Hold on to your butts cos reviews are coming today, will it be a masterpiece or a piece of shit? There can be no in between in the world of video games.

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/09/25/middle-earth-shadow-of-mordor-review

(I'm assuming this is the time everyone can put up their reviews and not just IGN)

I do genuinely hope this is really good, its certainly got potential - the Nemesis system looks especially awesome. Plus Monolith have made some decent games before so I have hope.

How's everyone else's excitement for this game?

I bet it'll get around a 7 from every publication unless there's some real jankyness we haven't seen yet. Looks really good and well polished but lacking in soul or anything to truly distinguish itself from the games it draws upon.

I think the nemesis system is a hoax and is going to be severely disappointing. (hope I'm wrong)

I don't have high expectations. Polygon will have the highest score.

Right now it's up in the air, I hope that it's one of those game that only had middling attention during development then comes out of nowhere and blows everyone away.

I guessing mostly 6s and 7s, with one or two 4s and three 8s.

im guessing that the exact aggregate score for this game will be 7.89345 + .00000002^3

EXACTLY

@spraynardtatum: Yea I'm not expecting it to be as amazing/revolutionary as they are making it out to be, but hopefully it will be a cool hook.

I bet this game would do better if it was priced at $40, both commercially and critically.

Oh man, you missed an opportunity to say "masterpiece of shit".

It's Monolith so I'm going for high 7s and low 8s and then I'll fall in love with it regardless.

@unclebenny: Holy shit, that would of been incredible, can't believe I missed that gem!

I don't think its going to be the next "Arkham Asylum" in the sense of how surprised people were with the immense quality of that game, but i think it will be a decent game.

what about the parabole influx factored by [fun]^2? that would at least bump the exhaust field to +5.7%.

All I've seen of the game thus far has been that nemesis system so I'm curious to see what more it has to offer.

You forgot to take the gradient of the Gameplay tensor then transpose it before cross multiplying.

@theht: those are very good points, though I understood none of them.

This must be because i never want to journalism school.

@rollingzeppelin: Shit more factors i did not know to include into my calculations!

I could go for a good hack'n slash. I really liked the Lord of the Rings books and I thought the movies were good. Unless the reviews are horrible, I'll probably pick this one up.

Sounds like Brad has been playing it when he hasn't been abusively grinding through Destiny. 3 stars? Any takers on 3 stars?

Yeah, this seems like a 3/5 to me from what I've seen so far. Can't wait for this to drop down to $5 on Steam.

I expect another real split opinion on this one (It obviously can't be any other way this gen). Surely 50 percent of people will decry the nemesis system as being repetitive whilst the other half don't give a fuck.

In a sad twist, the 50 percent complaining about the repetition will stick to playing destiny.

Edit - I hope this game is rewarded for trying to do something different in regards to the nemesis system.

It doesn't seem that different though. It's the same as the million other bullshit "your choices drastically effect the world" claims we've been given since the beginning of the last generation just given a new name.

Jaded much?

I don't think they ever sold it as anything it's not. No one in the triple A industry tackles ANYTHING regarding AI in this age and they have built a full system here and then built the game around it.

If this game can does well maybe other developers can quit playing it as safe and innovate in regards to AI, something that has been completely stagnant for the last 10 years..

Maybe not every game can deliver the mind bending peter molyneux fever dream we all want, but at least they are trying to do SOMETHING.

HOW THE FUDGE DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS/ISN'T?

So if its mediocre 6-7, will it get the continuous day to day coverage Destiny continues to receive?Seriously, has ever such a mundane, in all honesty FTP horde mode shooter, received so much praise? If Destiny is the new measuring stick for coverage of games where are the daily Elder Scrolls online triumphs, and dont forget about Firefalls patch just to name a few.

?

Sorry i don't speak vague caps lock?

If you mean the nemesis system, well they have shown it off for hours at this point over E3 and recently at gamespot. Also there have been multiple writeups on it since they started the game.

The basic ideas of it aren't exactly a secret, in fact it's all they have showed off of the game forever.

Man some of you are pretty bitter, its Monolith so i'm expecting something at least decent. The game hasn't been hyped up to stupidly overly exaggerated levels so that's good. Nemesis system sounds like they are trying something different and the combat looks fun, and at the end of the day fun is the only thing that matters really. The story can be shit and the nemesis system might not be as great as they say, but as long as hacking up dudes is fun then i'm good. Seem's like too many people are expecting revolutions with every game that comes out nowadays, just enjoy them for what they are. I mean fuck me I had a good time with resident evil 6 solo so maybe I just like shitty games.

