Pile of Shame Sunday - 31st May 2020

The Dark Knight Rises

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 = 100%

Hooray! I finally finished Shadow of Mordor. Turns out the game has a pretty epic conclusion and thankfully the boss fights weren't actually that difficult (one involved doing stealth branding which I love and the other involved QTEs). The only real fighting you get to do are against Uruks and they actually turn out to be relatively straightforward since your branded Elite Warchiefs can stand their own ground. The game does manage to tie everything together well but the ending sets the game up for a sequel which they ended up releasing in 2017 called Shadow of War.

Oh, and in the end I discovered that I was trying to brand the Elite Warchiefs the wrong way: instead of taking them on with all their minions around, the easiest way to take them out was to brand their bodyguards and then order them to betray the Warchief. This results in the bodyguards attempting to kill the Warchief in a secluded place which gives you the perfect opportunity to either take him out or brand him as one of your own.

Overall, even though I'm not into these sorts of games normally, I enjoyed Shadow of Mordor mainly thanks to the strength of the IP and the way the Orcs seem to be so convincing in the way they react to you.

Well, if I'm going to continue playing games that are on DVD the next one I've got to give a go at is Far Cry 4 (yay another open world game). Although maybe I should try and finish Far Cry 3 first...

Fallout 4

• Picked by Luke
• Percentage Complete = 50%

As I finished Shadow of Mordor this week and I really wanted to play a bit more of Conquests of Camelot, Fallout 4 was left untouched. I will have rectify that next week.

Conquests of Camelot: The Search for the Grail

• Picked by Choona
• Percentage Complete = 33%

Although I didn't get to play Fallout 4 this week, I did spend some more time on Conquests of Camelot to make up for the fact I didn't play it last week. I've been double-checking what I've been doing with a walkthrough and thankfully, what I've been doing so far is mostly correct. There were only a couple of times where I think it would've been difficult without some trial and error to determine what to do: Firstly, in order to escape Glastonbury Tor you need to give an offering of five silver to the Old Gods that dwell at the place. I'm not sure how you're supposed to know five silver would do the trick and not one gold or 10 copper or whatever but there you have it.

I also didn't realise that the crystal heart you recover from a well at Glastonbury Tor is meant to be used to navigate a frozen lake by helping you avoid walking on thin ice and drowning in the freezing waters. I guess I could've figured out that I needed to use it somewhere by randomly using inventory items (since there aren't many to be fair) but it's not immediately apparent.

Anyway, the rest of the game consists of a lot of mini-games and riddles so it's a bit different to the usual puzzle solving you get in normal Sierra adventures.

LINK: [ The Pile of Shame ]