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Put down your tea and watch this Shadow of Mordor gameplay
We're not sure why the narrator isn't more excited in this video about the Wraith abilities in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. Everything we've seen about this game makes us more and more stoked about it, so this guy's mellow demeanor is a bit confusing. Maybe he just had some nice chamomile tea. That could be it. Seriously, check out our video preview. This game is looking legit. A small blessing for the game is that it was moved up to a September 30 launch away from the October bloodbath.
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor trailer warns of the Gravewalker
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor received a new CG trailer today to commemorate the upcoming week of E3, in which attendees will be treated much like the Uruks in the video. The trailer takes place after a battle and shows a dying Uruk speaking of the "Gravewalker," whom players will know as Talion. Announced in November and developed by Monolith Productions, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is set in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings universe. In the game, Talion and his family are killed by uber-villain Sauron, though Talion is resurrected and seeks revenge. We strolled away impressed with the way Shadow of Mordor plays out after our hands-on time with the game late last month. It will launch on October 7 for PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. [Image: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment]
Orcs bleed in new Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor trailer
Pop quiz: What color is orc blood? Buzz. Time's up. We're not going to tell you the answer, but if you still don't know, watch the latest trailer for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. Just 20 seconds or so will do. [Image: WB]
Classic game distributor files for 'No One Lives Forever' trademarks
Four trademark applications have been found which suggest that beloved yet largely forgotten spy spoof shooter No One Lives Forever may make a return in one form or another. Siliconera discovered applications filed by Night Dive Studios for "No One Lives Forever," "The Operative," "A Spy In H.A.R.M.'s Way" and "Contract J.A.C.K." If those titles sound familiar, that's because they were the same monikers used for No One Lives Forever, its sequel, and a prequel spin-off. That makes sense, as Night Dive Studios has made a name for itself by re-releasing older PC hits that have long since fallen out of publication. Most notably, Night Dive is responsible for bringing System Shock 2 to Steam, so it seems likely the company plans to do the same for No One Lives Forever. Night Dive CEO Steven Kick contacted Siliconera following its report to offer first-hand clarification, but his words were coy and noncommittal. "At this time we are unable to comment on future plans. I would like to add that our team has a great fondness for these games and our hope is that they will one day be re-released." [Image: Monolith]
Hunt orcs in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor this October
Alongside the above story trailer, developer Monolith Productions has revealed that its upcoming Tolkien-inspired action roleplaying game, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, will reach retail shelves on October 7. As we mentioned in our lengthy preview from January, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor drops players into the chaotic warfare immortalized in Tolkien's Lord of Rings books (and their subsequent Peter Jackson-directed film adaptations). Players assume the role of a ranger driven by revenge who dispatches foes using agility and combat prowess reminiscent of that seen in the Assassin's Creed franchise. Those who pre-order Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor will receive the exclusive "Dark Ranger" DLC pack. Included in this bundle is a new character skin, new challenge mode and access to the game's online leaderboards. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is slated to debut on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC platforms. [Image: WB]
Research is a vehicle for revenge in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is more than mindlessly killing scores of Orcs. Sure, there's plenty of that, but more important are the game's main hooks surrounding guerrilla information-gathering and systematic assassination of key targets in a growing military force. Like an undercover cop busting a drug addict on the street and climbing the chain to the top, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor sets players on a course of disruption as they ascend through the ranks of the Dark Lord Sauron's army on a mission of revenge.
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor takes the Tolkien universe to next-gen systems
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is a new third-person action game in development by Monolith Productions, publisher Warner Bros. announced today. As the title indicates, the game is placed in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings universe, and has players assuming the guise of the "valiant ranger" Talion. Both Talion and his family are killed by series baddie Sauron, leading to Talion's resurrection by a rather vengeful spirit that grants him Wraith-like supernatural abilities. Warner Bros. boasted a "dynamic world" in the game that is expected to remember and adapt to players' choices as well as "craft their own battles, enemies and rewards." While no release date was given for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, the game will arrive on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4, PS3 and PC.
GDC Europe 2013: SOE talks game shutdowns, The Matrix Online
Sony Online Entertainment's Linda "Brasse" Carlson took the stage at this year's GDC Europe to talk about SOE's approach to community management, and in the process delivered a little insight into how studios can (and should) approach shutting down MMOs with waning or nonexistent player populations. Carlson used Monolith Productions' The Matrix Online as an example, explaining that the game's population had dipped down to fewer than 500 players by the time the decision was made to take it offline in 2009. The breaking point where cost of maintenance just to keep the game up was ridiculous. Sometimes you just have to shut these games down. Determining when and how to sunset an MMO is never an easy task; Carlson noted that a studio should never "belittle the people who are deeply emotionally upset" about their favorite title shutting down. The talk wasn't all about shutdowns, however; Carlson also discussed Sony's community management philosophy, which includes showing empathy to players, protecting developers from abuse, and using the player-driven community council to make more educated and agreeable decisions about the future of its games. Gamasutra has a nice collection of quotes from the presentation, if you're into that sort of thing.
