Tomb Raider |OT| Lara's Misfortune

CloakedPuppet said:
Listen, my post in retrospect does come off as random. I scanned a couple of negative things in this thread after spending a bit too much time on another board FULL of complaints about how this game is basically a nerfed, piece of trash. I thought I was seeing the same thing here. My bad.
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I'd say the vast, vast majority of the posters here have liked the game, quite a bit. Myself included.

Derrick just so happens to have almost the top amount of posts in the thread, so it may feel like he speaks for a large percentage.
 
I'm glad I'm not equipped with the mental capacity to complain about a game as much as some people on Gaf. I'd go fucking insane if I was.
 
antitrop said:
I'd say the vast, vast majority of the posters here have liked the game, quite a bit. Myself included.

Derrick just so happens to have almost the top amount of posts in the thread, so it may feel like he speaks for a large percentage.
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Yeah - looking back, seems you're right.
 
CloakedPuppet said:
Listen, my post in retrospect does come off as random. I scanned a couple of negative things in this thread after spending a bit too much time on another board FULL of complaints about how this game is basically a nerfed, piece of trash. I thought I was seeing the same thing here. My bad.
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Can't we all just get along
 
I'm just about 4 hours in, have to admit that I think this is a better game then Uncharted 1 & 3 and could be on par with Uncharted 2.
 
Well, the way is ridiculously easy. Entry level difficulty being very easy is fine for this kind of game, but they could have done so much more with the harder mode.

Have Instincts not do much unless you put some points into survival skills.

Less ammunition drops and carrying capacity to make those related skills worthwhile.

Less salvage drops. I can already see that I will have enough for every single upgrade easily.

Some kind of primary needs system and ammunition making system. This game has built in hunting for animations and scavenging for supplies. But they don't do anything but get you more EXP. Come on, this one had to be under consideration at some point.

An actual health system and careful usage of medical supplies.

No HUD or waypoint options.

For the record, I'm liking the game a lot more then I thought. Even the story is interesting to me. But damn, they really didn't try at all to make this a really good game gameplay wise did they?
 
First two hours so far feel like a more open ended, brutal but less polished/visually pleasing Uncharted.

The QTE's are the worst I've played since Shenmue though. Seriously I've never failed a left analog rapid movement QTE before I played this game. It's like they literally want you to break your thumbs off to beat the QTE's, and there is like milimeter timing for button press QTE's.

Ridiculous.
 
Had my first hardlock, right after you find out
You have to climb the radio tower, I stepped into that wall with the piping
and bam.

Anyone else experience any hard locks?
 
Game is good so far, currently in Shantytown. But damn that random shaky cam effect is giving me a massive headache. :( Not a fan of that.

Also tried some Multiplayer, headshotting people with the bow is fun. Playing on PC with controller in MP is like giving yourself a huge handicap, switched to mouse and keyboard and you just destroy pad-players. It's really obvious who uses what.
 
Square Triangle said:
Had my first hardlock, right after you find out
You have to climb the radio tower, I stepped into that wall with the piping
and bam.

Anyone else experience any hard locks?
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Not a single crash ever on a GTX 590 with all settings near-maxed, Tessellation on, High Precision on, Post Processing on, TressFX off.
I didn't even have to do the Hitman Nvidia Inspector fix.
I'm just lucky, though. Unfortunately for everyone else.
 
antitrop said:
Not a single crash ever on a GTX 590 with all settings near-maxed, Tessellation on, High Precision on, Post Processing on, TressFX off.
I didn't even have to do the Hitman Nvidia Inspector fix.
I'm just lucky, though. Unfortunately for everyone else.
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Seems like it's a problem with the 6xx series.
 
CloakedPuppet said:
Listen, my post in retrospect does come off as random. I scanned a couple of negative things in this thread after spending a bit too much time on another board FULL of complaints about how this game is basically a nerfed, piece of trash. I thought I was seeing the same thing here. My bad.
Click to expand...

We should take some notes on this other board. They seem to have their stuff together.
 
antitrop said:
Not a single crash ever on a GTX 590 with all settings near-maxed, Tessellation on, High Precision on, Post Processing on, TressFX off.
I didn't even have to do the Hitman Nvidia Inspector fix.
I'm just lucky, though. Unfortunately for everyone else.
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570 SLI and same. get 80% usage on both cards. All max except using FXAA and no tress. Not one single problem. locked 60. the odd dip down, but i think its due to loading.
 
I think certain people think if they complain long enough, with enough posts, while making the posts seem the most thought out and well spoken, it will come across this game is shit. It's not enough for a post to just count as a single opinion. They must constantly drown out any differing opinion.

This has been the way of forums since the dawn of time. Nobody wants to be a minority, or more severely, just wrong.

Not saying anyone in particular.

