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[kaian-a-coel]

Interesting article I came across, discussing NPCs and their use: http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2014/10/real-human-beings-shadow-of-mordor-watch-dogs-and.html

He makes some good points, but then he veers straight into SJW territory, with how the branding ability is the evil white male enslaving the proud PoC who did nothing wrong. Fucking seriously.

[Cheeetar]

You're kind of misphrasing what he said, and also branding him as the enemy ('SJW' has gotten to be a pretty toxic slur) for an article which strongly praises the game?

[kaian-a-coel]

"A number of critics, including Anita Sarkeesian, have taken this game system to task for the way it encourages the player to let a crime—often violence against a woman—begin before stepping in. All of these NPCs have identities, but their purpose—even in suffering—is to puff up the player’s sense of strength and power."

"The fantasy isn’t fixing the system, it’s giving a gun to another white man. And it’s broken, and I feel broken for loving it."

"In Mordor, the “evilness” of the Orcs serves a clear purpose: it attempts to justify the horrific behavior of Talion, who spends the latter half of the game using his ghostly powers to enslave Orc after Orc. "

"This is worse because of the problematic nature of Lord of the Rings’ Orcs. “Look at them,” says Talion to his ghost-friend, “Vile savage beasts.” The ghost replies, his imperialism dressed up as spirited determination, “And we shall command their savagery.” We are reminded again and again of their innately “evil” nature. They hate civilization. They hate beauty. One of the Orc captains I fight has the title “The Literate One”—the joke of course is that these dark savages don’t even read. It’s unavoidable: the characterization of “Orkish” society is caught up in a history of white, European military and cultural colonialism, with narratives of the “dark continent” and the “mysterious east.”"

"In this way, the system that seemed to undermine the stale power-fantasy of AAA action games has instead simply replaced it with an even more problematic fantasy. "

"Boo boo, shadow of mordor is about the evil imperialist white man enslaving the proud people of color who did nothing wrong." No. Fuck off. Stick to your valid points and don't bring your politics in gaming.

[Cheeetar]

don't bring your politics in gaming.

This is never going to be a thing - even refusing to take a stance on 'politics' is a type of political stance.

[Chiefwaffles]

There's a difference between having an opinion on how a game handles things and blatantly connecting two barely related things just to rant about politics with the context of games.

[Digital Hellhound]

You can't deny Orcs are People of Color. There's dark greens, sickly pale greens, greyish greens, lime greens...

[LASD]

I really really like the game and the Nemesis system, but:

There is something really weird about this game's story and the actions you take in it. Everyone seems to praise Talion as an honorable man and being completely in the right with everything he does. What he actually does is infiltrating a huge society and murdering everyone in cold blood. He even takes great pleasure in figuring out the fears of his victims and killing them while they are absolutely terrified and running away. Or instead of murdering, he enslaves them, with the possibility of killing them at any time.

If anyone knew what Talion is actually doing, no one would speak of him as a hero. He's an insane, sadistic, vengeful angel of death and clearly not at all a "good guy". He just happens to be destroying the evil race.

I'm not saying anything about the possible political implications of this, but just in terms of the game's story, it's super weird.

"Boo boo, shadow of mordor is about the evil imperialist white man enslaving the proud people of color who did nothing wrong." No. Fuck off. Stick to your valid points and don't bring your politics in gaming.

Not having anything to do with politics makes games a lot less interesting field of entertainment. Thinking about the implications that game stories and worlds have on the real world can make them a lot more interesting and make people think about something after they stop playing.

[Vgray]

How vital to the plot did Gollum end up being?

[Execute/Dumbo.exe]

I really really like the game and the Nemesis system, but:

There is something really weird about this game's story and the actions you take in it. Everyone seems to praise Talion as an honorable man and being completely in the right with everything he does. What he actually does is infiltrating a huge society and murdering everyone in cold blood. He even takes great pleasure in figuring out the fears of his victims and killing them while they are absolutely terrified and running away. Or instead of murdering, he enslaves them, with the possibility of killing them at any time.

If anyone knew what Talion is actually doing, no one would speak of him as a hero. He's an insane, sadistic, vengeful angel of death and clearly not at all a "good guy". He just happens to be destroying the evil race.

I'm not saying anything about the possible political implications of this, but just in terms of the game's story, it's super weird.

"Boo boo, shadow of mordor is about the evil imperialist white man enslaving the proud people of color who did nothing wrong." No. Fuck off. Stick to your valid points and don't bring your politics in gaming.

Not having anything to do with politics makes games a lot less interesting field of entertainment. Thinking about the implications that game stories and worlds have on the real world can make them a lot more interesting and make people think about something after they stop playing.

'Course, he did have his wife and child brutally murdered then had himself murdered after being cursed with up death so he can never go to heaven or whatever that place LOTR people go to to meet up with his family again.

Not denying the guy is a f'ing physcopath, but i think that sequence of events would put a touch of a bias on your future actions.

[miauw62]

It makes me mad that people are just pointing at basically every piece of popular fiction available and saying "THIS IS OPRESSION".

[Willfor]

It makes me mad that people are just pointing at basically every piece of popular fiction available and saying "THIS IS OPRESSION".

Why does this make you mad? Why can't you just let them have their free speech in peace instead of wanting to silence them? 

