Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - anyone here excited about this game? update-reviews!

[cbrunny]

Had another interesting thing happen in this game last night. Apparently, one of my friends has this game too (we are connected as friends on steam). He was killed by one of the captains I have yet to meet in my game, so I was given a side quest to avenge my friends' death by killing the captain. That is cool!

Really? That's amazing! I'm actually extremely impressed with the nemesis system. I hope we see more of it!!

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Game doesn't run too well on my 680. I have limited it to medium textures (which is worse than the consoles) and then otherwise its a mix of ultra and high. Frame rate is in the 45-60 range most of the time, which at least with gsync is smooth enough but its disappointing to find it can't utilise SLI and hence is running like I had a mid range card from 2 years ago. By the time Nvidia releases SLI drivers for it I'll have been done with the game, as is so typically the case when they aren't there on release day (shame on your Nvidia, its even one of your sponsored games as well).

Don't have the game myself, but I'm considering it and I have a 680 so this information is troubling. Have you tried running it in Borderless Windowed mode? A lot of people are saying that smooths out framerates; seems to be the only way to enable triple buffering.

 

[Zenoth]

Don't have the game myself, but I'm considering it and I have a 680 so this information is troubling. Have you tried running it in Borderless Windowed mode? A lot of people are saying that smooths out framerates; seems to be the only way to enable triple buffering.

I'm running the game on High textures now, with my GTX 670.

I would assume that a 680 would be able to run it slightly better than me (my rig is in my signature), and my CPU isn't exactly "high-end" anymore as well. I was running the textures on Medium for the first two days, but I switched to High for a test last night and to my surprise it still runs smooth enough, I did notice a performance impact but it wasn't bad enough to justify going back to Medium. At those settings it's probably running within the 45 FPS range or so (happy with that). I'll probably check my actual FPS with Fraps later today (for now I'm only guessing, but it's smooth enough to enjoy the game-play).

I only turned off both Ambient Occlusion and Motion Blur, the rest of the options are at their respective highest values (well, except for the textures of course, at High, not Ultra). Note, however, that I run it at 70% resolution (1432 x 1074) so that certainly helps. I ran the game at 80% resolution instead but with the textures on Medium, and even though the resolution was a little higher the quality of the textures wasn't satisfying enough (doesn't mean that Medium is bad though, it's actually pretty good compared to other games' "Medium" settings). So I opted for higher quality textures and slightly lower screen resolution instead, and I prefer that result so far.

With a GTX 680 I'm pretty sure that running at 80% resolution with High textures shouldn't be a problem (and would run smooth enough). There's no denying that the game's "recommended" specs were not joking around though, but I'm genuinely happy to see a current-gen game actually using "modern" hardware well enough, it encourages me to think about a full PC upgrade sooner, rather than later.

 

[futurefields]

Game doesn't run too well on my 680. I have limited it to medium textures (which is worse than the consoles) and then otherwise its a mix of ultra and high. Frame rate is in the 45-60 range most of the time, which at least with gsync is smooth enough but its disappointing to find it can't utilise SLI and hence is running like I had a mid range card from 2 years ago. By the time Nvidia releases SLI drivers for it I'll have been done with the game, as is so typically the case when they aren't there on release day (shame on your Nvidia, its even one of your sponsored games as well).

time to get a ps4?

 

[Fire&Blood]

Had another interesting thing happen in this game last night. Apparently, one of my friends has this game too (we are connected as friends on steam). He was killed by one of the captains I have yet to meet in my game, so I was given a side quest to avenge my friends' death by killing the captain. That is cool!

 

[BrightCandle]

I am so frustrated with the camera in this game. I was just fighting a warchief, I had to burn 5 of his supporters and it took me an hour to get that all setup, warchief turns up, I use his fear of carragors against him and he runs. I give chase and the moment I do so the camera is convinced I need to look at my left ear. I am constantly trying to correct the camera and chase this guy through like 100 orks trying to dodge and everything else, in the end some dude I couldn't see got a blow on me because of the stupid camera. That was really frustrating, I had that war chief near dead and running for his life, all I needed was one opportunity but the camera was just all over the shop. Grrrrrrrr.

 

[TheSlamma]

Definitely in rinse and repeat mode already.. send in 100\0 orcs and you can just keep on going once you know all the counters and dodges. Kill them all and they are all back in less than 1 minute from respawn. The archery is the only thing that adds something different to the combat and it's probably because you have such a limited supply of ammo.

