Tomb Raider

[youmeyou]

It looks good in motion. Not as clearly noticeable as in stills (especially as I'm only getting 30 fps) But certainly some of the best rain I've seen. How are you playing it tycho? I'm basically pushing my pc to its limit to get these results.

 

It really bums me out that this game isn't more about exploration. The exploration and climbing around is super well executed and incredibly fun. Jumping a far gap to a cliffside and hooking in with the climbing axe, then leaping from there to the roof of a nearby building to grab the salvage lying there there, then to a dangling crate to a fallen tree branch to... a tunnel full of bad guys that you can't sneak past. boo. not to say that the shooting is terrible, I'm having a better time with it than in uncharted. The enemies aren't the most intelligent but they put on a good show to convince you they are. Lots of scrambling about when they can't see you and calling back and forth. Fun and high energy. But not even a tiny bit as fun as the joy of exploring the beautiful vertical landscapes of the stormy island you've found yourself on.

[Twig]

It really bums me out that this game isn't more about exploration. The exploration and climbing around is super well executed and incredibly fun. Jumping a far gap to a cliffside and hooking in with the climbing axe, then leaping from there to the roof of a nearby building to grab the salvage lying there there, then to a dangling crate to a fallen tree branch to... a tunnel full of bad guys that you can't sneak past. boo. not to say that the shooting is terrible, I'm having a better time with it than in uncharted. The enemies aren't the most intelligent but they put on a good show to convince you they are. Lots of scrambling about when they can't see you and calling back and forth. Fun and high energy. But not even a tiny bit as fun as the joy of exploring the beautiful vertical landscapes of the stormy island you've found yourself on.

I think the game straddles the line between Super Scripted Linear Action Movie Pulp and Freedom To Explore pretty well, if I'm honest. It may be that the juxtaposition of the two had just the right balance for me. I can understand wanting more exploration, but there exist plenty of other games to scratch that itch.

 

For my money, this game is the best out of all games like it that I've played, in recent times. Of course, I've generally avoided games like this up until now - I still don't really know why I wanted to get this one - so I'm not the best judge!

[lumberbaron]

It looks good in motion. Not as clearly noticeable as in stills (especially as I'm only getting 30 fps) But certainly some of the best rain I've seen. How are you playing it tycho? I'm basically pushing my pc to its limit to get these results..

 

Ran it last night, and granted I was streaming it, but it said that I was only getting about 20 FPS which is weird because it looked smoother than some games that I have seen running at double that. There were moments that it would chug and get crazy slide show level, but beside that it was great.

 

Don't know if anyone else has brought this up, but what is up with Lara getting adventure ending wounds and just shrugging them off with a good nights sleep?

[melmer]

Don't know if anyone else has brought this up, but what is up with Lara getting adventure ending wounds and just shrugging them off with a good nights sleep?

Because video games

It's silly that we view cut scene wounds and gameplay wounds separately, what about the 30 gun shot wounds and the 1st degree burns i sustained in the last 30mins alone!?

I just though... If she died from that initial impalement she would have been reincarnated and reborn at the nearest checkpoint (hanging from the ceiling) just to get impaled to death again in an infinite cycle of video game death and rebirth. poor bitch

[youmeyou]

It's kind of an issue with this game though. I was listening to the PC Gamer UK podcast (a very good podcast) and they brought up an interesting comparison to Arkham City where in Arkham if you play the game super well you become Batman; since Batman is a bad ass and doesn't fall off buildings accidentally or get kicked in the head a bunch by thugs. But in TR even if you play the game well, sure you're this incredibly skillfull superhero who can choke beefy men with a few twigs and jump 20 foot gaps... except where the cutscenes force you to fail and get brutally injured so that they can tell the totally dissonant story they're trying to tell. It's the problem of trying to tell a story about suffering while also trying to design a game that's fun. Those two things are at odds and it shows. (The review argobot posted a while backs talks about this)

[melmer]

True dat. That head impalement section was ridiculous, I got head impaled three times and an entire tree branch through my sternum. Although Lara's pretty badass once she becomes 'a survivor' in the final third of the game, that's when the game really shone for me. Hopefully the next game will start you at that level.

Im starting god of was assencuon as I write this, I wonder how he'll lose all his powers this time.. Oh it's a prequel that's an easy one! 104mb day one patch, nice!

[Twig]

I'm mostly linking this because Cara Ellison is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers on RockPaperShotgun (which also happens to be the only video game website I regularly read, barring podcasts like IDLE THUMBS).

 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/22/rhi-light-my-fire-rhianna-pratchett-on-tea-cakes-lara

 

But I'm also linking it because I thought it was interesting! Enjoy.

