Above: Talion can take control of orcs with his wraith powers.
“I’ve played it a lot,” says Holmes, speaking of Monolith Production’s open-world The Lord of the Rings licensed game. “But it still says that I’m only at 87 percent complete or something. I don’t know what’s left — I’ve done everything! At one point I had every orc in both maps, and they were all branded.
“I’m actually going through it. I didn’t realize that if you got all of the money in the game you could get these three super-updates that can make you, like, invisible for 90 seconds. There’s one that gives you unlimited executions for 90 seconds. It’s awesome. So I went around collecting all the trinkets and doing all of the slave missions just so I could get those.”
He’s also a fan of other open-world games, with Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto and Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed topping his list. But he notes that fighting orcs in Mordor is more fun than having cops chase you in GTA.
“I loved Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. I love all of the Assassin’s Creed games. In fact, that’s probably what I like about Shadow of Mordor — it just kind of borrowed from the best of everything,” he says. “It’s a sandbox game, and it has that Grand Theft Auto feel where you can go and do side missions.”
Holmes says that times have changed, and now pretty much everyone plays video games, the idea of one being a “gamer” is a bit old-fashioned.
“It’s like the way we used to have cinephiles,” he notes. “Now, everybody watches movies for the most part. There use to be gamers, but now I feel like even if it’s just Angry Birds on your phone, you’re still playing something.”
He talks about how an entertainment medium as big as video games deserves a good award show, and compares the Hollywood spectacle to gaming’s comparatively mild showings.
“It is a little behind the times that the interest isn’t matched by the televised award shows,” he says, speaking of the games industry.
“The thing I like about the DICE awards or even the Academy Awards is that it seems like such hoopla until you realize that so many people find out who won a certain thing and then they play it. It’s certainly the same with movies. You find out that Nightcrawler is getting all of those nominations and then people go out and see Nightcrawler. Similarly, there might be lesser known nominees that win an award that people will go out and pursue.”
And for this award show in particular, Holmes is happy to be a part of it. He notes that it feels genuine compared to other award shows.
“I’m glad to be involved in something that does have a little bit of purity to it. It does seem to be for the designers, programmers, and artists — for the talent,” he says. “I think it’s great that something like that exists.”