Pile of Shame Sunday - 19th April 2020

Screenshot from Shadow of Mordor
The One Ring to Rule Them All

The following post is part of a series of posts that are published every Sunday to update readers on what Mark G has been up to with respect to finishing off games on his "Pile of Shame". The games to target are picked by Choicest Games contributors Choona, Luke and myself. As I'll be talking about my progress through these games, there may be spoilers ahead, especially for games containing a narrative. Consider yourself warned.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

  • Picked by Me
  • Percentage Complete = 60%
I completed a couple of more main missions in Shadow of Mordor and I apparently only have three more to go…. so not far off finishing this one it seems! The first mission was helping a Dwarf named Tovrin find some peace after killing a great Graug that apparently took his brother's life. The second mission involved assisting a branded Uruk become a Warchief, meaning we now have a small contingent of Orcs under our control. The end of the mission has us helping to lift a curse off Lady Marwen but she warns that in order to defeat Sauron we would need a huge army. So, my next objective in Shadow of Mordor is to recruit not just one Warchief but five!

Fallout 4

  • Picked by Luke
  • Percentage Complete = 42%
I finished a mission for the Railroad and now I'm a full member: you even get to pick your own codename, to which I picked "Fixer" since it seemed the most generic (I didn't think "Professor", "Whisper", "Charmer" or "Bullseye" fitted my character). During the mission I managed to kill a lot of Level 1 and Level 2 synths and Deacon (the guy who wants you to join the Railroad and follows you on the mission) mentions that there is some friction amongst the Railroad's members on where you draw the line for a synthetic lifeform. I like the fact the game brings in these interesting ethical dilemmas like would you consider a computer terminal or a turret a synthetic lifeform?

After joining the Railroad, I met with an old relic of a robot called P.A.M. which is a bit like the Hari Seldon of robots (i.e. she can predict the future by analysing groups of people as well as other factors: the larger the sample size, the more accurate the prediction). It might not be a subtle nod to Isaac Asimov but I like to think so.

Oh, one thing that still annoys me about this game by the way is the fact I can never remember how to exit power armour. I use it so infrequently that it is something I tend to forget and the game controls don't actually have it listed which means I have to Google the answer every time….

The Colonel's Bequest

  • Picked by Choona
  • Percentage Complete = 37%
I'm continuing to follow the walkthrough and again there are things I could not have figured out on my own. For example, you're meant to find a cane in one of these secret alleyways, right? Then there's a tower with a bell in it. You're meant to climb the ladder, oil the bell, climb back down, use the cane to pull a ring that pulls the bell down. Why do you want this bell? Well, once you search the bell you find a crank which Laura takes. Don't ask me how you would know there is a crank in the bell and what use it will serve, but I guess all will be revealed later!

Another annoying thing about this game is that things only occur at certain times. For example, you have to enter the colonel's room at 9:45pm exactly so that he's not there to witness you stealing his attic key. I guess if you don't go at this particular time, it could mean entering an unwinnable state.

The story itself though is not bad and just like every good murder mystery, everybody has skeletons in their closets… although I'm sure the butler did it.

LINK:
[ The Pile of Shame ]

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