I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
I wish the aviator outfit was on steam.
You would pay for it..wouldn't you.. =(
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Tomb Raider |OT| Lara's Misfortune
- Thread starter Fracas
- Start date
You would pay for it..wouldn't you.. =(
Dodging is fun and makes the combat a bit more interesting imo, especially against several dudes.
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
I would. I love outfits.
/DoA fan
They should be unlockable in the game. =(
SlasherJPC
Banned
I think this alone right here is only going to prove to people you have a very, very different view on games, if people didn't already know that. I respect your views on games but damn the day we agree on anything I'll be shocked.
antitrop is going to eat you alive.
I wish the aviator outfit was on steam.
Best outfit.
EagleBurnn
Banned
Seems like it's a great game. Still disappointed it's more like UC than the original Tomb Raider, but like Quake 1-3, I have to accept that it's gone forever.
It's a mistake because I should have waited on SimCity and bought TR instead. At least I'll be playing a game right now. And to anyone out there interested in SimCity, it's a great game, but wait around a month for the server issues to cool down.
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
I think AC is utter HORSESHIT when it comes to franchises this gen. Hate it. But AC2's atmosphere pulled me in, so I played just that one. I ALMOST bought 3 for the same reason, but I was smart enough to avoid it knowing it'd be shit.
Tomb Raider is the same. I know I'll enjoy it, I just know it won't be what I'd like from these games. Hence, why I won't pay full price for it. Sounds like you'll enjoy TR too. But like you said, for $60?
TGO
Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
If I had a game that was suppose to be a TPS and it had as much shooting in it as TR does I'd take it back, a shooter TR is not
Theres not enough shooting sections and are too far apart to be even remotely considered a shooter
Its a good feeling.
I really love this game. Im aware the it has some issues with the story/gameplay and that it doesnt really do anything new but I cant deny the fun Im having with it. As an old school TR fan, I went in expecting to hate the shit out of it too. Its not the Tomb Raider I wanted but its still a great game.
You'll find no disagreement from me on your points regarding this. I just find it curious that the folks complaining about how bad the story is purchased the game anyways, especially in light of all the early reviews that repeatedly talked about the narrative dissonance and implausabilities.
It's like, you enjoy punishing yourselves.
Regarding the stereotypes you were talking about, yeah, that's pretty eye-rolling, but I think it's fair to keep in mind that CD is an American based company, and America has a much different history with race/racial stereotypes than the rest of the world. I'd suggest you read The Nature of Race by Ann Morning. It's a great study into how academia transmits ideas of race to society writ large, and she goes into the history of how race has been viewed in America in the opening chapters.
NullPointer
Member
I really couldn't have said it any better myself.
I've enjoyed my time with this so far, but its really all about the audio/visual experience. The vistas, the wind and weather, the million tiny sound effects. The "play" part isn't really doing it for me, as its limited to 1: QTEs and 2: combat. So I'm going through the story to move things forward and actually enjoying myself by going back to areas after they've been cleared out, just to look around the environments.
Was really looking forward to this game. The initial feel of the game was awesome. Made me think about MGS3 right away, but now it's clear to me. There's no fucking survival elements at all in this game. Lara is constantly getting herself impaled or cut by objects, shot with arrows, bullets and whatnot. Though you never have to tend to wounds, you don't have to eat ( besides that one superficial scripted event) and this is something that could have made the game so much better. Not to mention the rather infinite amount of every ammunition type there is. I never have to fight for survival (playing on the hardest difficulty). I just have to push forward in a linear fashion all the time.
Right direction Crystal Dynamics, but wrong execution.
Right direction Crystal Dynamics, but wrong execution.
That's not gameplay dude.
I think Rhianna Pratchett, lead writer for Tomb Raider, is British.
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Which, to be fair, were all completely optional checklists and not required to progress?
SlasherJPC
Banned
LOL. It's all in your head.
Shit, you're right. I'm sorry.
Yeah, but the game really hits an OCD nerve and I want to have everything maxed out.
Yeah what is he talking about . Everything about this game is about taking control away from the player! There's no way you could spend an hour just happily exploring stuff.
I guess you could quantify running around picking up sparkley things and setting fire to bags to smash open boxes as gameplay. I mean, some people did want to collect all the feathers in Assassin's Creed, right?
TGO
Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
I'm at the point of no return, and confrontations are rather far and few, yes it has an occasional big shoot up for five minutes but thats it, other then that they lay 3 men in your way and then it back to running & climbing
NullPointer
Member
GAF Post 2,573 / 10,000 Completed.
+250 XP
+1 Skill Point
2/3 Game parts
Find a camp to upgrade your skills and equipment.
So the stuff you mentioned, the collecting things, where you do some traversal, exploring etc. is not part of the game? I feel like people are describing Dragons Lair here. "Watch and press one button" - which is complete bullshit.
SlasherJPC
Banned
Yeah. The game took control away from me and then my friend took the controller away from me! Inception!
CloakedPuppet
Member
The production in this game is top notch - no doubt.
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Which is totally fine, I'm a trophy collector too, I'd do the same, but when I'm collecting 305 blast shards in Infamous 2 or hunting down "secret tombs/coffers" in AC2 with the map showing me where they are.. I'm not thinking "man, this is such a nice break from combat," I'm thinking..and check..and check...and check.. I'd never use that as a selling point to describe the game to someone.