I find the game extremely entertaining and immensely fun and gorgeous to look at. Money well spent. Now I've had my allotment of 2 posts before I become what I speak of.
 
shpankey said:
I think certain people think if they complain long enough, with enough posts, while making the posts seem the most thought out and well spoken, it will come across this game is shit. It's not enough for a post to just count as a single opinion. They must constantly drown out any differing opinion.

This has been the way of forums since the dawn of time. Nobody wants to be a minority, or more severely, just wrong.

Not saying anyone in particular.
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Some people just need that attention and that's because most of the time they're completely incapable of getting it elsewhere.
 
7 hours in. A lot of highlights so far.

Crossing the collapsing bridges, climbing the burning tower before jumping to the helicopter was just some next level shit.

Also, finally getting the grenade launcher and dishing out some violent retribution with Lara screaming at the enemy was pretty great.

Really enjoying this. Just finished
searching the Endurance on the shipwreck beach.
Can't wait to play more tomorrow.
 
Jarmel said:
Let me articulate then why I thought Lara's progression in the game was fairly well done. The whole introductory scene is bullshit so I'll start right around the deer bit. Her killing the deer does establish fairly early on two early components of her character. The first is that she's sheltered but had training and the second is that she's willing to kill in order to survive. Her breakdown from killing the rapist seemingly isn't so much from killing him in a gruesome manner but seems more of a release of the events that had transpired up until that point. The scene goes on a bit longer than I liked however it does establish the events of the game are having a mental toll on her. She also quickly states after that killing was easier than she thought. This bit allows for later gameplay segments where the player can kill these NPCs now. Lara never really has any hangup from killing individuals. Her first priority is to survive and repeatedly states that she isn't sure she can do it. She needs constant encouragement over the radio in order to keep going. This is a natural reaction for someone in her situation.
The player can slowly see Lara taking more agency for herself such as when she wanted to check out the 2nd pilot even though Roth argued for her to leave him. This bit establishes she is becoming more comfortable with the island. The argument with Roth also foreshadows a later moment with Alex as well. Next up, there is the bit where she has to get medical supplies. This again is further reinforcement that she isn't human as the events are taking a toll on her. She even has the will later on to burn the wound shut despite the immense pain. Even when she is captured, she didn't give up and had a resilient look on her face. She's becoming more determined and the cutscene illustrates that. To skip a bit further ahead, when she gets the grenade launcher, she's on the warpath to get her friend back be it hell or high water. She's already comfortable killing these enemies and has developed a bit of a fearless streak to her. She's also becoming more suspicious of people such as Whitman. A very clear point in her development is when she is willing to sacrifice Alex in order to get the tools. She's learned Roth's lesson and is clearly a much hardened character compared to earlier in the game. She's also advanced to the point where she's not just concerned about getting off the island but rather about preventing any more people from dying and saving Sam. Radio contact also near the end is reduced and there is less encouragement towards Lara but rather Lara trying to encourage others. There is a stronger sense of isolation and Lara in return becomes more confident.
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Great summary, I just finished it myself and loved how they evovled Lara's character, definitely helps create a great starting point for sequels. Loved the final wink to old Lara too :)
 
I don't think anyone here on GAF cares about being a minority. If anything that would just make them even more vocal if they feel they are among a few who share an opinion.
 
Dahbomb said:
I don't think anyone here on GAF cares about being a minority. If anything that would just make them even more vocal if they feel they are among a few who share an opinion.
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The subversive suggestion in so many of these posts that I should be quiet if I don't like the game (or even many aspects of the game) because it is annoying/bothersome/not what others coming to the thread want to see makes me smile.
 
Skilletor said:
The subversive suggestion in so many of these posts that I should be quiet if I don't like the game (or even many aspects of the game) because it is annoying/bothersome/not what others coming to the thread want to see makes me smile.
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That seems to be par for the course in almost every OT I look in sadly. People want circle jerks.
 
I'm glad the negatives get aired here, because I'm sure there are plenty of gamers out there who haven't followed this title closely and expect another Tomb Raider with prettier graphics. We've seen a few of those posters here already.

Having correctly dialed in expectations can make a huge difference.
 
CloakedPuppet said:
I marvel at the irony here.
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I'm sorry that I made 3 posts about Dark Souls, although I wasn't the first one mentioning Dark Souls. I read a post about DS and wanted to reply to that. And the picture wasn't meant in a negative way. It just felt as if you mistook GAF for gamefaqs or something like that. And if this happens to me, I would assume that I need some sleep or so. Like I said, it wasn't meant to be negative or even insulting.

