Shadow of Mordor: 9 Years Later
Вставка
- Опубліковано 25 кві 2023
- 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.
Patreon: / whitelightyt
Merch: www.whitelight.store
Discord: Whitelight#4493
Recommended Channels:
RennsReviews: / rennsreviews - Ігри
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 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.
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
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 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.
🤣
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
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
"Mordor goes hard, and it goes nowhere else"
The best descriptor of this game by far
I fondly remember fighting 50 orks at once in an arena in a desperate melee where I had to pull out all the stops to win, and after a few attempts I won, that’s when I knew I loved this game
Ooh, yeah, when I found that challenge, I was not even aware that I could take on so many orcs! It felt so good to realize I was f***ing *strong*!
yeah my favorite thing to do in both games is just to run into a fort and have a brawl with everybody
I fondly remember getting stun locked over... and over... and over... everytime I tried to fight more than a few orcs at once. Some will say "you need to block attacks!" Well, if there are 5 orcs swinging swords at me, I'm literally doing nothing but blocking 5 attacks, then blocking another 5, and then blocking another 5, and never having a chance to get in my own attacks because as soon as I stop blocking I get stunned by an orc hitting me. As the game went on and the fights got harder and the groups of enemies got bigger, I learned I had to keep separating each orc from its friends by kiting them away from each other so I could fight them one by one (Is this how the game was supposed to be played? Why did they give me AOE attacks but punish me for fighting groups of enemies instead of one at a time?). This took all the fun out of the game. I eventually rage quit, it was so frustrating. I think I was fairly close to finishing the story, too.
I tried so hard to love this game. And I did. I loved everything about it.... except the stun locks, which were enough to ruin the whole experience for me. I've been gaming since the early '90s and I consider myself a bit of a video game junkie, and I believe nothing is more frustrating than getting stun locked and feeling completely helpless to get yourself out of it. Maybe fighting games just aren't for me.
Lol basic kid likes swinging sword freely on large group of enemies. Your a game tester lol not even a gamer.
@@daminoxget gud. I played this game twice end to end and never had this issue.
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.
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
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.
The fact that I still remember my nemesis from the first game: Ronk the Judge, still astounds me. What an amazing game.
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
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 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.
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.
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
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
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! 👌😸
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.
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
Thank you Whitelight. You posting brightens my day just about everytime
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.
It's so fucking depressing that the nemesis system will probably never see another game.
It might be in the upcoming Wonder Woman game by Monolith. It was also supposed to be in the cancelled Arkham Knight sequel with Damian Wayne.
But it does suck that WB is gatekeeping this feature that could fit in so many video games and could improve future gaming mechanics.
@@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
Beyond the knowledge about games, you're also a very good storyteller.
This game and Alien Isolation were such pleasant surprises, and they both came out next to each other.
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.
My favorite memory from two playthroughs is that after beating the campaign I made it my mission to brand every single captain and warchief until they were all mine.
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.
I remember playing this on my old pc when I was like 14. Nostalgic game for certain.
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.
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
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
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
You truly felt like an angry angel of vengeance in this game. The insane combat and the way you just haunt the fuck out of Mordor until Nemesis' start coming after you. Amazing. Also - I have a sneaky suspicion that Whitelight IS Exorb1a...
and when they finally kill you, and end the nightmare that even orcs fear...
You're back the next morning, they only bought time to breath for just a short while.
@@theoreticalexistence9630 The spirit of Vengeance RETURNS :D
They both speak in riddles xdd
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.
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!
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 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 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
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!
Holy shit, my favorite Triple A game of all time gets an enlightened once over by Whitelight?! This is a dream come true!
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.
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 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
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?
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.
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.
Definitely one of, if not the best, greatest Lord of the Rings games.
Glad I gave it a chance.
Honestly one of my favourite franchises, and I wasn't the biggest LotR fan. I just hope we get a threequel.
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.
Shadow of Mordor is when I yelled and did hand hand chops while executing a particularly strong warchief who once defeated me, but when I did the finishing animation on a guy who killed MC's entire family it was like "aight, done, get rekt"
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
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.
2:49 with the wonderful arranged Piano Piece in the Background, it was very Soul Crushing (for me)...
Thanks some another fantastic essay. Look forward to every one of your videos.
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!!
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.
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.
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
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.
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
i just found ur channel,this might sound odd but you have the best voice to sleep to. i usually have trouble falling asleep because my mind never stops thinking and ur videos help me fall asleep much better, thanks for the content, keep it up
The sheer coherence of these videos is wonderful, a true joy to listen to whilst playing games.
