Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Interview and Previews
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A trio of new articles have emerged on the 'net for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, starting with a brief interview on Examiner with Monolith Productions' Kevin Stephens about the expectations we should have about the game's wildlife, as well as character progression:
"The wildlife is really an ecosystem. There are multiple creatures like Caragors, Graugs, Ghuls, Slaves, Orcs and all these different creatures and combinations and they all interact together. When they get together they all fight each other and you can leverage that to your advantage.
"There's also the strengths and weaknesses of the captains. Some of them are afraid of a certain type of creature in the environment, so you can leverage that to get captains to run or strip them of some of their strengths. It's really just a big ecosystem," Stephens said.
Then we move to a hands-on preview on Skewed & Reviewed:
The control system was smooth and responsive and this came in handy when I charmed a wild animal and rode it, as it allowed me to cover a great distance in a short time and provided a worthy companion to me in battle.
Not wanting to simply take on the odd band of Orcs, I charged into a stronghold to take on a War Chief early on. Despite taking out legions of minions, many of whom taunted me during the battle, I was not able to complete the task, but upon respawning, I returned and made short work of my goal. I was happy to see that his former troops and guards opted to run from me once the chief fell rather than stand and fight.
Before concluding with a final preview on Worlds Factory:
For example, whenever you are killed, the game won't ask you to load a previous state as it's often the case. Instead, (in-game) time will pass during which Talion will regenerate and eventually come back to life; when facing his killer next, the NPC will freak out and say things like (I've already killed you!). That's just the tip of the iceberg though, as killing Talion is one of the ways for an orc to rise in power. According to the lore, orcs have always fought among themselves to climb the ranks and this plays out in Shadow of Mordor as well, with the simulation running even if you don't interfere; Talion is also able to use the wraith's power to dominate an orc and make him a puppet that can then be ordered to attack his own brethren.
This is especially useful when dealing with the top rank Orcs, as they are quite hard to kill and have bodyguards/lieutenants of their own. You could decide to dominate the orc next in line for lieutenant rank (there's a complex hierarchy, displayed in a nice way with all the links between orcs clearly visible) and then kill the current lieutenant, so that your puppet takes his place, or you could try to dominate the lieutenant directly. Once you have a lieutenant or two on your side, an attack on their orc warchief (and his army of minions) should be much easier in theory; that's not everything though, as you can choose to dominate instead of killing a certain orc warchief. This will allow you to start a (riot) against another warchief.
