toblix

Tomb Raider

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I just made it to the Shanty town and I would agree with the design on that. However, I am not enjoying the randomly spawning dudes that come out of nowhere to attack me in there like they are in little monster closets.

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I just made it to the Shanty town and I would agree with the design on that. However, I am not enjoying the randomly spawning dudes that come out of nowhere to attack me in there like they are in little monster closets.

Hmm... I didn't see many randomly spawning enemies in my playthrough.  I had to go back to several areas and find people just in an attempt to get some of the achievements.  I gave up after a while.

 

Otherwise enjoying the game?  One of my favorites this year so far.

 

EDIT: I read back a page, nm. :)

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My enjoyment of the game has improved a little but not greatly. Too Uncharted-alike.

 

Randomly spawning enemies was that it feels random where they appear. I will walk into an area, kill four dudes and then all of a sudden I will have 2 guys spawn behind me. Tedious and annoying.

 

The beach was very pretty, and I finally had to deal with a puzzle as part of the storyline, it made me very excited.

 

Sorry to be such a downer on the game, it is just such a crushing disappointment after Crystal Dynamics seemed to totally get what made Tomb Raider great.

 

Not excited about the sequel at all.

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No need to apologise for taste.

 

It's become increasingly clear to me while playing it that it's riffing off Uncharted in many ways, but then Uncharted did the same once upon a time. It's definitely designed to appeal to those who enjoy the Uncharted style of play, although I'd say that Tomb Raider is significantly more free-form than Uncharted was. Uncharted was absolutely linear, whereas in Tomb Raider there are quite a number of very open areas with plenty of things to discover and explore. It's a good evolution that I'll be surprised if any potential Uncharted sequel doesn't itself take note of. But the long and short of it is that Tomb Raider is first and foremost an action game, exploration second.

 

It's worth noting that I wasn't a fan of the old Tomb Raider 1 or 2 or Underworld, so I'm probably exactly the kind of person they were trying to draw in with this game. It looks like existing Tomb Raider fans have been left a little in the lurch. For what it is — a heavily-scripted third-person action adventure — it accomplishes its goal very well.

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BTW I've been repeatedly surprised by the decency of the AI in this. I think the main thing that gets me is that when I'm playing through areas stealthily enemies can and do climb up ledges, jump across gaps, and drop down holes. I'm so used to games not letting enemies do these relatively basic things (which is a fairly damning commentary on the state of game AI) that it does stress me out a bit trying to stay hidden because I never know if the fuck is going to be able to follow me where I've gone.

 

Comparatively, even in games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution which have a huge stealth element enemies are incapable of traversing gaps, ladders, and vents. Jeez, I remember like 10 years ago when FEAR came out and being genuinely blown away by the fact that the enemies were crawling around on their bellies and shit to try and sneak up on me.

 

Interestingly enemies tend to try and sneak-flank you in Tomb Raider too while you're distracted by their companions. Yesterday I was engaged in some shoot-out across a ravine, and one of them had actually climbed down to the bottom, snuck across to my side, and come up behind me and made me shit myself. Also I died because he had a huge weapon. It's so refreshing to have enemies that catch me out, it so rarely happens.

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Okay, from that respect the AI definitely has its moments I do like their mobility.

 

I think what irks me the most about this game (I played it this morning and noticed this feature) is that there are lots of points where it lock the camera. This goes some way to losing the tension and suspense of the original games that had a free roaming camera no matter how buggy it could make it.

 

As soon as the game wrestles the control of the camera away from you, you know that you are relatively safe and at that point I just don't care.

 

When this happens while climbing it means that I don't really ever get a feeling of depth and scope of what is going on. For all its fragility, the free camera could scare the crap out of you, by your own hand, when you swung it around and realised you were really high up.

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I can see if you didn't like Uncharted you wouldn't care for this game.  I loved Uncharted and thought that this was more of that but WAY better combat.  I loved all the finishing moves and scrappy combat with the axe and flinging dirt in faces, etc.  I wanted more environmental puzzles like what the Tombs offered, but can understand the design choice to make those optional.  I've loved every Tomb Raider game to some degree (except for Angel of Darkness) and thought that Crystal Dynamics did an excellent job ever since they picked it up.  I can't wait for a sequel, but I'd rather they do a new Legacy of Kain game personally.

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Not excited about the sequel at all.

Was a sequel announced?! Oh man I'm so excited! (I assume what you actually mean is the inevitable sequel, heh.)

 

For the record, I didn't like Uncharted (and also hated every Tomb Raider I played prior to this) but loved this game a lot a lot so fuck all y'alls!

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I've just gotten past the cliff-side bunker and until then I'd only done one optional tomb. I think allowing the player to make a choice about when they have to deal with some big puzzle is a pretty good approach. I'm not a fan of the absolute killing of momentum that a fiendish puzzle in something like Uncharted can cause, and often end up going with a walkthrough because I just can't be bothered with the puzzle at that exact moment in time.

 

With Tomb Raider I can instead do some exploration and tomb raiding when I'm in one of those moods where you don't want to do anything particularly meaningful. You know, the same kind of mood you're in where you just go do some side-quests or something in an RPG. I'm really enjoying going back to some of the earlier areas now that I'm near-ish the end and discovering there's more to them than I thought. Plus the beautiful time of day effects make things feel very different.

