Rise of the Tomb Raider - Review Thread
- Thread starter bananafactory
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I think TR 2013 should have really been a survival horror game, of a brand new IP with no connection to Tomb Raider.
It would follow the same basic framework of a team crossing the dragon's triangle getting shipwrecked, but have the girl slowly turn into a real monster both in the narrative and in the game, to fit with all the mass murdering and ways to kill.
And the sequel could explore her further PTSD and need to find danger and death and murder.
That would be fucking awesome, but i think cause its tied to the TR they can't really go that route, which sucks.
Like real female rambo, or far cry 3 with an actual good storyline, it would be nice to see a game go there
It would follow the same basic framework of a team crossing the dragon's triangle getting shipwrecked, but have the girl slowly turn into a real monster both in the narrative and in the game, to fit with all the mass murdering and ways to kill.
And the sequel could explore her further PTSD and need to find danger and death and murder.
That would be fucking awesome, but i think cause its tied to the TR they can't really go that route, which sucks.
Like real female rambo, or far cry 3 with an actual good storyline, it would be nice to see a game go there
StrongBlackVine
Banned
Straley/Druckmann worked on Uncharted 2.
Didn't expect it to review so well. Good thing I don't have to go to work for another month!
I expected it to score between 85 and 90. The first game scored 85 and this one looks like it improved on that base a lot. Safe to say Tomb Raider is back to being is a very strong IP. Great job by Crystal Dynamics.
I just want to add that SF4 had the benefit of being a sort of 'revival' title and had quite some hype behind it since SF3 was a long time ago and it didn't do all too well. SF5 may not see similar numbers so it may have been far more riskier.
Bioshocker
Member
I still haven't finished Tomb Raider (2013) on my Xbox 360, and I can't put my finger on what it is. Every part of the game is good on its own. The graphics, the controls, the story... But I'm just not having fun when playing it.
Guess I should give it a second chance because Rise of the Tomb Raider looks so cool.
Guess I should give it a second chance because Rise of the Tomb Raider looks so cool.
I want to say your so lucky, but have you been saving up holidays? If your switching between jobs, then, I'm just well jealous.Didn't expect it to review so well. Good thing I don't have to go to work for another month!
I surprised this game has reviewed so well, the metacritic is rising and has just hit 87 and is above H5.
I enjoyed the first one, but It didn't knock my socks off. Think I'm going to give this one a whirl. I have 2 days off to the end of next week, I think I'll be smashing through this.
The geothermal valley is also beautiful (was shown at night in the rain at Gamescom). I just love the desert environment in Syria. Wish it had been explored properly.
Jack The Nipper
Banned
I have played them all before but one of them I didn't finish. I just felt like replaying all of them again and wasn;t sure which versions were actually preferred when compared to the actual classic games. They are a bit confusing without doing a lot of research as well. I played the ps1 games when I was very young and can't remember them or if there were a lot of changes from those to some of the remakes.
Man, the set up for Lara is so weird.
So in the first game her excuse for killing as much as she did was justified. She had to survive and get off that island. Fine. You do what you have to survive against those who are very much trying to kill you.
In this game, she kills hundreds...to find a fountain of youth to revive her father?
Also fine, but to keep that tenuous moral high-wire walk from entirely flipping off, they really need to not cut so deep into the dour gravitas. This high body count works for Indy and Nathan because of the tone, but if Lara's the only one of these serial-adventurers who's burdened with PTSD, that makes this set up stand out immediately as off.
If that's the kind of character study CD wants to delve into, that's okay, but that requires a deftness that, from reading these reviews, I don't think they have. And it makes me wonder about the endgame for Lara's characterization. What's at the end of the line for her? There's only so few paths they could go with this. At some point there will be a transition to a place where she is completely okay with the brutal killing, and either they turn her into classic Bond-cool Lara, or ignore the moral quagmire entirely and just shift focus onto tomb raiding.
I'm presuming a lot, I know, but I doubt I'll like whatever direction they go at this point.
Who knows, maybe we won't even get there if there's not another one of these.
So in the first game her excuse for killing as much as she did was justified. She had to survive and get off that island. Fine. You do what you have to survive against those who are very much trying to kill you.
In this game, she kills hundreds...to find a fountain of youth to revive her father?
Also fine, but to keep that tenuous moral high-wire walk from entirely flipping off, they really need to not cut so deep into the dour gravitas. This high body count works for Indy and Nathan because of the tone, but if Lara's the only one of these serial-adventurers who's burdened with PTSD, that makes this set up stand out immediately as off.