I never went back and replayed Shadow of Mordor but I have replayed SoW multiple times and 100%ed but never thought as to why. Your review just about sums it up
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!
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
Every time I see a video on these games I go home and re-download them for a few months
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
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
I bought this game on sale and didnt expect to spend 72 hours there. I remember 1 orc captain who had no weaknesses, all resistances and he showed up in the early game so i wasnt very good or had many skills at that point. He killed me 3 times before i killed him back. Even after a year after finishing this game i still remember him
i just finished SoW for the first time. was wondering if i should try SoM and found your video. insanely detailed 16 minutes in and i know enough to go ahead. crazy detail man, your attention to detail is inspiring
Despite the game painting me as the villain, I loved this game. The nemesis system was awesome and held a lot of potential.
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.
Seriously hoping they remaster this game, it has so much more to give
i literally just got back into shadow of war a couple of days ago and you upload this video. crazy man
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.
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.
I actually use wraith flash quite a lot, it has a pretty wide AOE and you can use it twice right after each other then quickly get your combo meter back and use it twice again to kill most orcs near you especially if you've already got some damage on them
Ok I can't wait for the Shadow of War video now. Really didn't think you'd talk about this one, but I was pleasantly surprised.
I am genuinely excited to see if they make another entry into this franchise with the expansion of chat GPT and other AIs actually being capable of running full simulations like the nemesis system was trying to emulate in the 1st place.
Completely AI generated: Appearances, dialogue, and most importantly interactions between the AI nemesis'.
Shadow of Mordor is so much better than shadow of war it’s crazy. What a disappointing sequel.
I always love your long-content videos. I fell in love with your style ever since your Darksider 2 video, and I really hope you'll handle Shadow of War the same way.
Ah man your videos are always masterpieces, your storytelling is perfect!
I have mixed feelings about this game. I really liked how fluid it felt, how OP the protagonist was in terms of combat, stealth and navigation. And yeah the nemesis system was mindblowing... until I saw the cracks in the system. I remember several reasons why I stopped playing the game and never got back to it. First of all, the story was forgettable once the game goes beyond the introduction level, I remember running to a mission location and then wondering why I was there (but then this is definitely subjective haha). Second, while i LOVED the concept of the nemesis system, following happened; this fucking nobody, a thin, frail short orc gave the killing blow to me once when I was fighting a group on low health. So now this guy (I guess his name was Ratbag or something) gets promoted and becomes captain whatever, getting more powerful. He kills me again, and again, AND AGAIN somehow. So much that I stopped giving a shit about Sauron and the entire story became about me vs Ratbag. He became the strongest guy in enemy group (whatever it was called), and god knows how badly I hated this guy hahah. Anyway, this one time I go all in, and actually kill the bastard. Best moment of my gaming life ever... for a few days. Because then somehow I saw this Ratbag guy walking again in a group! HOW the fuck did the orcs cheat death? I never understood that, I remember searching online for why it happened but well. But yeah, that just killed any remaining motivation to play the game. But thats the thing, the system was THIS good in eliciting such strong reactions from players towards an NPC, it actually made us take notice of the game environment like that. WB definitely fucked up a lot by holding this patent, I truly believe game development has been held back by a few decades because of this patent, atleast till around 2035 when the patent expires. Fuck you WB.
I just finished shadow of Mordor, played through it in a week, and finished all the side quests, and got all the collectibles. Immediately I booted up shadow of war, and the story took me out of it immediately. When Talion in the first game said that it was time for a new ring. I was excited to grind to make it and get to the halfway point where the ring was made. The ring was made in the first cut scene. Calabrimbor was kidnapped immediately and we traded the ring to get him back to someone we didn’t meet in the first game. Then we were thrown into a conflict with people we didn’t know. I was pissed and I turned it off. If you make a video about shadow of war, can you tell me why I’m an idiot, because love shadow of Mordor, I hate shadow of war. Prove me wrong please I want to be proven wrong.
War is no where near as good as Mordor
War feels over saturated with busy menus etc
As always, amazing work and a lovely video on a game that i really loved. I am very excited for you to cover the sequel. I actually never beat it but a i got close as i did hit a grind wall and i got a little bored but i still loved it
Love it when a new white light video drops!
The music that plays when the title drops never fails to get me hyped.
Love these retrospectives
@2:30 The game has one of the most beautiful and sweetest tutorials I've ever experienced.
It was really used well and I constantly use it as an example of great smooth tutorials.
59:05 "Death Threats are a brilliant idea"
Incredible video about a game we love, would love to see more about War if there's still things to talk about there.
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♥️
This was a great video. Thank you
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 would replay it to this day. Both installments were masterpieces