The Geekdom Gamescast have set off on two very different paths when it comes to their quarantine gaming. While “Brother” Myke is getting sweaty with Doom Eternal (which Moody reviewed, but only got halfway), Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, and intense sessions of Warzone; “Monsignor” Moody has taken the more chilled-out JRPG approach playing Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age and the new Persona 5 Royal.
Also in our 16th episode, we get into the latest console reveals for the Xbox Series X and the PS5, trailers for upcoming games, the anticipated critical feedback of FF7R, and Myke’s Game Pass backlog.
If you’d like to skip to a certain topic here are some timestamps:
Intro and the PS5 DualSense News(Start – 11:53)
Final Fantasy VII Remake Review Round-up(11:54 – 21:44)
Resident Evil 3 Nemesis Remake and RE VIII Rumors(21:55 – 35:31)
Doom Eternal(35:32 – 56:12)
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age(56:27 – 1:10:50)
Inside Xbox and Myke’s Quaran-Games(1:11:00 – 1:35:24)
When I first started playing Middle-earth: Shadow of War, I was a little skeptical. There have been a few lackluster reviews on this sequel to the 2014 Lord of the Rings action hit, Shadow of Mordor, as of late and — hey — maybe this would turn out another over-hyped bust. But after fully delving into the story of Talion and Celebrimbor, SoW wound up one of the best games I’ve played in a long while. But do read the rest.
Shadows of War takes place after the events of The Hobbit and before LOTR. Set completely in the lands of Mordor, your objective is to overthrow Sauron by converting his own army of Orcs into your own personal death squad. The lands of Mordor are massive this time around. There are currently five different areas to unlock, each spanning a huge open world environment with its own climate. You will fight in the streets of Minas Ithil (aka Minas Morgul) to the snowy peaks of Seregost. You must survive the forests of Nurnen. Even the very heart of Mordor itself, Gorgoroth, is present and waiting for you in all its horror.
Talion has two objectives this time around: 1.) Raise an army to destroy Sauron, 2.) Save as many Gondorians as he can from the fall of Minas Ithil. In each of the lands of Mordor Talion must rescue soldiers, convert and slay captains, and, finally, take over the area fortress through storming and slaying the current overlord. How you go about this is all up to you, as the open world becomes completely open in Act Two — when the game really starts.
This is..
Now that the introduction is out of the way, let’s talk about gameplay. The only way to play this game is on Nemesis mode. If you play on Normal or Easy, you’ll fly through as an unstoppable warrior released from the gates of hell to drop death and destruction as a one man army; I started the game on the Normal level and flew through the first act. Orcs fell to my blade by the dozens and hundreds. No captain could defeat me, I was a living god of the battlefield. I also became bored very quickly. All that changed switching to the Nemesis difficulty.
Looking at my first Army tab under Nemesis I found my first target, an Uruk named Shaak. He was my level, and had a weakness to poison. Equipped with a poison blade, I decided to convert Shaak Diesel into one of my minions — hell, even my bodyguard. We went out and slew and converted more captains. I died a bunch of times, I killed a bunch of them; just a typical day around Mordor. Then I went to fight a war chief. Right as I’m about to cut off his head, my loyal bodyguard ambushes me, claiming he no longer works for me, and kills me. What a asshat Shaak Attack!
Loney Orc-in.
So what do I do? I hunt down The Big Aristotle. We fight and he runs away. I hunt him again, this time killing him with poison. But that wasn’t the end. A while later, Shaak-Fu reappears. The poison hadn’t killed him after all; it just transformed him. Now he’s immune to poison and a lot stronger — sorta like the same famous Hall of Fame giant with the similar name. He kills me — and then just for fun, HE SNAPS MY SWORD! Coming back from the dead, I now have a personal vendetta against Shaak Daddy. I hunt him down and I am merciless, killing him with an execution that cuts off one of his arms and one of his legs. My sword that he snapped, I get back and it’s now even stronger. But that’s not the end of the Shaak Saga…
The relentless Orc returned again, this time with a peg leg and arm. He killed me a bunch of times. I killed him even more. Arrows, beast attacks, executions. He just kept.. coming… back! Then during an assault on an enemy camp, Shaak attacked me again. I managed to get him down to almost zero health, and I was the same. Wounded and almost dead, your protag was able to perform an execution, this time cutting off Shakk’s skull and ending our rivalry once and for all. Thing is, I didn’t feel any sense of accomplishment, more-so empty.. as if a part of my game was gone that I would never get back. This is where Shadows of War shines, in your ability to create your own story and your own enemies. This experience alone makes this game worth playing.