If that's the kind of character study CD wants to delve into, that's okay, but that requires a deftness that, from reading these reviews, I don't think they have. And it makes me wonder about the endgame for Lara's characterization. What's at the end of the line for her? There's only so few paths they could go with this. At some point there will be a transition to a place where she is completely okay with the brutal killing, and either they turn her into classic Bond-cool Lara, or ignore the moral quagmire entirely and just shift focus onto tomb raiding.
I'm presuming a lot, I know, but I doubt I'll like whatever direction they go at this point.
Who knows, maybe we won't even get there if there's not another one of these.
Ascenion
Member
Pretty much all of this. The gameplay needs to match up narratively or people are going to feel off, at least I do. The tone needs to 100% lighten up. You can't try to sell me on a survival story, about being alone and afraid then suddenly I'm yelling I'm coming for you bastards 20 minutes later. Even without the killing, you can't have a super serious realistic story thing going yet have
shipwrecked people somehow build technical marvels out of nowhere and then have 1000 year old warriors defending the soul of a queen.
When will your technical analysis go live ?
Hopefully in the next day or so. It contains things that aren't allowed for review day so we have to wait.
Romars202129
Member
I think you're missing the point, or I have a different take than the people you've been arguing with.
To me, it isn't about justification, not one iota. It's just about the writing.
Drake's story and gameplay feel like they were made by separate companies. He's written way too honest, well balanced, and friendly for a guy who ravages thousands of people like a bear fused with the Terminator.
And saying that's on purpose is nonsense. Drake is not Deadpool...
even though he technically is...
Whereas Laura, at least she acts like someone who's going through some shit, even a little bit.
Did you miss the part in TR 2013 when she is radioed by Roth
Lara: "...i had to kill people..."
Roth: "...it must have been scary..."
Lara: "...it's scary how easy it was..."
And then later on she gets a grenade launcher, and after laying waste to all and sundry she comes out with:
"That's right! Run, you bastardss! I'm coming for you all!"
Before collapsing. So yes there was a big deal about her going from "Oh shit, I killed a deer" to "Rambo Motherfuckers, yeah!" Drake has never had that character development arc and so seems less relateable, more entitled and less sympathetic.
Well, it pitches Trinity as a group of cold hearted killers that you should feel no remorse in killing PLUS you spend most of the game helping the locals fight them off. It doesn't feel much different from the 2013 game in that regard. These guys want to murder you so you return the favor.
Baroquemantic
Member
Congrats to CD!
Manny Calavera
Member
Loved the reboot and I'm very happy to see this get great reviews, even though I won't be able to play this before it comes out on PS4. Well I do have 360, but I'm not planning to play the last gen version..
Manny Calavera
Member
Same for me actually.
chromatic9
Member
"I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill."
"An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind."
Gandhi
RedRedSuit
Member
You ignored his point.
Drake killing goons is Drake killing goons, as Indiana Jones kills nazis. It isn't serious. That is the game's tone, just like Indy killing dozens of people. It's a silly violent ride. Drake is relatable due to his personality with his friends and named enemies, and his ability to eliminate armies of intentionally over-the-top goon-like goons is not an essential part of that personality. It's there to provide action that's fun, same as Indy's ability to kill nazis. Tonally, it makes sense. It follows an established template that simply works. Any attempt to infer dissonance is purely a strained intellectual attempt.
Lara, on the other hand, is treated as a serious character, and her ability to kill is explicitly shown to be a part of her character arc. What the game does clumsily is go through that arc too quickly -- in about 5 minutes. That's his point. She laments her first killing... and then is a pro at it in the next combat sequence.
Yes, the grenade launcher sequence revisits this arc a bit. It's not too bad. But it's not good either. It's clumsy. The dev went for more mature character development and created dissonance in not handling that ambition properly. The reason they failed to handle it is that the game is largely a shooter/stealth violence game, and it's hard to gently ease into killing tons of people in a game like that. They were ambitious and paid for it, a little, with dissonance.
Uncharted side-stepped this problem by lightening the tone and intensity of the violence to PG-13 levels and making it clear that this is Indiana Jones, not Saving Private Ryan. They were not ambitious (in this regard) and thus stayed away from dissonance.
the thing about the demo's too was they always had people who were poor at the gaming playing them so they just made the game look bad....
Scientist Supreme!
Banned
Because they want to tell serious stories with realistic characters.
Mario is a colorful cartoon.
Manny Calavera
Member
Exactly. If GAF would be a record it would be broken.
Ascenion
Member
I mean he is going through something but I view it more as he's an old hand at this and has just accepted it. Yeah it bothers him but he covers it with jokes. Uncharted 3 kind of touches on the kind of person he really is.
