediately replaced the highest missing position on my nemesis list. He would then appear at the edge of fights I would start for a while while I was trying things out and he killed me a few more times from a range where I couldn’t have gotten to him to stop him, each time he leveled up and this included several additional ranged perks like poison, fast firing, immune to range, immune to stealth, immune to finishers. To where I had to attack him with a caragor or run for my life. I frequently ran into genuinely hunting some individual orcs over others and they would just become stronger as I became more skillful, I wish I could experience that phenomenon in other titles, although it fits so well for Mordor
I remember more about Tears of Grace's Shadow of Mordor series than I do of my own playthrough, wheras Shadow of War has left me with plenty of memories of my own gameplay.
Having a Nemesis as compelling and threatening as Prak Jaws (Bane) is something I can only dream of.
Krúk the blood axe is prolly the Nemesis ever. Too bad he got deranged.
One question though what's the song call Tear uses when he gets saved?
This makes me wanna go rewatch his entire series again. In fact I think I will. Some of the best content on YT. I love Tear.
Kruk Blood Axe, Ukrom Blood Storm / The Machine, and PRAK MOTHERFUCKING JAWS, are the best nemeses I've ever seen. They're fucking iconic.
@@JoshuaGraves113 It's got a supercut now
It's one of my favorite games ever, and I highly recommend disabling the enemy threat indicators on stealth and when they attack, it adds so much to the experience having to pay more attention.
Absolutely!
Works for the Arkham games too! 👌😸
you could just play on brutal
This game made the world feel ALIVE for me. I will never forget the time I got killed 2 times by the same orc. I went back to his camp later and guess what? Now he was the commander of it and he even taunted me "come, i will kill you again again!". It was priceless.
It's so fucking depressing that the nemesis system will probably never see another game.
@1God1Christ Nobody wants a wonder woman game... WB needs to take a LOOOOONG break from games after Suicide Squad and Gotham Knights...
@1God1Christ he means used in a game outside of Warner brothers, it was patented which is a big no no for gameplay mechanics because it needlessly holds the rest of the industry back
@@jxnior4292”nobody wants a Wonder Woman game”
Yes, I’m sure no one wants a game based off the third most iconic dc hero of all time
Does that sentence make any sense to you?
@@Ramonaqueenofhell Yes.
Well, Warframe yoinked the idea of the nemesis system, But the execution is kinda mid tbh
I admire how you analyze every facet of a game, technical, presentation, story, gameplay. There is clear passion here with an real eye for detail, and man is that a breath of fresh air. Not since Joseph Anderson have I been this addicted to binging someone's entire playlist.
yea i just started to watch this guy as well, but as you watch more reviews and start to critisize things yourself as well, you can see that he really likes to downplay the disadvantages or negative things about some games, and praise some of them more than they deserve wich i dont know if it is done with the intent of hiding or he just misses some points, but looks really like an advertisement. (not that they are ads but english is not my first language and couldnt find the world for that behaviour.) Still i aggree like %90.
@@zigzog5671 Oh most definitely he does that. Not so much that I stop watching altogether. I just prefer the positivity. It's probably more of a personal thing.
@@eklavyamishra4271 i agree, dont really think it's malicious intent and as you said it's not so much that even tho i really dislike, the rest of the video and the quality is so good i cannot stop watching.
@@zigzog5671 Does he? Because frequently I find he elaborates on their causes and symptoms in ways that I had never considered
He rarely acknowledges really bad gameplay decisions though when he enjoys the game. Very rarely.
I remember my nemesis was immune and resistant to almost everything so i could only fight him head on like a real boss, to beat him i had to kill everything around him to get a chance on him
Shadow of mordor was a key game of my childhood. Even though it was incredibly glitchy on the xbox 360, I still completed it and enjoyed the game as much as I could. A few years later, I got the Xbox One, which I played Mordor on for a second time and then played Shadow of War when it came out. I love this series and always wait for the day they return to it, if they ever do
i would say that one way they could've interwoven the Nemesis system with the story is to make it so the Black Captains were the first three Nemesis' that you have from the start of the game. and the moment they realize you are alive, they proceed to hunt you and the farther you get into the story, the more aggressive they are in chasing you, until you decide to bring the hunt to them. and each time you defeated one of them there'd be a cooldown period where they won't try to fight you. just imagine if they proceeded to fight you each time you took down a War-chief, until eventually all three of them would hunt you down at once. it would make each fight all the more tense knowing that a Black Captain Nemesis could ambush you if you don't win and escape fast enough.