I personally really enjoyed the older Tomb Raider games, that's why I'm disappointed by this game. Still I wouldn't want Tomb Raider to be like Dark Souls. I would rather like to get a game somewhat like the older games, but that's just my personal opinion which will not get fulfilled. And it's nice that quite a few people enjoy playing it, that's why I also wouldn't post any extremly negative opinion in here, because I don't want to spoil anyone's fun.
 
I think there's an element of catharsis to some of the negative posts you see. That's probably why they come across as more inflammatory. Having a negative experience tends to fuel people to be vocal about it more than a positive one, which can be taken for granted. Pop psychology in the house.

Whichever opinion is in the minority will seem louder as well, like Dahbomb said, because they don't want to be drowned out.
 
Skilletor said:
The subversive suggestion in so many of these posts that I should be quiet if I don't like the game (or even many aspects of the game) because it is annoying/bothersome/not what others coming to the thread want to see makes me smile.
Click to expand...

I've been fairly satisfied with the thread as a whole. Lot of good discussion, certainly neither a bloodbath nor circlejerk.

In fact, I was thinking of giving a long batch of my own impressions, but unless I have something shockingly insightful to add, I think I'm gonna just keep on keeping on as I have, because so much territory from so many angles has already been covered in here.
 
jimi_dini said:
I'm sorry that I made 3 posts about Dark Souls, although I wasn't the first one mentioning Dark Souls. I read a post about DS and wanted to reply to that. And the picture wasn't meant in a negative way. It just felt as if you mistook GAF for gamefaqs or something like that. And if this happens to me, I would assume that I need some sleep or so. Like I said, it wasn't meant to be negative.

I personally really enjoyed the older Tomb Raider games, that's why I'm disappointed by this game. Still I wouldn't want Tomb Raider to be like Dark Souls. I would rather like to get a game somewhat like the older games, but that's just my personal opinion which will not get fulfilled. And it's nice that quite a few people enjoy playing it, that's why I also wouldn't post any extremly negative opinion in here, because I don't want to spoil anyone's fun.
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Fair enough and point taken. Cheers.
 
How does an arrow explode a barrel?

Although in most situations bullets don't explode barrels either so this is just a follow up to a common myth.
 
Finished it. It is basically a forgettable experience that feels like you just ate some decent junk food or saw the latest Hollywood explosion fest. I'll probably just do some pros and cons thing in order for people to easier understand and counter-argue my assessment.

Things I liked
  • Visuals: Aesthetics and graphics go hand in hand to create an impressive, coherent style. Although I would like more saturation, I understand the decision to go with a grey, washed out look, since it supports the cold, windy and drap island setting
  • Polish: This game has really tight production values with a lot of polished developer-controlled segments.
  • The game successfully achieves setting up Lara as a cold-blooded killer with a side-interest in archaeology, myth and history.
  • Great character design of Lara.