The game has not shipped. Any and all coverage should be taken with a grain of salt. At this point, the Nemesis System has proven that its interesting but not at all that it works or actually makes the game better.

@rowr: Alright. There's some cool shit they're doing. It just needs to work and be good. If they built the whole game around the AI system and it sucks then that isn't as commendable.

I see where you're coming from but we don't know if it works. Try it out for yourself though. I hope you like it and I hope people like it in general.

I'll call your 3 stars and raise you to 4 stars!

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/09/25/heres-when-you-can-read-igns-smash-bros-3ds-review This too tonight

I think I'll match that.

I wonder if GB will post it's review today- if they review it at all. I don't see a QL in the upcoming tab.

I believe that Brad might be reviewing it. I think he alluded to playing it for a review or something like that on the bombcast + his destiny live stream the other day. I might have my facts mixed up though.

I have no expectations for the game, so it could surprise me. I just hope the plot isn't fanfiction tripe on the level of The Third Age.

News flash. You like shitty games. I'm on the side of people who really are jaded with the number of samey AAA games developed under the same assumption that taking risks equals financial ruin.

That said, Mordor looks cool. I'm interested to see the critical reception. Monolith have been very bold about putting gameplay footage out there and that speaks to their confidence in the game. Hopefully it lives up to that.

Speaking of which, Alexa Ray Corriea's feature on the history of LOTR games has a great segment on how the licensing issues with the Tolkien estate turned The Third Age into the narrative mess that it was.

Whatever, that game was okay and also basically FFX.

Well from all the trailers I watched, it definitely seems like a LOTR games I see myself enjoying so i'll definitely be picking it up.

@impartialgecko: Guess my fears have been realized, oh well guess i'd rather be on that side of the fence, more to enjoy. But yes the fact that they seem pretty upfront about it does speak about their confidence, I hardly ever see review embargo's that lift a good few days before the game is released. I also got the game for 30 dollars so its not like I was going to say no.

Here's the article in question, if anyone wants to read it. It's a good reminder that Polygon can still put out interesting stuff when they're not churning out clickbait. The stuff about how every single LotR game has essentially had to tap dance around certain aspects of the lore or movies is fascinating

Man, The Third Age. I totally played that game back in the day and I couldn't tell you a thing about it other than vaguely remembering that it was a totally okay JRPG-style thing with a cast that consisted of ersatz versions of actual Lord of the Rings characters. That sounds like a future blog to me!

I'm really looking forward to this game, kind of hoping it's something they were able to take a chance on and do some interesting things with now that the license isn't as big as it was.

@arbitrarywater: I may have played The Third Age as recently as July this year with a friend who is a total Lord of the Rings nut who's convinced it's one of the greatest games ever made.

Reviews have dropped and turns out we got another hit on our hands, gents.

Fuck, I wish I had more money.

9.3 on IGN? Didn't expect that.

Wow, 8's and 9's everywhere I look.

Now I am extremely pumped!

@arbitrarywater: I think it was the first game I ever got for my Xbox way back when. The protagonist is a minor Gondorian Character who befriends Pipin in his character arc. You also get an elven magic user, a ranger, and basically an exact duplicate of the Rohan King's Daughter who becomes our protagonist's love interest in the last 5 seconds of the game even though he was after the elf at first. Even more excitingly, in the last 5 seconds of the game (Its a real jam-packed 5 seconds) You magically get teleported to the top of Sauron's tower for the most epic show down of last generation... yeah you fight the Eye of Sauron, the fight we all dreamed about.

...You fight the eye of Sauron with JRPG attacks... look it up if you don't believe me!

Although I do remember going into Moria as being really cool. But even as a kid I was cringing at the rest of the rubbish. Totally worth playing! ...Or you-tubing the ending and having a good laugh/cry.

Oh.... uh... spoilers...

Pretty pleased with the scores! I was bracing myself for a let down similar to the likes of Watch Dogs.

Wow, those are way more positive than I expected. And I was pretty hopeful about this game in the first place. That's great; can't wait to play it, then.

Is that sarcasm?

@csl316: I don't get why it's a shock. All the preview stuff looked great. Listening to forum posters is always a bad idea. No matter how cool something looks they'll always focus on every reason why the game will suck.

@hunkulese: But its cool being a cynic