That's a good idea; it reminds me of what I imagine is the concept with the Chosen in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. In that, there's three similar, yet distinctive antagonists who specialise in different combat: Assassin, Warlock, Hunter, which the Black Captains in SoM have their own: the Hammer represents brutish strength and wrath, the Tower is a symbol of terror, and the Black Hand is said to represent Sauron's manipulative deceit.
Each could've had their own ambush fights that foreshadowed the boss fight, disciplining you on how to fight them. Imagining the Tower spawning out of nowhere, hit and running you with shocking damage inflictions, and forcing you to hide (maybe you can't just outrun him), and forces you to stealth attack him from the shadows. That would've made his boss fight (somewhat) better, as you'll have been conditioned to fear him, knowing you can't fight him like the Hammer. The Black Hand I don't know what could be done with, as he's not even a boss; he's just a QTE, and is mentioned by name more than what makes him such a dangerous antagonist.
Thank you Whitelight. You posting brightens my day just about everytime
I actually spent a lot of my time in the game branding captains of all different levels and it was a genuinely fun and engaging experience. Not because it was easy, but because it was hard! It forced me to deeply engage with the strength and weaknesses system and plan out my engagements even very late in the game for a couple of reasons:
1. Selection of captains worth being branded ruled out the weak ones right away.
2. Killing (even strong) captains is relatively reliable. Hitting them often enough with the sword can be done even amidst hordes of other orcs. But branding them with more than a few active enemies around is basically impossible.
3. A couple of wrong moves or poorly planned out crowd control can waste all that planning and setup by killing them.
4. Other already branded captains can show up and enter the fight and managing their health along with the enemies and the overall battleground and crowd control can get really challenging.
5. Fighting several captains at once and branding both is extremely challenging and to a lesser extent is managing which one to kill and which one to keep healthy enough.
I died more than a couple of times due to the combination of extremely strong captains with many resistances, that often were of a special class, who's weaknesses I couldn't effectively utilize for a possession and getting overwhelmed with crowd control issues I couldn't easily solve without risking to kill everything, including the captain. Also sometimes getting caught in extremely bad teamups, the worst I can remember was a berserk and a spear thrower, the latter of which two hit me as a maxed out character with several epyc runes equipped.
This lead to extended battles over 10-20 minutes trying to force just the right conditions to finally claim them for my army.
And in my searches I also created extremely strong and personal nemesises that I had both killed and been killed by multiple times and ultimately failed to brand and dominate and even one nearly unbeatable monster with no effective weakness, immune to most special attacks and enraged by nearly everything that i needed a horned graug, three other captains along with several dozen orcs and over 30 minutes to finally kill after I had previously given up on branding them.
But the satisfaction of marching into battle, not just with the 5 chiefs, but 2-3 subordinate captains for each of them as well and facing those nightmares of my own creation one last time was an epyc experience for sure.
The Nemesis System is truly one of the greatest inventions in gaming history...... Hopefully its more used in future games
Unfortunately, copyright had to get involved
It can't be used. WB patented it
@@RedTigerDragoon the wonder woman game can still use it right?
It would have worked amazingly if applied to a game like The Godfather 2 and it's crime families system.
@@proudofyoudick I believe so yes
The reason you get wraith burn late game is because it becomes an AOE clear when combined with wraith flash. One of the last abilities you can get is using two special moves instead of one when your hit streak is charged, so you can use wraith flash, then immediately wraith burn and kill every Orc around you, and the ones that don’t die have a chance of running away in fear. So every five hits you can do an instant and invincible mini nuke. Yea Talion is pretty op
Beyond the knowledge about games, you're also a very good storyteller.
That one (maybe it was two) execution where you swipe an ork's leg, slow motion kicks in to the metallic whining of your blade, before you finish them off; that has to be one of my favourite executions in any video game till date. That moment of damn-near silence would send shivers down my spine.
This game and Alien Isolation were such pleasant surprises, and they both came out next to each other.
I just wish we got more high quality LOTR games like this. Game got too much hate for not being Canon. Hope something like this returns
Gollum is coming this year.
@@zaidlacksalastname4905 I'm sorry but I've seen snippets of it but it doesn't seem high quality. same with the dwarven game they try to make. All they do are like mobile like games, no more games like LotR Conquest, War in the North or The Shadow series.