6/10 - Rated ER for Extreme Repetition

 

[SlitheryDee]

You kind of have to get the idea of actually clearing areas of orcs out of your head in this game. It's more about going straight to your target, taking him out, and getting out of there. Being stealthy, making use of weaknesses and fears, issuing death threats, and branding captains who are the bodyguards of war chiefs can make fights a bit more varied. I actually maxed out my upgrade tiers in the first part of the game, so the only reason I ever have to kill captains or war Chiefs is for runes. It almost isn't worth bothering unless I issue a death threat so there's a chance for an epic rune. I want to see what happens if I manage to brand every captain and war chief on the board. I guess that would bring the whole nemesis system to a halt.

 

[Rakewell]

I'm really enjoying this game.

I recommend this little fix to everyone, though - intro shite be gone!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=320708706&insideModal=1

 

[XiandreX]

I just starting playing today for an hour or so and thoroughly enjoying it.
I am curious if I am going for captains/named Orcs too quickly.
I have come close but lost to a couple. I clean the area but when I engage they
call a ton of soldiers in to assist.

I am sure I will get the hang of it, just curious as to methods for dealing with Captains without dying and having them level up too much.

I guess another good question would be which skills should I take to assist with dealing with big packs?
I understand the batman combo system fairly well, probably just rusty.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I just starting playing today for an hour or so and thoroughly enjoying it.
I am curious if I am going for captains/named Orcs too quickly.
I have come close but lost to a couple. I clean the area but when I engage they
call a ton of soldiers in to assist.

I am sure I will get the hang of it, just curious as to methods for dealing with Captains without dying and having them level up too much.

Get the upgrade that lets you do combat executions. Most captains are vulnerable to them. Early on you'll need a few orcs around you to hit to build up enough hit streak to do them. The trick is to build up your hit streak on the other orcs and then use the execution on the captain/warlord. Ground executions do similar damage, but you won't always have the room to do them. Combat execution aren't instant kills most of the time, but they will do a lot of damage to most captains. When possible, use their weaknesses against them. Early on you'll see a fair number of captains that will die instantly from a single arrow to the head or stealth attack. That has the potential to make fights with them trivial. Picking out those captains and issuing death threats against them when you gain that ability is an easy way to get better runes. Of course you'll have to interrogate other orcs in order to reveal which captains are vulnerable to what.

 

[dmoney1980]

Game doesn't run too well on my 680. I have limited it to medium textures (which is worse than the consoles) and then otherwise its a mix of ultra and high. Frame rate is in the 45-60 range most of the time, which at least with gsync is smooth enough but its disappointing to find it can't utilise SLI and hence is running like I had a mid range card from 2 years ago. By the time Nvidia releases SLI drivers for it I'll have been done with the game, as is so typically the case when they aren't there on release day (shame on your Nvidia, its even one of your sponsored games as well).

The game is OK, I like killing orks but I can't say I am very good at the big fights. At least I have stopped trying to go for the ground kills when outnumbered, they do die without it which wasn't obvious in the beginning when they explained the combat system.

I found out that you need to change a setting within the nvidia control panel in the 3d settings menu to get SLI to work. I provided a screencap below - all you do is change the SLI rendering mode (in bold below) after selecting the game from the list.

 

[waggy]

the game looks **I'M A POTTY MOUTH** awesome. one of the few i want to get



No cursing in PCG.

Anandtech Administrator
KeithTalent

 

[XiandreX]

Get the upgrade that lets you do combat executions. Most captains are vulnerable to them. Early on you'll need a few orcs around you to hit to build up enough hit streak to do them. The trick is to build up your hit streak on the other orcs and then use the execution on the captain/warlord. Ground executions do similar damage, but you won't always have the room to do them. Combat execution aren't instant kills most of the time, but they will do a lot of damage to most captains. When possible, use their weaknesses against them. Early on you'll see a fair number of captains that will die instantly from a single arrow to the head or stealth attack. That has the potential to make fights with them trivial. Picking out those captains and issuing death threats against them when you gain that ability is an easy way to get better runes. Of course you'll have to interrogate other orcs in order to reveal which captains are vulnerable to what.

Thanks, I haven't been using the bow much yet. I need to check my controller mappings for the interogation and to redo the Combat executions as its currently mapped to Yellow + Red.
What is the base keybind to interogate?

 

[SlitheryDee]

Thanks, I haven't been using the bow much yet. I need to check my controller mappings for the interogation and to redo the Combat executions as its currently mapped to Yellow + Red.
What is the base keybind to interogate?