 

 

Rhianna also tells me about her conflicting feelings on Lara’s violence curve going from being afraid to kill, to being a mass executioner. “Hand on heart, the narrative team would have liked that to be a bit slower, but on the other hand we’d kept the player without a gun for at least an hour, we’d kept them without a weapon for a while. …We found that as soon as gamers got a gun, they wanted to use it. …You’ve got the needs of gameplay, you’ve got the needs of narrative, and you’ve got the needs of the player for this to be a fun experience. They don’t always align exactly. Sometimes you’ve got to make compromises on this.”

 

I kind of wish they had gone more in a direction of every confrontation being hell, being a really difficult, dangerous thing. But at the same time, we wouldn't have gotten the "that's right you bastards!" line near the end of the game. Which was a great moment.

 

Man I am really looking forward to "Tomb Raider 2", whatever that ends up being.

[castorp]

Rhi, Light My Fire

Thanks, Cara’s writing is indeed great, cool article.

(I too only read RPS, and I saw the headline, but mixed up Rhianna Pratchett with that adventure-lady who had a kickstarter and whose name I can't remember right now and I wasn't interested. That the picture below the headline shows Tomb Raider didn't register, I just wondered why the adventure-lady would make such a gritty looking game.)

[vimes]

Actually, I just bought the game based on Rab Florence's article linked int he RPS piece.

I can tell you that this new game has given me exactly what I wanted from Tomb Raider. An incredible world, with every location feeling real and heavy with threat and history. A place to get lost in.The people who made this game understood Tomb Raider, and cared deeply about the project. I see that now.

 

(Lara couldn’t) be a man because the audience isn’t mature enough for that yet. I think a large portion of the gaming audience would entirely reject a male hero suffering as Lara does in this Tomb Raider. This brilliantly written game has given gaming one of its most grown-up characters, but it had to do it by stealth.

Lara Croft genuinely matters now. So why did the marketing team so completely undercut that message? And why are they still doing it?

 

So well written, so articulate.

[Twig]

Yeah that's a good one, too. Not sure I really agree that a video game with a scrawny dude scared out of his mind but slowly coming into his own wouldn't work, but hey.

[toblix]

Finished it. Like always, I keep going for that 100% collectible bullshit that only ruins the whole game for me. Right before the big climax I put everything on hold and went back to all these vast, deserted bunkers, villages and cave systems looking for books to read, eggs to pinch and dream-catchers to shoot (for some reason.)

 

Also, I got all the GPS markers, but didn't really figure out what it was all about

There was a note in the last marker – what did it say?

 

Also also, the list of Tomb Raider/Lara Croft fansites in the credits is wild.

 

It really felt like they went from doing an open-world survive-em-up to a linear unchart-em-up at some point in the development. Maybe they found out they couldn't really do a proper open-world thing with the narrative they wanted, or some suit told them to change everything. The result is strange – you have this really visible way of traveling between the camps – it's one of three choices whenever you sit down at a campfire – but there is literally no point in doing that unless it is to get the collectibles. Fast traveling is only provided as a meta-game function, since the story and order of locations are completely linear. Anyway, I appreciated that her clothes weren't ripped all the way off by the end. Things are moving forward.

[melmer]

Yeah I went on a collectible hunt at the 'point of no return', but then double checked I can revisit the island after the credits rolled and finished up the story.

The GPS

after you collect the last one, a note appears in your inventory, secret note 2/2 I think. It's a mini teaser for a sequel, it's from a different group of people who came to the island to try and harness the islands power... And left a load of GPS trackers around like litter bugs

[Twig]

Anyway, I appreciated that her clothes weren't ripped all the way off by the end. Things are moving forward.

I found it extremely hilarious that in one scene she has a dirty tank top and then that cutscene ends and LITERALLY the next cutscene, with no gameplay in between, she has a tanktop torn to hell. I also was constantly baffled by her unwillingness to just grab a jacket off the dozens of dudes she killed. Even when it's snowing, she just keeps on keepin' on! So weird.

 

Also weird (slightly spoilerish but not at all important to the story, really):

her clothes didn't remain stained after falling in a pool of blood.

[melmer]

If you wanted a jacket you should've preordered from BestBuy

http://cache.g4tv.com/ImageDb3/313325_S/tomb-raider-pre-orders-announced.jpg

It's funny actually that all the costume DLC is actually suitable attire. Normally DLC costumes for woman are playboy bunny ears (although embedding a climb axe into a guys skill whilst wearing bunny ears would've be pretty fun)

Edit: this is the only suitable DLC attire, unless you're hunting a predator alien

http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/f3/cc/1349801602_4775_1.jpg?itok=mXK9dl2t

Come on do it kill me I'm right here DO IT

[Twig]

I tried out the outfit I got from my Steam preorder and it made Lara look like a cartoon character, so I immediately went back to tank top mode.