I kinda wanted a third one. Haven't really played the second, but I was bumed out when they announced a Wonder Woman game made by them, and not a sequel to the Mordor series.
@@zaidlacksalastname4905 this aged well
@@SP8inc To be fair, if you know the ending it's kinda hard to continue and there's not too much left to improve upon game wise. I'd say it's reached it's peak and would love to see something similar but done differently
Everytime you make a video you make me replay a game from either my past or a game I would've never tried. Your videos are always so compelling and I always appreciate the effort. Keep it up.
Hell yes, Whitelight & LOTR - 2 of my fav things. I just replayed Shadow of War and loved every second, might have to revisit Mordor now.
In a big way, this is my favorite gaming channel. The voiceover is genuine ASMR for me, while listening to a fantastic deep dive into some of my favorite games of all time. Hard to avoid the feeling of wanting to get back into any of the games that this channel goes into. Truly remarkable job!
30:26
Genuinely the hardest I've laughed watching an analysis of a game in ages
ikr?🤣That was probably the funniest gag in all of his videos
This is my 2nd rewatch of this video.
I've since done a re-play of my Cirith Ungol region (I left it hanging, and ruled by a bard), completed another Baranor run (beat my top score by...10), and left Eltariel right where she was 2 years ago.
Keep bringing that quality content, Whitelight, my guy.
I remember playing this on my old pc when I was like 14. Nostalgic game for certain.
The way you are able to voice your opinions and thoughts in such an exquisite manner is so amazing. I'm incredibly jealous of the way you are able to keep me engaged through the entire video.
I remember Yahtzee describing good games as either doing something new or doing something right, and Shadow of Mordor fits the latter very well.
Yahtzee is an idot, and all he is doing is pointing out the obvious.
man, the production level of this video is fantastic. my appreciation to you and your efforts. what a wonderful breakdown essay. I would read this if it wasn't in video form already. Thank you
I dont think I ever heard anyone talk bad about this game until now...
i finished the campaign of shadow of mordor this weekend and you pretty much hit the nail on the head. this game's greatest strength is the nemesis system because it can (potentially) allow you to create your own narratives so it doesn't need the strongest scripted story (which it doesn't). the issue is that potential is never reached because the game is too easy, brands are so op and allow every fight to snow ball into just a recruitment for a personal army. you shouldn't have to restrict yourself to enjoy the game, players are going to want to take advantage of the most powerful mechanics. i could imagine that confrontation with your "nemesis" towards the end of the game being a fantastic moment but it was completely removed because of the game's main issue
planning on playing the sequel which i'm looking forward to because i've heard a lot of the issues are fixed. hopefully they are because the concept is fantastic
Ever since this came out i've hoped we'd get more nemesis systems in games, sadly it's locked away from everyone else, robbing us all of so much potential
We should abolish copyright
sad and it shouldn't be locked away by copyright. Buuuuuuut lets be real, no one else would go through the trouble of doing it in their game lol
@@thewizard1 No we should not
This game's combat is the closest thing to giving a Dynasty Warrior's game a Batman Arkham combat system. The soldiers are not threats, but the captains are.
I would intentionally die to captains sometimes, just because it was so much fun to fight the captains when they gained strength. And the fact that they got stronger when they killed you is such a simple thing but it has HUGE gameplay implications.
The part where he edited in the "You little fuck" Was so unexpected for me. I loved it.
I love your videos so much whitelight, you deserve so many more views, constantly quality and they bring me so much comfort. Unreal youtuber, fair play!
The middle earth games shadow of Mordor and war are absolute masterpieces
The story built behind them is a spectacular journey that when played from start to finish left a lump in the back of many peoples throats at the end of shadow of war
Definitely one of, if not the best, greatest Lord of the Rings games.
Glad I gave it a chance.
Stealth becomes a different beast in shadows of war on higher difficulties. Without talions usual durability, theres way more tension in pre fight stealth prep. Taking out snipers is actually important, as especially in the first half of the game one arrow is enough to send you into a death spiral while surrounded by enemies even if youre already slaughtering them. Spear throwers become downright deadly due to how prevelent they are, and fighting captains in a crowd becomes 100% a no go in the first half or so of the game. Even once you really get a build going and have a good set of gear and all the skills it can still all end in a flash if you dont pay attention due to one single archer. And holy shit when i had a lengendary archer captain that spawned elite spear throwers, you can bet i died a lot to that guy.