On my xbox360 controller its A (green), after you've grabbed the Orc.

 

[RockinZ28]

I found out that you need to change a setting within the nvidia control panel in the 3d settings menu to get SLI to work. I provided a screencap below - all you do is change the SLI rendering mode (in bold below) after selecting the game from the list.

Dammit I wish I had found that sooner lol.

Game is now perfectly smooth 60fps with vsync at 1080p ultra settings with 2xAA.

 

[Fallen Kell]

It runs alright on the 670 with ultra textures if you turn a lot of the other stuff down. I am just updating my driver to see if that makes any improvements (was still on 337.88).

(please note that alright doesn't mean 60 fps... more like 30's with some slowdowns into the teens... personally been holding out for the 20nm cards).

My main complaint is the camera's distance to the character creating an extremely tight field of view. I wouldn't mind so much if it would automatically swing around as my character changes directions (like anything over 40 degrees in rotation), but it is just annoying as hell they way it currently is.

 

[SlitheryDee]

Finally beat it. 37 hours. Not a bad amount of playtime, but I had to do nearly everything it's possible to do in the game in addition to a lot of playing around with the nemesis system to stretch it out that long. I need to get some input on that ending. I won't say anything here though.

 

[Fire&Blood]

Finally beat it. 37 hours. Not a bad amount of playtime, but I had to do nearly everything it's possible to do in the game in addition to a lot of playing around with the nemesis system to stretch it out that long. I need to get some input on that ending. I won't say anything here though.

Do you mean the last words uttered in the game? I've talked about it with a few extreme LOTR fans I know, they say it doesn't have to conflict with the canon since it's Celebrimbor.

I liked the voice acting a lot. The line "Make this Uruk scream and his master shall answer" I could listen to all day long or any other line Alastair Duncan read.

 

[Dankk]

So, I'm kind of late to this thread, but holy crap. This game came out of nowhere for me.

I wasn't planning on playing it anytime soon, but everyone keeps raving about how good it is, and Nuuvem is currently selling it for $31. So I took the plunge. Wow. This game is addictive.

It's like they shamelessly took the best bits of other AAA games, and combined them into one super awesome mega-video game. The exploration and movement system of Assassin's Creed, the combat of Batman, and the enemy design of WH40K: Space Marine. Damn. Throw in some hints of Sleeping Dogs and Far Cry 3 and you have one of the best open-world games ever.

I don't think I'm going to be playing anything else for a while.

 

[finbarqs]

bought this game, seems to be okay. It gets a little overwhelming in the beginning, figuring that I need to keep track of my character and a lot of things... but I'm just starting off so I'm not really giving it a proper chance.

Graphics are okay, not mind blowing. I'm running it on ultra everything. So far, achieving mostly 60 fps (VSync enabled)

i7-4770K @4.2
GTX 780

 

[Grooveriding]

nvidia needs to get their act together and release an SLI profile for the game. If I try to use the profiles others have got working in nvidiainspector my game chugs and hitches constantly. I have to run single GPU and performance is not where I'd like it to be.

Game its self is a lot of fun though. Really is a medieval Batman.

 

[davie jambo]

nvidia needs to get their act together and release an SLI profile for the game. If I try to use the profiles others have got working in nvidiainspector my game chugs and hitches constantly. I have to run single GPU and performance is not where I'd like it to be.

Game its self is a lot of fun though. Really is a medieval Batman.

Kind of funny how it's a Nvidia game but no SLI and yet crossfire works great straight away without having to set it up ...

 

[Dahak]

For the SLI Profile, have you tired the setting that dmoney1980 posted a few posts back??
it is essentially putting the AFR mode to 2

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36778164&postcount=162



I got to the 2nd map on the weekend, and been getting all the collectables first before doing any of the main story missions.
On thing I wish is the unlock for controlling an orc was not tied to a story missions, would like to have used that in the first map.
Also so you know if either when you die or when you advance time do the warchiefs get replaced? i tried a bit on the first map but did not try that hard.

 

[Eric1987]

bought this game, seems to be okay. It gets a little overwhelming in the beginning, figuring that I need to keep track of my character and a lot of things... but I'm just starting off so I'm not really giving it a proper chance.

Graphics are okay, not mind blowing. I'm running it on ultra everything. So far, achieving mostly 60 fps (VSync enabled)

i7-4770K @4.2
GTX 780

I thought they were a equal match with watch dogs and those graphics are impressive imo.