Guardians of Middle Earth heads to PC this month
Lord of the Rings MOBA Guardians of Middle Earth journeys to Windows PC on August 29, free to those who've already bought the game on XBLA or PSN. New guardians will have to stump up $20, or $18 if they take advantage of Steam's pre-purchase offer. Warner Bros. Interactive says XBLA and PSN players who bought the game prior to August 15 are eligible to redeem a free PC code; for more info on how, head here. Exclusive DLC for the PC version will include 36 alternate Guardian skin; an $80 ($72 pre-purchase) Mithril Edition of Monolith's multiplayer online battle arena is also available, featuring all 36 Guardians with alternate skins, a Mithril Guardian Relic equipment item, and a base game key to give to one of your fellowship. Our review cast four stars over Guardians of Middle Earth, deeming it a "neat experiment in translating a very PC-centric experience over to the console space, and a fun throwdown featuring some of fantasy's finest." Now that PC-centric experience will be on PC. Seems appropriate.
Guardians of Middle-earth is coming to PC
Of all the magic in Lord of the Rings, nothing makes me more envious than the elf-tossing power behind Sauron's giant mace. The look on those pretty faces as they flail through the air is just priceless. Guardians of Middle-earth, a console MOBA from Monolith Productions and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, is finally coming to the PC, and with it my dreams of throwing elves to and fro are realized. With playable characters such as Sauron, Radagast, and Elron, it's easy to see why any Lord of the Rings fan should take a look at this upcoming MOBA.
Betrayer coming from FEAR, No One Lives Forever devs
Blackpowder Games, composed of former Monolith developers who worked on No One Lives Forever and the original FEAR, has announced a new "eerie and atmospheric first-person action adventure game," Betrayer. The game takes place in 1604, where the player has arrived in the New World, hoping to contribute to an English colony on the coast of Virginia. Betrayer seems to pull a page from colonial history, however, and it appears that some evil has befallen the colony, as the player encounters "only ghosts and mysteries in a land drained of color and life." The player's job is explore the wilderness, search for survivors and solve these mysteries. Aiding in this quest are period weapons like muskets, throwing axes and crossbows. Along the way, players will also meet a silent woman in red who, presumably, just wants to dance cheek to cheek. Betrayer is Blackpowder's first project, a self-funded effort. Creative director Craig Hubbard says the game is an attempt to create games "more intuitively," noting "[t]here's a sense of discovery and excitement when you navigate by instinct rather than market research and open yourself up to opportunities that arise during development." The game will be available via Steam Early Access on August 14. %Gallery-195390%
Guardians of Middle-Earth: A fun game doomed by its business model
The MOBA genre has exploded in recent years, with global giant League of Legends becoming the most actively played video game in the world and competitive tournaments getting more viewers than some televised sports. Today's MOBAs appeal to casual and competitive gamers alike, but until recently very few had crossed the console barrier. Released on PS3 and XBox 360 last December, Guardians of Middle-Earth took traditional DotA gameplay and made the quite experimental leap onto consoles. I'm not much of a console gamer (you can take my mouse and keyboard away when you pry them from my cold, dead hands), but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see how Guardians of Middle-Earth stacks up against its PC-based counterparts. Monolith Studios has done great things in adapting MOBA gameplay to a console control scheme and audience, and the core game really is a lot of fun to play. But in charging an initial purchase price for a game that relies on having a large community, publisher Warner Bros. may have accidentally consigned Guardians to the scrapheap. In this hands-on opinion piece, I explore Guardians of Middle-Earth and ask why it's already a ghost town just three months after launch.
MMO Burnout: Revisiting Gotham City Impostors
Remember that scene in 2008's The Dark Knight where those nerdling Batman-wannabes were running around in imitation capes and cowls shooting at criminals with shotguns? That's pretty much what you get when you log into Gotham City Impostors, Monolith's garish, goofy first-person shooter set against the sprawling backdrop of DC Comics' legendary mythos. And for all you MMO historians in the crowd, yes, that's the same Monolith that originally developed the late, great Matrix Online. %Gallery-174397%
Guardians of Middle-Earth review: MOBA fête
"Multiplayer Online Battle Arena," or MOBA, is the name given to the emerging genre of games initiated by Dota, and now led by games like League of Legends, Dota 2, Heroes of Newerth, Smite, and more. Because MOBA games come from a heritage of real-time strategy gameplay, they tend to have most of the qualities of that genre. They're complicated, high stakes affairs, with lots of controls and nuances, where one little move can sometimes turn the tide of battle completely. These are traditionally games meant for hotkeys and minimap clicking, mouse precision and a Ventrilo client, rather than the relatively imprecise triggers and joysticks on a console controller.Which makes it all the more impressive, then, that Monolith (a studio with a long shooter tradition that includes No One Lives Forever and the FEAR series) has chosen to take on Guardians of Middle Earth, a MOBA game designed from the ground up to recreate the traditionally PC-centric experience on consoles. Yes, games like Awesomenauts and Monday Night Combat have borrowed MOBA principles, but Monolith here goes full bore, all the way back to the top-down isometric view that began with the original Starcraft Aeon of Strife map at the genre's inception.In fact, given this task, the fact that Monolith's game also happens to use the Lord of the Rings license (right around the release of the new Hobbit film) is almost inconsequential. Tolkien nerds may want to see Sauron battling it out with Gandalf directly, but MOBA nerds should be even more excited to see what Monolith does with this emerging new form.%Gallery-157247%
Guardians of Middle-Earth on Xbox 360 Dec. 5
Guardians of Middle-Earth will launch on Xbox Live Arcade one day later than previously stated. The official Twitter account for the game confirmed the new Xbox 360 date of December 5.The account also confirmed the PS3 version is still on track to launch one day earlier on December 4. The PS3 version will be available both at retail and as a download through PSN.