I love games where I can build a vassal swarm, so when I saw SoM has branding I naturally tried branding as many enemies as possible. It's fun, but I actually found a hard limit after a while where at some point the computer will try despawn branded lesser orks while in the time it takes to brand all important orks, they will have a turnover rate creating fresh untamed meat at the cost of my kink drones.
There was one orc who I think was played by a actor who was in the Kenobi series. He was so enjoyable that I decided to keep him alive to the very end so I could milk every bit of dialogue out of him, and I was not disappointed. Every time I met him he was witty, self-aware, and unbelievably fun. He was a form of levity that wasn’t slapstick and was genuinely comedic. When I did kill him, it was like parting ways with an old friend. A game who’s main narrative is messy somehow managed to piece together an incredible small story between a level 66 Orc and Talion. This game for all its flaws is memorable in the best ways possible♥️
Shadow of Mordor felt like this amazing proof of concept, where a lot of the ideas and execution was rough, but the good was enough to still make it worth playing. Shadow of War was like taking that proof of concept, trying to expand on it, and proceeding to accidentally set it on fire and watch it burn to the ground, releasing toxic fumes into the air.
Holy shit, my favorite Triple A game of all time gets an enlightened once over by Whitelight?! This is a dream come true!
After 3/4 of the game I used combat brand on almost every enemy I encountered and had hordes of orcs running the hills killing everything for me. Other than being a little too repetitive, SoM is BRILLIANT.
Yeah I did the same thing. I was majorly disappointed in shadow of war when I realized my converted orc army wouldn't just be wandering around the open world like they did in shadow of mordor
So cool to see you revisit my favorite AAA game of all time!
How do you like it compared to SoW? I didnt like SoW too much because I thought it was overly cluttered ang grindy. Is SoM more simple?
I got this game for my b day when I was 7 and I remember playing it for hours and hours and the day I saw the ad for shadow I jumped out of my seat and went to beg my mom to buy the game it came out. The day shadow or war came out I chose to get the ultimate addition over a bday party.
I remember getting this game and playing it sometime in 2019. When I started, _the intro cutscene didn't play_ nor did the tutorial. So I was just thrust into some random guy being dead and talking to some dead elf. I never knew until watching this video that there was, in fact, supposed to be some lead up and not just dumping you straight into the game. I have no idea why my game bugged on me like that.
Shadow of Mordor's sword combat is my favorite out of any game I've ever played, yet. It makes you feel powerful, fulfilled, every blatantly exaggerated kill satisfies you immensely. It took Arkham's combat and made it easier and cooler, and for me, who still struggles to remember I can do a bunch of stuff with Batman's gadgets and special takedowns, meant mastering Talion's combat. Maybe not to the extreme I see Whitelight here, but I became almost invencible. That feeling, that confidence that you can do anything, is unfortunately usually missing on most games. Honestly I wish more games had combat like this.
The sequel I played a few hours of but couldn't continue. Something's off about the combat there. The feel, the sound, they changed it, and it just doesn't impact the same. I do wanna try to at least finish the story but the sequel's just not as fun for me as Mordor.
Nemesis is nice and did gave me a bit of motivation, but to be honest it's use is really exaggerated, at least on this game. Maybe the sequel's better on this, I've heard it is, but here it's basically just a reason to target a specific orc that can go f*** off. It's great but I think the combat is what truly shines here.
I will say that the story's awfully short and that there should be a third map you can explore and run around. They're the right size, filled to the brim of stuff to do but I really wish there was a third one.
But still, Shadow of Mordor is one of my favorite games I've played. I had a Wii growing up so I couldn't play it until I got a good laptop a year or so ago, and I just fell in love with it. What an utterly amazing game.