Marlow mentions he gets off on all the devastation not to mention the kid mission where he kills his first person.
As I mentioned above, the arc likely happened for Drake we just didn't see it. Not to mention time scale wise she does this in what feels like 2 - 3 days.
Also let me say I'm not necessarily defending Drake, I just accept what he is as does he. Lara needs to accept what she is as well. A murderer. She put herself in this situation by choice, knowing what it could lead to, at least in relation to ROTR given what we know same as Drake.
Zeouterlimits
Member
Scores are better than I expected generally, I did like the FeministFrequency review too.
I guess I will see how the PC version turns out, the puzzles sound exactly what I want. The combat, less so.
To talk about the FF review -
Are there any AAA games that address / don't ignore the issue of such wanton slaughter & its effect on the main character well?
Spec Ops & The Last of Us are the closest that come to mind.
I guess I will see how the PC version turns out, the puzzles sound exactly what I want. The combat, less so.
To talk about the FF review -
Are there any AAA games that address / don't ignore the issue of such wanton slaughter & its effect on the main character well?
Spec Ops & The Last of Us are the closest that come to mind.
Romars202129
Member
It's not a silly ride though, besides Drake rattling off some one liners Uncharted is very obviously a drama, and is never as light hearted as even the darkest Indiana Jones movie. And all the while the action is several times more over the top than anything in Indiana Jones
LincolnSixVacano
Banned
Played the originals, got bored after 3, got back with Underworld, lost interest after.
That said, I am getting really interested in getting this on PC when it gets here. The increased emphasis on Tombs and apparently perfect controls get me pretty excited to give the franchise another try. Well done Crystal Dynamics.
That said, I am getting really interested in getting this on PC when it gets here. The increased emphasis on Tombs and apparently perfect controls get me pretty excited to give the franchise another try. Well done Crystal Dynamics.
Yes! I absolutely loved the tone of the teaser trailer, too bad the rest didn't look as interesting, I expect a fun adventure game, but it's not gonna be the next TLOU.
RedRedSuit
Member
Tonally Uncharted is just like IJ in terms of narrative. It's not significantly darker or lighter. So that's untrue. It's part comedy, part drama. Femme fatales, double crossing, ancient treasures, all that stuff. It's the same.
Action-wise, IJ is quite violent, with violence actually a bit more visceral and gorier than Uncharted. In fact Spielberg lingers on blood and death quite a bit more than ND does. Uncharted is arguably more explosive, and of course the body count is higher, because it's a long game compared to a short movie, but there's nothing about it that makes it more blood-thirsty than Indy. The reverse is true in fact. It's pretty obvious Spielberg was getting off on killing nazis; not that I blame him.
drotahorror
Member
That sounds pretty sick.
Uncharted is easily as light hearted as Indiana Jones. Offcourse there is drama between the characters (the love story is more developped then in any Jones-outing), and there are some dark er bits, but in the end the tone is formed by the banter and the little jokes and the over the top action that is mostly regarded as fun in stead of life threatening.
I played Rise of the Tomb Raider for my review last week, and one of my problems with it is the heavy tone. It gets very annoying very fast to have Lara be moody and contemplative all the time. One of the first things I wrote in my notebook was 'Why so serious?' Especially as the plot itself is a campy Indiana Jones like quest for an artefact.
My opinion about the game is close to Eurogamers review. It is a very good game, but it suffers from an identity crisis. It tries to stick close to what modern audiences want, and hides it's best parts (the puzzels!) in optional quests. I really hope the next one embraces the open design of the hubs (and the feeling you get being an adventerour and explorer) in stead of lineair action and set pieces which never feel as good and fun as what for instance Uncharted does. Now the game goes from (often optional) highs to been-there-done-that stuff (which, mind you, is still good) a lot, with a way to heavyhanded tone that made me want Lara to just shut the f up.
Crackity Jones
Member
Realistic?
Since when has Tomb Raider been realistic?
Remind me, was that before or after the T Rex jumped out...
Possumowner
Member
Pretty good reviews,shall look forward to this.My first Xbox one game in awhile.
razgriz417
Member
Really liked the reboot, glad to see its reviewing well, now SE just needs to give me a PC release date...
Ascenion
Member
So would you say the dissonance is still present between the narrative and the gameplay?
That's kind of the point. It hasn't been yet 2013 tried to go for that narratively and it doesn't work.
Yeah, that teaser really struck a cord in me.
Yeah, i love that kinda shit in narratives though. It would be a LoU or Spec Ops The Line type story where she actively seeks killing under false pretenses of helping others, and would have to really struggle with herself in order to find a way she could keep her sanity.
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