[kaian-a-coel]

If anyone knew what Talion is actually doing, no one would speak of him as a hero. He's an insane, sadistic, vengeful angel of death and clearly not at all a "good guy". He just happens to be destroying the evil race.

Sure, a violent vigilante on a quest for bloody revenge is not going to be a completely good guy, especially when he uses mind controll. But he still has the moral high ground compared to the orcs. Sure he's mind controlling them, but the orcs enslave, torture, kill and eat humans -and each other- for funsies. Also they're mooks for the unequivocally evil Dark Lord Sauron. And the Gondor and Mordor, the respective countries for which Talion and the orcs are soldiers, are at war.
In the end, the only morally grey thing Talion does is using mind control.

Not having anything to do with politics makes games a lot less interesting field of entertainment. Thinking about the implications that game stories and worlds have on the real world can make them a lot more interesting and make people think about something after they stop playing.

There's the developper making a game to make the players think about RL stuff (say Deus Ex), and then there's the "journalist" forcing RL stuff upon a game that had nothing to do with it to begin with (like racism in a game about killing orcs in middle earth). The first is cool, but the second is downright awful.
I like my game to be completely removed from any RL controversies. That's why I'm playing them in the first place. When I want to think and debate about RL issues, I'm not going to play fraking video games, I'm going on news websites.

Why does this make you mad? Why can't you just let them have their free speech in peace instead of wanting to silence them? 

Because they are loud and annoying and theey want to shut down everything that trigger them. They are against free speech. They want to silence people. It's "gaming is satan" all over again.

[Willfor]

Why does this make you mad? Why can't you just let them have their free speech in peace instead of wanting to silence them? 

Because they are loud and annoying and theey want to shut down everything that trigger them. They are against free speech. They want to silence people. It's "gaming is satan" all over again.

Yes, they are extremely loud.

[LASD]

I really really like the game and the Nemesis system, but:

There is something really weird about this game's story and the actions you take in it. Everyone seems to praise Talion as an honorable man and being completely in the right with everything he does. What he actually does is infiltrating a huge society and murdering everyone in cold blood. He even takes great pleasure in figuring out the fears of his victims and killing them while they are absolutely terrified and running away. Or instead of murdering, he enslaves them, with the possibility of killing them at any time.

If anyone knew what Talion is actually doing, no one would speak of him as a hero. He's an insane, sadistic, vengeful angel of death and clearly not at all a "good guy". He just happens to be destroying the evil race.

I'm not saying anything about the possible political implications of this, but just in terms of the game's story, it's super weird.

'Course, he did have his wife and child brutally murdered then had himself murdered after being cursed with up death so he can never go to heaven or whatever that place LOTR people go to to meet up with his family again.

Not denying the guy is a f'ing physcopath, but i think that sequence of events would put a touch of a bias on your future actions.

Fair enough. He's practically Max Payne in Middle-Earth, but Max was only a hero in the way that he was the main character. Max also went intentionally on a murderous rampage, killing irredeemable junkies, and still wasn't anywhere close as vicious with his enemies as Talion.

[Sordid]

Yeah, Shadow of Mordor's story is actually really damn dark and IMO it's clearly a case of evil versus evil.

Spoiler: Like, really. Spoilers. (click to show/hide)

Ever notice how many times Celebrimbor echoes some of Tolkien's own villains? He wants to use the Enemy's own power against him, like Boromir. He tells you that you need an army of orcs to fight in Mordor, like Saruman. And how do you get said army? You enslave them, you bend them to your will, much like Sauron himself bends his ringwraiths and other servants to his will. Celebrimbor calls himself the Silver Hand, much like Saruman is the White Hand. Even the branding of the uruks is similar. Remember how Galadriel says that yeah, she could use the Ring to defeat Sauron, but that that would be a bad idea because in doing so she would simply be replacing one tyrant with another? Well Celebrimbor clearly had a different opinion on that, since that's exactly what he tried to do. He even echoes her "all shall love me and despair" with his own "all shall fear me and rejoice". This game's Celebrimbor is basically a mash-up of Tolkien's own villains.

In terms of his importance to the story, Talion is little more than a vessel for the elf wraith. Firstly, Celebrimbor feeds him lies throughout the whole game. This whole "amnesiac elf wraith" schtick? Yeah, it's bullshit. We're told late in the game that Talion is cursed because Celebrimbor chose him as his vessel and could leave him at any time if he wanted. Moreover, Celebrimbor uses his "Nan iChir Gelair" line when interrogating uruks right from the start, and as you learn towards the end of the game that line means "I am the Bright Lord (of Mordor)", a title he adopted when he claimed The One Ring and led an army of orcs of his own against Sauron and his forces. He knows perfectly well who he is and what he's doing right from square one. He might even be mind-controlling Talion to an extent. We know that being mind-controlled by Celebrimbor turns the uruks' eyes light blue, right? Well guess what.

Shadow of Mordor is basically the fantasy equivalent of Spec Ops: The Line. You think you're playing a hero but you're actually not. Only this game isn't nearly as ham-fisted about the whole thing and doesn't beat you over the head with its message.

All of this of course goes right over the heads of the vast majority of people who play the game. "We're a generic fantasy hero killing generic fantasy orcs, yay!"