I remember my playthrough of this game so well.. my nemesis had no weaknesses, was immune to almost everything except for arrows, but every time I didn't have enough because even several arrows to the head wasn't enough to kill him
but it was a long time ago, I was a teen back then and didn't exploit mechanics like I do now. I tried playing Shadow of War a few years ago, but the spark just wasn't there, no idea why
yeah the intro to Shadow of War is a bit of a slog, it really opens up like 2 hours in
Arrow weakness is the most disadvageous for them orcs
it should be noted that even in shadow of war Monolith's "vision" was still not realized as the game got heavily influenced by WB wanting to stick their decisions in, which it seems might have really soured the game team as monolith has dropped the series, and WB has taken away the nemesis system away from them
With regards to difficulty in Shadow of Mordor, I couldn't agree more. I remember watching Tear of Grace's series on this game and loving every second of it, the stories he crafted with the Nemesis System, and the nemeses that came after him one by one, but I remember distinctly that, by his own admission, most of these stories only came about because he let the nemesis kill him. The lack of a difficulty slider in this game was awful-- and turning off some UI only helped a bit.
Man you make me want to try this game again even though I deleted it again after downloading it from PS Plus because the graphics were just too immersion breaking for me haha
Thank you for reviewing this game and all of your reviews. You are always my to go to background watch when I'm at work. Please don't stop making them, they're fantastic.
We'll be waiting for your Shadow of War review in a few years.
Background? You heathen!!
I still remember when a captain said something about my mother which resulted in killing the man 5 times and him showing up in shadow of war later on.
Wow, crazy to think it's been almost 10 years. I remember all the way back when I first played it. I had a lot of fun with it and the nemesis system. Haven't played it since it came out.
I'm a little sad you didn't mention how Shadow Of War pretty much fixed every single complaint you had with the difficulty. There are several difficulty options available, with the hardest making it a legitimate challenge even just dealing with basic grunts let alone captains and warchiefs. Captains will adapt to your moves, meaning if you use stealth, or an execution too many times they become immune and you must use a different tactic. Immunities, resistances, and hates are common whereas vulnerabilities are quite rare. Captains are incredibly unique and varied, with several different mixes of abilities, class types, Uruk factions, and even Uruks with unique abilities.
There are many situations (on higher difficulty settings) where fleeing an encounter is honestly the right call, because there are simply too many enemies that are covering each other's weaknesses to handle right now.
This game looked fantastic, the nemesis system was cool and the game made me feel like an absolute badass. It certainly wasn't perfect but it was alot of fun!
Wraith Flash followed by Wraith Burn is an insanely OP combo. Wraith Flash will make all the rank and file orcs stunned vulnerable to Wraith Burn.
I can't help but feel if Shadow of War gave us the revenge motivation we got for this game, The theme would have been done justice, like a shadow of war featuring Talion Wick. They took away his family, so he took all of their fortresses and became the bright lord, a martyr of change
From the beginning of the game, I had an uruk with a ridiculously powerful crossbow who kept killing me repeatedly. He stayed alive through the first half of the game, until I killed him with some special. In the meantime, he terrorized me while being basically unkillable. He always hung around with this one guy who was mortally vulnerable to stealth. The problem? The problem? He kept coming back. Never killed me, but still hid by my more dangerous, personal nemesis. Now eventually, I managed to kill him. Gone forever. Then, come to the final mission, the little whelp I pushed over all game was my nemesis! Branded him just as one final F.U., and never saw him again.
i watched only the opening up until the title drop and i must really say i'm impressed by how much actual input you gave me in just a couple of minutes; you deserve way more attention
My favorite part about Shadow of War was the fact is built the Nemesis system into the campaign story missions, outside of cut scenes and online sieges, they show up everywhere anytime
you have the wonderful ability to make interesting what it is not. To give life to small details and give life to a lore that struggles to come up.
This is the best game I have ever played! When i first got it in the store when i was young in 2014 it flew under the radar and I didn't know what to expect and just saw lord of the rings on the gamecase and was like yes. The game ended up blowing me away and still to this day there is no other game aside from shadow of war and elden ring that have made me feel such a way playing a singlerplayer game, just amazing.
The nemesis system was one of those things i knew sounded good on paper but would fail miserably in practice. Turned out i was wrong and it works amazingly and was super fun.
Seriously hoping they remaster this game, it has so much more to give
Every time I see a video on these games I go home and re-download them for a few months
I remember my first warchief I fought 14 times winning on my 14th attempt skin lock jaw was a full auto archer with bleed and when I saw him again at the end of the game I forgot this was a game and that was my experience with the nemisis system makeing an amazing story
It's not perfect, but one of my favourite games of all time. I'm proud to have played it more times than I can count and completed it to platinum.