 

It's also very satisfying discovering these tombs myself. I've had numerous 'tomb nearby' prompts but just ignored them, so now I'm tracking them down and generally just discovering more books and shit (I love books/diaries/etc in any game).

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It's also very satisfying discovering these tombs myself. I've had numerous 'tomb nearby' prompts but just ignored them, so now I'm tracking them down and generally just discovering more books and shit (I love books/diaries/etc in any game).

 

Yeah I thought the collecting was really well done in this game and I liked all the relics and whatnot you find, but love that it is not impossible to find everything like it is in Uncharted.  Really ... if this game had had Uncharted's writers, it would have been insanely good.

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If this game had Uncharted writers, Lara would wise crack after every kill, which would ruin the game for me. :|

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It is funny that people want Crystal Dynamics to do another Legacy of Kain game. The main writer on that series now works for Naughty Dog.

 

So I finished it this weekend and it is now done and dusted. I went and did a few of the optional tombs and they fail to impress as I think I beat all of the ones I tried in about 5 minutes of starting them. Not really worth it at all.

 

Exploration is dull and the fixed camera is pretty awful.

 

Despite of a few good(ish) moments that felt like a huge waste of my time.

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1386423533-tomb-raider-definitive-editio

Next gen version incoming! Nice. Although I don't really feel like this game warrants a replay. Hope this is a sign of things to come as I'd actually love to reply next gen versions of the last of us and bioshock infinite

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Geez, at least "last gen" consoles had HD collections, now we only get one? I also wonder if all "Next gen super HD" games will just be called "Definitive Editions" too?

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I'd probably replay Tomb Raider, considering it was my favorite game of last year. But I'd probably only replay it for $20 in a year from now, when I'm sure to have PS4.

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I'd imagine this is perfect playstation plus fodder, I'd expect it late summer so you may not have to pay anything at all

can't you take a sneakpeek by playing the PC version?

What's a P C ? Is it like a steam box?

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What's a P C ? Is it like a steam box?

 

It's: Video game Console: definitive endition

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Had some thoughts on Tomb Raider on another forum, in response to another poster who did like it, so I'll slap 'em down here.

 

"I couldn't get into the story at all, or care about any of the characters, including Lara. No matter how many times she gets her limbs all hacked and mangled, she just slaps on a bandaid and off she goes again. I've got no problem with serious violence in games and other media, but only if there's some sort of consequence, and there never was. Possibly towards the end of the game this becomes more apparent, but I didn't finish it. Played *checks* 9 hours of it.

I think the problem really is down to me more than to the game, which, whilst I do think it's quite average, doesn't commit any particularly egregious sins. Some of the set pieces wowed me, infact, but they were few and far between. No, I think I'm just bored to the back teeth of games which present you with a map with some icons on it and expect you to go tidy them up, without any good reason to do it besides some more XP or an achievement or something. As you (rightly) state, one doesn't have to do any of that stuff, but there's so much of it in Tomb Raider that it felt like I'd be missing out if I didn't. I wouldn't have been, and I shouldn't have, but I did, so I got bored. 

Still, even if I'd have simply ignored it all and ploughed on with the story, I don't think I'd have finished it. Just, don't give a shit about the bonkers cult, seen it all before elsewhere. Some originality wouldn't go amiss."

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Agreed. Im playing AC: Black Flag right now and the prospect of collecting every last chest and shiny glowing orb is enough to induce instant exhaustion. Yet I find myself climbing the odd tree or roof to grab a collectable more often than you'd think considering how pointless they are.

There's got to be some interesting psychology behind the average person's desire to collect nonsense items in games. Something about tidying caves back in our neanderthal days.

I do get a kick out of climbing and exploring and searching for treasure, I just wish there was a bit more meaningful content at the end of the rainbow. Though perhaps in life there never is; maybe games are just trying to tell us that it's all about the journey.

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I'm a sucker for that stuff and it really makes me love Assassin's Creed and Tomb Raider, so it reads so much less as a criticism for me than something to be aware of to determine if this is your kind of game.

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Had some thoughts on Tomb Raider on another forum...

 

I couldn't agree more with this. The game was about par for the course in my opinion. I finished it, I had a decent time playing it but it wasn't anything special. The combat was decent. The quick time events (on PC) made me want to scream. The story was lame. I stayed because I like the franchise, I like Lara and killing thousands of guys with the decent combat mechanics was good enough to keep me playing.

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I finally got around to finishing this yesterday and I enjoyed it well enough. In terms of gameplay it was pretty by-the-books in regard to the third person action game genre, but it's completely carried by its outstanding production. I played it over a rather large span of time, which I think is because I got really bored trying to find every single tomb/artifact/journal entry. When I came back to it a week or so ago I just decided to play through the main game. With a game like this, lore and collectathons really do little for me so I stuck to the thing that I enjoyed most about the game; the set pieces. I think I finished the story with 66% of the game completed.

 

I'd still recommend the game and I'd probably play a sequel to it some time after release because I had fun with it. It's just not something I see myself going back to.

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