[Dewar]

Yeah that's a good one, too. Not sure I really agree that a video game with a scrawny dude scared out of his mind but slowly coming into his own wouldn't work, but hey.

 

Wouldn't that just be Farcry 3?

[Twig]

Hah. Maybe? I haven't played it. But uh unlike tomb raider, doesn't that game pretty much immediately give dude a gun? I remember people complaining about that.

[melmer]

Pretty much, you get given money to buy a gun.

It would've made sense to give you a shitty bow to start with in that game

[juv3nal]

Super late to the party, but I'm really liking this. Not done yet, but one thing that occurs to me playing through it is there's a very metroidvania feel to it, what with things like the torch, rope arrows, and shotgun letting you access previously inaccessible areas.

 

edit: also I think it plays better than the uncharteds (which, aside from 1, I liked), but I'm missing the banter from always having an npc around. I mean I get that it may have not been tonally appropriate for the story they wanted to tell about Lara having to rely on herself etc., but still.

[twmac]

I am slowly becoming an old man, a grumpy old man.

 

I played the first 28% of Tomb Raider over the weekend and I have been utterly bored from the beginning. There are no mandatory puzzles, the platforming is uninspired with no real sense of scale or wonder. The combat is massively better but the music cues are all present from Uncharted 4 (Last of Us). There are no surprises, no discovery, everything is signposted or Lara will just straight up tell you what to do. I've deliberately not used her survival instinct ability (the detective vision from Batman: Arkham whatever) because it is intrusive and so far I haven't needed it as the game is so linear, so bereft of exploration that there is never any danger of getting lost.

 

Then there is the 'push forward to make things explode' this is my new least favourite thing next to unskippable cutscenes and Quick Time Events.

 

The characterisation is fine, it doesn't really get in the way. I just don't care about any of it.

 

There is nothing in this game that I cannot get elsewhere, and better. It is depressing how little I am enjoying this given that I loved the last 4 installments for Tomb Raider (I am including The Guardian of Light in there).

 

The game isn't shit, it is just neutered to the point of irrelevance.

[melmer]

ah man, it gets better i promise. The sweet spot is when you reach the beach

[twmac]

I will likely keep playing. I've just seen an Oni.

[Thrik]

I've been gradually playing this for a month or so now and have been really enjoying it. I've just got to a mountaintop fortress thing and so far it's been a relentlessly enjoyable romp of Uncharted-esque set pieces, surprisingly good stealth/action play thanks to robust enemy scripting, and nice exploration/collection gameplay.

I can see how an existing Tomb Raider or puzzle fan would be underwhelmed because there aren't really any, unless those optional tombs I've been ignoring so far are full of them. But what it does deliver is stellar IMO.

For me though, it's the location and atmosphere that really does it. This game is frankly gorgeous, sometimes I can't help but just take in the huge vistas and weather effects. I've never 'felt' wind in a game like I have in parts of this. And every location really has been wonderfully realised.

I really like the way the island has been put together, with the ability to revisit areas (time of day adjusting accordingly) and the map showing how everything fits together. Really evokes Lost for me, with that constant feeling of there being some cool mysterious shit out there but you feel nice and safe in the places you've charted. And the story is actually really pulling me in, with a nice blend of supernatural mystery and genuinely horrifying human craziness.

This is evidently a polarising game, but one I personally consider a highlight of the generation.

[twmac]

It is funny Thrik because your two points of reference (Uncharted and Lost) as positives are the exact two things I do not like.

 

The AI is pretty terrible (you shoot guys in the face right in front of their buddies and the buddies don't react), the Vistas seem so tame in contrast to previous Tomb Raiders as every seems to be that overly textured nonsense that Naughty Dog favours that ends up with me finding it really uninteresting and too busy.

 

But hey, at least someone is enjoying it and it isn't quite the same wrong turn as Angel of Darkness.

[Merus]

Yeah, the puzzle stuff is really underdone, there's only one or two puzzles that felt anywhere close to interesting (there are puzzles on the critical path, but the vast majority are in the optional tombs).

 

But I think the one thing they do better than I think everyone else is make environments that feel like there isn't one intended path. Certainly it's not open world, there's always one and only one destination at any one time, but there were quite a few moments I felt was getting ahead of where the game was intending for me to go. Some parts are clearly one-way corridors, and others like the beach feel a little like they just plopped some assets down on a height map and called it done, but places like the shantytown managed to feel both intentional and undesigned, and that's a hell of a trick.