Middle-Earth: Shadow of War [PC, PS4, XBone]

[Snowy]

OK a quick tale of derring-do between meetings:

Last night I moved to the second area of the game, from the besieged city and out into a cave network that then moves into a cliff-side fortress. This is the first area which has Orcish encampments, but no fortresses I don't believe until Act 2 which I expect I am still some way off from. I was wandering around, doing quests, collecting bits and bobs, and generally having fun when the view swung around as an orc commander got the drop on me, and proceeded to tell me all the ways he was going to remove my skin. Nice.

I launched myself at him, but his sword, clouded with green ichor, took a massive chunk of my health off and poisoned me, taking me to about 5%. I let out a very un-rangerlike squeak of terror, and high-tailed it to the nearest structure and clambered out of danger. The orc boss was level 19 to my level 8 - I was in trouble. I needed to drain an orc to replenish my health, but knew that if I properly ran away from this fucker that (a) he would grow more powerful and become even harder to kill, (b) would likely start dogging my heels as a nemesis (the game seems to ensure that you are re-introduced) and (c) the bastard would take the piss out of me when next we met. The first two points I could stomach, but the last was an affront to my manhood. He must die.

Thankfully I have the double-jump ability now, which allows some magnificent traversal of obstacles while remaining mostly unmolested. I searched out a lone archer in Spirit vision, got to him and drained him, solving my immediate health concerns. Next on the list, what were Mr Level 19 (sorry, didn't screengrab any of this so no name for him) weaknesses? A flying leap onto a nearby worm, a cry of "KNEEL BEFORE ME!" and I knew that he was vulnerable to attacks from stealth and executions, but that was about it. I had whaled away on him already before he got his single lethal blow in, and had barely dented his health.

What followed was a hugely tense cat-and-mouse battle. He was hunting me down, and had an amazing sense of smell to do so. At one point I was hiding in some undergrowth waiting to get stabby and watched him sniff the air before charging my position. Sneaking up on him was not an option! I started using the structures, climbing them, letting myself be seen to draw him close, and then piledriving onto him from a crouch and then legging it. In all the fight must have taken 15 minutes, and featured several panicked escapes - that sword of his was a Edwin! Eventually though, I leapt from a tower, plunged my dagger into his head, and he was finally dead. Thankfully (as once again I was on a piddly level of health) his henchmen all collectively crapped themselves and gave it Linford, allowing me to pick up my epic reward.

[Jez]

Interesting. Didn't the last game kinda scale with you level wise? Might be wrong. So basically in this one you can meet very powerful enemies many levels above.

[Snowy]

Most of the bosses are around my level, this one was way higher though.

[Jez]

Lots of menus in this with a lot of sub menus and stuff. Bit daunting in the hour I managed earlier. Just a wee taster.

[Snowy]

Yes it is a bit overwhelming initially, but you quickly get past that.

[Snowy]

Some of the missions can be pretty spectacular. Not the stealth ones so much, as the orcs seem virtually blind the moment you crouch, but just done one particular story quest that was immense.

The Witch King gets wind of your actions in the defense of the city, and challenges you to come out for a duel against Sauron's champion.

Hint (no spoilers within but hidden anyhow - up to you):

Spoiler: show

Make sure you have identified the champions in the city to learn their weaknesses

Once you complete the battle, the resulting cutscene is just fucking epic.

Level 16 now, 13 hours in and not yet out of act 1 - I am being a real completist which is unlike me. Hoovering up collectibles, elven words (well worth collecting) and Shelob memories as I go, often from the back of a Caragor to enable a speedy collection run.

[Jez]

Yeah I like the caragor taming myself. Boosting about at speed. Can be a little hard to negotiate areas with a lot of high points nearby mind where the damn thing wants to climb.

Great game. The story seems weak enough but it's ok as it goes.

[Jez]

Really enjoying the game here. Got a sub skill of the grog poisoning tendril ability that explodes orcs in a shower of poison viscera that poisons others nearby. Having great fun with that.

I'm on the second area now just feeling about and collecting stuff. The average captain level in this area seems to be around 13 but I did come across one git that is level 21. He's killed me once already when I got a bit cocky. So he's levelled up more now and has only one vulnerability I can exploit.

Poison.

Anyway old grubshak or whatever his name was turned up in a nearby stronghold. I hadn't even wanted to face him again but there he was and he hadn't noticed me. I remained in stealth high up and thought I'd try the grog poison explodey thing on a group that was a little ways from me. Barrel poisoned I sat back to watch them all explode when old grubshak makes his way over and all for a bit of a drinky.

He doesn't make it though cos his chums started popping catching him in the mist and poisoning him. Sure enough after long enough he dropped to his festering knees and gave up his last...and a nice cloak.

Ta!

[Snowy]

Haha nice - I have the poison tendril myself, but haven't used it much (or rather, not waited around to see the results of my poisonings). Will have to remedy that!

I am into Act 2 now, after the fairly scary fight that ends Act 1 (took me 3 attempts to complete it but didn't take a scratch by the third). I was a bit gutted, as there are three areas to Act 1 and I didn't even go to the third! Anyhow, mahoosive map opened up and I expect that it will only expand more as I progress. I am also now starting to build my army, capturing both orcs and captains. It mixes things up - now when you know someone has a mortal weakness, you go all out to avoid it coming near them, as you can't recruit corpses to the cause

[Jez]

What do you mean by a third area snowy? The first area is minas ithil (spelling) the second area is cirith ungol what's the third area of that map out of curiosity? Just don't want to miss it myself see

[Snowy]

When I went to the main map during act 1, I thought there was a third place you can travel to - maybe you can check for me as I have moved past it now. Not the City, not the cliffside fort, but east from there (in main map terms)

[Jez]

There are markers for osgiliath and minas tirith but they are not travelable from what I can see. They just have some lore attached to them.

[Snowy]

Aha that's good then, I feel vindicated for spending so much time collecting shit

[Jez]

Level 19 now. Just done the Arena missions shaming the bejeebus out of the orc champions. Moving on to the next story mission now which I'm assuming will lead to a close out of Act 1. Have collected everything to do with gondor, shelob etc. There are a few shadow of the past bits needing doing but requiring high level skills to nab those.

Whatever may be said about Open World games and I'm not generally a fan, this is pretty good.

Got into a scrap with a level 17 Olog not too bad really until i also got ambushed by another captain during the fight and then somehow managed to wander into 2 more captains god knows how. So 4 captains plus inside a stronghold. Tough fight especially as one of them was a poisonous spear chucker that I found hard to close distance with.

Luckily 2 of them turned out to be mortally injured by fire so mopped those up quicker than Ihad any right to.
The other 2 were easy after that. I like that the orcs can adapt to you also and start resisting your go to moves. Makes you think a little.

[Snowy]

So I am a little way ahead, levelled up into the low twenties but quite skilled up as I have been busy collecting everything to maximise skill pointage.

I need to have a little hunt around though, as following capturing the first fortress (which is kinda a tutorial in game form) three map areas have opened up. The area that I could fast travel to though - the orcs are all level 30-40+. I have still nailed some, but have had to kill or shame them as they are too high level for me to recruit which is a shame.

Need to have a look around the other map areas and see if I have blundered into a higher level area than I am set up to deal with, or whether out in the 'real world' now the game has opened up all the baddies are that tough...