Read our full Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor review.
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is all about empowering players to enforce their will on the game’s young, pre-The Lord of the Rings land of Mordor, and a newly revealed Achievements/Trophies list speaks to that fact. Monolith Productions has built a game powered by independently operating systems that you’re meant to take advantage of as you explore Sauron’s realm on a quest for vengeance.
As you’ll see in the achievements list below, most of the unlocks relate more to how you interact with the world than what your progress is through the story. Whether it’s a reward for making good on a Death Threat (“Iron of Death” achievement) or inciting a riot by pitting two ruling Warchiefs against one another (“The Spirit of Mordor” achievement), the game’s focus seems to be centered on letting players write their own story.
Related: Witness the joy of staging a rebellion in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor firsthand
Don’t take the open-ended approach to mean that there isn’t a story at all. Shadow of Mordor follows the ranger Talion after he’s slain outside the Black Gates of Mordor and resurrected by the long-dead elf Celebrimbor. Given the powers of a Wraith, Talion sets off into a Mordor unlike the one fans have seen before; it’s as overrun with orcs and other vile things as ever, but it’s a much more fertile land than the wasteland seen in J.R.R. Tolkien’s most famous tales. Take a closer look at what the story has in store in this newly released trailer.
Here’s the full rundown of Achievements/Trophies, straight from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment’s official announcement:
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.