The monster quest stuff isn't odd as it was dlc, so it was made for players that had already potentially finished the game. The skills were added with the dlc so if you played it before it came out you would know how to use those skills
I earned my first and only platinum trophy in this game. This was the proudest moment in my gaming career.
I have played a console or pc game since 2018. It’s good to be reminded of my favorite game of all time. 😊
I've put in 500+ hours into this game according to my PSN account. The endgame is the best orc killing simulator ever
I'm so happy you're covering this game 👏
2:49 with the wonderful arranged Piano Piece in the Background, it was very Soul Crushing (for me)...
59:05 "Death Threats are a brilliant idea"
I practically worshipped this game for a while. Even now, it is one of my favourites of the generation. I've played Arkham games and for some reason I still prefer this. Just the way everything comes together. If one thing starts wearing thin, there's always something else that makes up for it. The game is beginning to end killing Orcs, but killing Orcs never gets old.
Incredible video my friend! really well put together. i wasn't expecting to watch a full hour vid but it was so well done. I just replayed through SoM after years of forgetting about the shadow games. I played on the hardest difficulty and died twice in the beginning and then never again. I got 100% and loved it. I'm playing SoW on the hardest difficulty now and have lost count of how many times I died. The early game orcs out leveled me so hard and 3 of my nemesis became the overlord and two warchiefs for my first conquest. It was so satisfying to take them out.
32:10 elvish Oppenheimer is crazy
I've never been able to put my finger on exactly how i feel about this game.
*This* is exactly to the letter how i feel about it.
One way I've seen another player make the game more difficult was by turning off the counter indicators. TearofGrace has one of the best series I've ever seen on this game wherein he makes judgements on whether or not to kill or spare certain captains as well as playing with a "code of honor" he only breaks, like, twice out of 70+ episodes. I highly recommend watching him since its also pretty funny, and he's responsible for, in my opinion, the most compelling nemesis that the system has ever produced: Prak Jaws.
“This is Lord of the Rings’ John Wick” I love that
I still remember this one orc my brother an I encountered. If I remember right, we'd killed him before, and he came back...LTIERALLY immune to everything. Melee attacks, stealth, ranged...impossible to kill.
Except for ONE thing.
He was afraid of fire.
So we led him near a campfire, and blew it up. Was THRILLING
Love both of the Shadow games. Two of my favorites ever
The thing about this game, Arkham Knight, Marvel's Spiderman, Far Cry, new AC games, and more is that at times they are so easy and even dull at times, that you play to look and smooth and cool as possible, perfecting style and violent creativity and not efficiency necessarily.
So I love these games for that. (Though I have no brain).
A brilliant video, I love both Shadow of Mordor and War and I feel that your review has really done the first part justice while being fair with it's faults and dissappointments. Hoping for a video for the second part soon!
Me: yeah, this game was alright
Also me: 100% the game and it's sequal
Tallion and Celebrimbor were the OG V and Johnny Silverhand. Two souls, two traumatic backstories, one body.
It has been years since I played these games but I distinctly remember (in mordor or war don't know which) a captain immune to everything. I don't remember how i beat it or if I even did beat it , but I do remember how I dreaded every encounter with that freak.
Good, sir with all due respect your analysis was very good, but i think at the end you forgot what Talion is at his core. A soldier of Gondor. A Ranger of the Black Gate, he does infact get a reason to stay in the fight during the game. He helps Hirgon get his wife back, which is something he will never be able to expiriance, but there is something he can do about that. Delay Sauron, the longer he makes a mess inside Mordor the more he spares the families of Gondor the pain of war.
He is a soldier of Gondor and a man of Honor. He over the course of game does make some conections with people, and that helps him pass the trauma of his family death, and the longer we play the less of a forefront that become. He is changing, at the end it is not only for his own sake that he fights but for the free peoples, that is the reason we see Queen Miriel´s place ransacked, its to establish that war in mordor has begun and that Talion does care about them (you can see it in Talion´s face).
I played SoM on PS3, where the loading times were obscene and the nemesis system was weakened, but I still had an extreme amount of fun with it just because of how fun the core gameplay is
I found that the most fun I ever had with the nemesis system was when I was still getting a grip on gaming. I first played shadow of mordor when I was pretty terrible at the game, and I had a nemesis that pursued me throughout the whole game. It was loads of fun, and I doubt I'll ever forget that orc. I later went back and replayed the game, along with shadow of war, and I can't say I had more than one or two orcs survive the second encounter.