Things I didn't like or care for
  • The plot was throw-away shit. While this criticism could be levelled at the earlier entries as well as other video game narratives, Tomb Raider is much more exposed to it because the game puts its narrative front and center - cutscenes, dialogue, texts, etc. all constantly force the atrocious plot down your throat and you cannot simply ignore it like you can in other games.
  • Loss and restriction of player agency. Many, many times I felt like my controller input hardly mattered in the game. And whenever I wanted to play the way I wanted to play the game, it wrestled the control away to correct my movement or jumping. The amount of scripted sequences also worsened the experience.
  • Straight up offensive supporting cast. Direct and straight-to-the-point black woman? Indian guy with intuition for the mystic? Distant scientist/professor with no regards to ethics? Grumpy Irish drunkard? I cannot for the life of me imagine a creative person sitting in the writing team and saying "okay, so we need a calm Indian, a loud-mouthed Black, an Irish drunk! Let's get started!"
  • The game never comments on Lara's murderous nature, except for that one final sentence by the villain. This is simply a bad cop-out, as one guy briefly and randomly mentioning the amount of kills you have committed as a player is simply insufficient and arbitrary.
  • The game fluctuates in tone - one moment is about the warmth of a friendship with witty banter, the next you're exposed to lots and lots of macabre deaths and corpses bordering on genocide.
  • The game starts off badly and uneven. Characters are immediately thrown into the thick of the conflict without much establishment of their motivations and backgrounds. Although we do receive a straight-forward exposition through a video camera, the game is still fighting an uphill battle in making me care about what happens to its cast.
  • Stupid moment: Let's have this one guy protect the most important MacGuffin for the entire game *and* also have him carry all of Lara's weapons and equipment. How fucking convenient.
  • False sense of urgency. This is a common problem with cinematic games, as they are so incredibly scripted that they have to wait for the player to do something before triggering the coming events. This is especially jarring when the terrible plot tells you to hurry to save someone or escape something, yet the events won't start until you hit that particular cliff/tree/boat/etc.
  • Ludonarrative dissonance.
  • There's a crazy amount of people living on that island.
  • Music is ultimately forgettable and non-distinctive. The restrained tribal drums were cool in some moments, but otherwise the soundtrack fails to provide a unique and distinctive texture to the events in the game.
  • There is simply too much combat. There are certain points in the game where it feels like padding for the sake of padding. Waves of enemies are thrown at you and as a result the encounters become one big blur of blood, headshots, and arbitrary XP.
  • The "THIS IS A VIDEO GAME" crates, boxes, chests, white platform indicators clash with the cinematic style the game is aiming for.
  • Tombs are an exercise in going through the motions without thought - you never care and you never feel like you achieved anything after "solving and overcoming" the puzzle.
  • Camilla Luddington is not a good voice actor in this game. She sounds monotonous and occasionally drift between accents. The one moment on the beach sounded like an entirely new person for some strange reason.
  • Shanty Town and the Temple of Explosions were the lowest point in the game for me. I almost gave up on the game during those parts thanks to the over-excessive combat encounters and idiotically unbelievable explosions.
  • For some reason, the loss of friends never seems to have an everlasting effect on the characters. The characters do react to it in the immediate moments after the death of a couple of important characters, but the plot rushes the player to the next epic setpiece instead of lingering on the dramatic moments. This results in me thinking that the deaths are unimportant and everyone is expendable in order to serve the plot or the next game objective ("character X is here -> Lara goes there -> character X dies -> Lara goes back")
  • The similarities between Mathias and Lara could have been used to mirror the actions of the player against the purported villain. They both think that they cannot leave the island thanks to supernatural powers and they both have to convince their entourage/followers of this fact. This could have potentially been an interesting method for commenting on the mass-murders by Lara and the extents she and the player goes to in order to "break the curse"
  • The game sometimes tries to scream too much at the player, as if he or she was ADHD and couldn't hold their attention if things weren't exploding or characters weren't yelling or over-dramatic events took place. Letting the ambience and consequences of the drama can be very helpful in making those intense moments appear significant, yet the game rushes on to the next explosive attention grabber.
  • By the end of the game I didn't care about any of the characters. The fact that the game quickly glosses over the many, many events of the game and how it impacted the surviving characters frankly punctuated with a big exclamation mark that everything that had happened was of almost no importance.

I know I have listed a lot of negatives, but I would still say that it's a decent cinematic low-risk game with almost no innovations or creativity. It's a by-the-numbers, tickbox game with no heart and no identity, but it executes most of these tickboxes admirably. It takes the Uncharted formula and improves upon the level design, but comparatively falls short in the narrative department.

All in all, the game is worth a play-through if you like some decent empty calories with no thought or heart. It is a well-executed uncreative cinematic game with bad writing, decent combat mechanics, and inane platforms and puzzles.

I'd give this game a 4 or 5 out of 10 (using the whole scale, not the 7-10 bullshit, so please don't misunderstand my quantitative assessment).
 
I agree with just about all of your list there Lime. I was thinking about typing up something similar once I finally finish this but I wasn't sure if I should bother with the way the thread was going, so kudos for taking the time. My score will probably be very similar too unless something really changes (for better or worse) in the last bit I have.
 
Finished it today, I enjoyed it overall. It's a very nice stepping stone for the franchise, with a lot of room for improvement.

I do agree with it being the game equivalent of a popcorn flick. There's not much beneath the surface, but goddamn if that surface isn't entertaining as fuck for the 8-9 hours you're looking at it. The pacing is some of the best I've ever experienced in a game, right up there with Mirror's Edge.


Just a little thing I thought was cool (end game spoilers)
I really liked how you kill Mathias at the end with the dual pistols, I was wondering why those weren't an upgrade option.
 
How do the console versions fare against the PC port? I want to get this down the line some time, but I cannot decide on the platform. I have a gaming PC that can run this baby at everything cranked up to eleven, but I'd rather play it on the couch on my PS3.

Any impressions on that note?
 
Lime said:
All in all, the game is worth a play-through if you like some decent empty calories with no thought or heart. It is a well-executed uncreative cinematic game with bad writing, decent combat mechanics, and inane platforms and puzzles.

I'd give this game a 4 or 5 out of 10 (using the whole scale, not the 7-10 bullshit, so please don't misunderstand my quantitative assessment).
Click to expand...

I'm happy to see all of your preconceptions about the game confirmed, must feel good.
 
glaurung said:
How do the console versions fare against the PC port? I want to get this down the line some time, but I cannot decide on the platform. I have a gaming PC that can run this baby at everything cranked up to eleven, but I'd rather play it on the couch on my PS3.

Any impressions on that note?
Click to expand...
Its probably the best looking game on 360 I think

But I agree as far as PS3 goes, its probably still a notch under Uncharted 2/3
 
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