How Guardians of Middle-earth innovates on the MOBA gametype
We first saw Guardians of Middle-earth in action back at E3 this year, and it was quite impressive even then. Monolith has taken the PC-centric gameplay of the emerging MOBA (or DotA, or LoL, or even action RTS, whatever you like to call it) genre, and translated it over to a console and a controller. But since that first play at E3, I've gotten a few more chances to play the game at Comic-Con and PAX. GOME (acronyms!) is more than just a console clone of the popular League of Legends and the upcoming Dota 2.Monolith has iterated on this complex strategy/action genre in a few different ways. Here's a list of five different things, whether you're a level 30 summoner or a Venomancer newbie, that you'll find new and interesting about Guardians of Middle-earth when it arrives for consoles later this year.
Jace Hall is out for Blood, asks fans what they want in a remake
Jace Hall, founder and former CEO of Monolith Productions, is looking to bring back 1997's original gore-fest of a game, Blood. Hall brings the idea up on The Postmortem, a Blood fan forum, gauging interest and asking for wish lists in a potential Blood remake."To be clear, I am thinking of bringing the ORIGINAL Blood game back as it was, with functionality alterations/enhancements that are similar but superior to ZDAEMON's," Hall writes. "I would also make it work on all platforms, and not just PC."Hall has all of the legal rights and issues "handled" and will get support from anyone with a legal investment in Blood, he says. Hall will be the one footing the bill the new game as well: "One thing to also know is that if I go ahead and attempt to bring Blood back, I will be the one actually paying the bill. It is certainly going to cost money to do this, and I will not likely be getting my money back. It will be all for the fun of it. Just something to know."Hall has reservations about releasing the source code for Blood, writing, "Part of what I'm hoping to achieve with this potential project is a game that really allows people to build measurable value in their cummulative game accomplishments." The conversation is on-going at The Postmortem if you'd like to share your blood-soaked dream list with Hall himself.
Gollum gets tricksy in Guardians of Middle-earth gameplay video
Given Gollum's propensity for killing things in the dark, it only makes sense that his character is suited to hit-and-run tactics in in Guardians of Middle-earth. On the other hand, we never thought we'd hear Gandalf described as "tanky," but there you go.
The Soapbox: League of Legends is the new World of Warcraft
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. Every now and then, a game comes out of nowhere with such incredible financial success that it causes the games industry to completely lose perspective. All it takes is one game to start raking in the millions for developers, publishers and investors to stumble around with dollar signs in their eyes for years to come. Innovation grinds to a halt and everyone starts blindly copying whichever game just hit the jackpot. It's like some huge industry-wide superstition takes over and convinces people that if they do the same dance the same way, it'll rain again. World of Warcraft has consistently had this effect since shortly after its launch in 2004. To this day, several studios per year excitedly announce yet another fantasy MMO that lifts its entire feature set and every gameplay mechanic wholesale from World of Warcraft as if it were a model for automatic success. The same thing is happening again in online gaming today, not from MMOs but from MOBAs, a new genre based on the competitive gaming classic DotA. Developers are still chasing the massive money made by yet another hugely successful game, and this time it's League of Legends.
They're taking the hobbits to Isengard, elsewhere in this Guardians gameplay video
Sometimes when we start up a game with branching story paths or "evil" character options, we'll get down with our bad selves and go for the dark choices, intent on violently slaughtering the goody-two-shoes right off the "light" side. With Guardians of Middle-earth, we don't think we'll be able to do that, though.Perhaps it's because we're invested in the lore of Lord of the Rings, because we've spent years devouring the books, films and Trivial Pursuit board games, and we've rooted for Frodo, Gandalf and the good guys to win the whole time. Choosing to play as Sauron now would feel dirty.That said, the first-ever gameplay trailer for Guardians of Middle-earth makes each side look equally cool, and it promises the game will launch this fall, for XBLA and PSN only. Go Gandalf! Really, go -- Sauron's like right behind you.