If my description of the Nemesis system isn’t enough to make you give this Middle-earth sequel a go, then I don’t know what will. While the game does have faults — such as micro transactions and controls that can be somewhat sloppy — my overall experience has been a most positive one. And, R.I.P. Shaak; I’ll never forget you, buddy. 4.5/5 Bibles.
Silicon Valley is coming to Shadow of War. Sort of.
Funnyman and certified geek Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick) is bringing his vocal talents to The Agonizer, the most terrifying villain in the game. The hell? No worries; Nanjiani breaks it down like this:
“My character is an orc. What’s different about him, is he wants to be a badass, he wants to be cool, but he really second guesses himself and overthinks everything. He writes these insults, but in the moment, he’s not sure if they’re good. I hope me being in the game doesn’t ruin the game for me. It’s going to be tricky — this guy sounds like me, so I don’t want to kill him. Or maybe I do want to kill him? I’ll just murder myself.”
We didn’t think it was possible, but our #1 Playable Game at E3 2017 already looks that much sicker. Nanjiani already joins the star-studded cast of Troy Baker, Alastair Duncan, and Laura Bailey this October 10th on Xbox One, PS4 and PC.
It’s usually hard to top WBIE’s slate at #E3, but this year the company brought Middle-earth: Shadow of War, LEGOs, LEGOs and more.. LEGOs. Yeah, not the usual level of greatness veteran attendees are used to (Witcher, Arkham, Injustice, etc.). But there’s a good reason why: Shadow of War was enough, despite my tempered expectations for The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings related title. Monolith Productions’ previous entry, Shadow of Mordor, won many critical accolades, had great buzz from fans, but didn’t hold much longevity. Its weaknesses become more apparent the deeper players went into the game. For me, assigning mindless Orcs to various rolls — through Domination — became more of a task than a thrill for me. I’m proud to tell you that same issue has now transitioned to arguably its best feature.
In Shadow of War (out on multi-consoles this October 10th), Monolith seems to have the writing down pat. It’s certainly no Tolkien, but Orcs show far more jazz, personality, charisma, and deceit; monologues pre- and post-battle contain plenty of awesome, laugh-out-loud moments. With a new, far more immersive D&D-style tactical menu, you’ll care more about Orc roles and the kingdom hierarchy system than imagined. I watched, as one lower-tier orc, Pug, rose to fame through the ranks to constantly become my own little personal nightmare.
There was no stopping this menacing uprise. When my Ranger eventually got his revenge in a third attempt to siege — thanks to scaling the fortress on the top of a chariot-worn Caragor — decapitating Lt. Pug after a lengthy brawl (before eventually falling to my own death at the hands of a Pug comrade), it became a story within the story. That’s the beauty of the new antagonist personalities; it feels like everything you do in Middle- earth: Shadow of War is reactionary and purposeful.
Further, Talion’s Assassin’s Creed-meets-Arkham embodied movement and combat is a lot smoother (a double jump is added), the Nemesis system carries a more extensive focus, and MeSoW‘s gorgeous 4K visuals might be worthy of a purchase alone (Orcs are now sized at scale; yeah, you’ll want to assign one of them Brock Lesnar types as a bodyguard). It’s more of the same, revitalized, expanded and fully-realized — great for someone like me who couldn’t get through the first game.
Another plus: Orcs are no longer just stage hounds. Some will remember the day you took them away from their cherished warchief (or “Pug”), and turn on you the second you slip. In addition to more tactical practice in Shadow of War, there’s more use of environmental aids, like hanging lumber, Morgai flies’ nests, and poisonous spiders, just to name a few. Best of all, your new army — when ready for war — appears fully cast, as things finally shift towards the epically-scaled battles we ever so cherished from Lord of the Rings. 4.75/5 Bibles.
MIDDLE-EARTH: SHADOW OF WAR (Monolith Productions/Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment – PS4, Xbox One, PC – August 22, 2017) – Back in September of 2014, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor released to relatively mild fanfare, although it was a critical hit! Three years later and the story of Talion and Celembrimbor continue yet. Shadow of Mordor was praised for the simple yet effective fighting mechanics and the groundbreaking Nemesis System. Whereas the predecessor dealt with the Nemesis aspect, the sequel’s spotlight will be on fortress assaults.
When you think of Lord of the Rings, automatically, you think of the battle of Helms Deep or Siege of Gondor. That’s what the people at Monolith are shooting for, to give every gamer the feeling of being in the middle of a large-scale battle. Producer Michael de Plater said, “This was our ambition to do the big, blockbuster version of the ideas we’d begun to explore in the first game. It’s kind of our Terminator 2 to Terminator.” It will still be a single player campaign but making it no less the rewarding. Expect big battles, Uruk-on-Uruk violence and plenty of hacked off limbs.