NullPointer
Member
To be fair you're right, its just not something I'd describe as a mechanic. I do this in any game with a strong art style though.
The actual choices the player gets to make, both moment to moment, and longer term are what I'd consider gameplay.
Exploring isn't about choices so much as its just a playground to romp around in, but yeah, that part is whats keeping me going. I love exploring areas and worlds that these artists and designers create.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
Jokes aside, collectathons are absolutely gameplay. Whether or not they involve decent exploration or traversal, and whether or not what you are collecting is of any relevance to the rest of the package will largely determine whether it's good gameplay.
I expect this to take me probably around 12 hours, since I tend to be the type who takes my time poking around looking at vistas and trying to fall through geometry
I'd like the GAF Gold upgrade please.
Haha, I can understand your wondering. It's mostly about hoping for experiencing some good things and it's also about learning what works and what doesn't in certain AAA games. Finally, one is sometimes greeted with "you haven't played it, therefore your opinion is invalid", so playing and experiencing it makes one's opinion much more grounded in the actual product.
Thanks for the suggestion of the book, I'll check it out in the future. Sounds very interesting.
This I can certainly agree with.
That may as well be the game that some people in this thread are talking about.
There is a huge discrepancy between the game that Tomb Raider is, and the game that some people here are describing it and painting it as. It's really bizarre.
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Why do people think threads should just be about praising a game? Are you new to video game discussion boards?
SlasherJPC
Banned
Conversation, purpose, etc. I never stick around a thread very long for a game I dislike. Just feel it's a waste of my time but for some people they have their reasons.
The colonies came from somewhere, right? ;p
My point was that we are awash in stereotypes of all kinds in life, and while this doesn't excuse the continuing reinforcement of them in media, it definitely puts them into a context where it's understandable that people fall back on them as story telling devices.
I mean, Cole Train from Gears of War is a pretty bad black athlete stereotype, but it rarely gets commented on.
My take on this is that the earliest generation of gamers are finally at an age where they are thinking about these more metaphysical/philosophical aspects of game narrative than they used to when they were younger. We're starting to see evidence of it (Journey, Walking Dead, Bioshock, Spec Ops), and it's clear that the audience is hungry for this type of storytelling (see the Spike awards winners), but like most institutions/industry, change is slow.
Maybe I don't hate it completely and would like to discuss elements of the game while I'm playing it. You know, like a message board for videogames.
So yeah here is my final thoughts.
Game is lacking in almost all fronts, everything the game does is just not good enough ,not in the same level of quality of the other games in the market or the games that "inspired" this one, like the open gameplay, explorations,shooting,story and everything,weirdly enough it share many of AC3 issues, if AC3 had a lost sister then it's TR2013.
-Story is predictable mess and full of cliches, C-grade storytelling,dialogue and characters ,if The Asylum ever made a straight to DVD ripoff of Indiana Jones this will be it, it bizarre but it sound like the main story was an afterthought here or at least it was changed completely at some point during the development because many things that happened don't match with eachother, the ending also was completely rushed, did they run of budget or something?
-The new Lara, one of the main focus on this game was the new Lara and how different she is and very real compared to the old one, but honestly aside from the look they both really non-human,if the old Lara was a robot then this one is not a cyborg but a psycho humanoid, the new Lara was just another Hollywood style action hero,that go from a lil girl to untouchable monster in no time, she is still shallow shell,her emotion and how she grew up is completely non realistic.
-Also game got really weak supporting cast/villains, I cant even remember anyone ,it's pretty sad really..even the annoying characters in Legend/Underworld like Zip,Amanda,Natla,yeah it's really pathetic job from the writers here(if the focus on Lara was good one may ignore this, but the focus on Lara was also bad).
-The pacing is all over the place,it start fast then slow down and stay like that till the very end when it just go crazy fast like it need to wrap this as fast as possible.
-game structure suffer too much, since it forced me to do the same thing over and over, it's you need to go here then here then kill waves of enemies,sneak and get that thing then kill tons of enemies anyway and repeat, its really a boring way to design any video game(sadly many games have this issue)
-Variety problem is also return with the enemies, you fight the same dude over and over again, it's really boring and wasn't a people of any older Tomb Raider games since they used change the type of enemies completely each level.
-while the shooting feel nice, the entire combat stay the same,it's really an average shooter to its core because you don't need to be creative or use the environments for you advantage or anything like that,and because of that I didn't enjoy the long fights at all, they almost feel like a work.
I don't mind the QTE(I'm a Shenmue fan after all)they don't bother me,but the problem on where they throw them at you and here they just take the control from you in the wrong moments
-It is really damn boring game, forced me to stop playing many time,I can't even play for a full hour without stopping, this is also the same problem that I have with Assassin Creed3,there is just nothing that keep me interest here, the way they made the story feel disconnected to the free play/side activities is just wrong and just killed my experience here,they should've learn a thing or two from RDR or New Vegas of how they can mix the two and keep the player going.
-Way to easy,there is no challenge here, they try to cover this by making the fights last for too long but they just made the tons of shooting parts just too long and repetitive as hell, and there is no fun doing them just Shoot,dodge,take cover,shoot and repeate all the time, the stupid AI also hurt it too much, there is just no satisfaction for anything you do, there is just none of it.
-Can't believe myself saying this because I'm a pro long games,but this is one of few games that needed to be shorter, it just overstayed its welcome,I really wanted it to end after 5 hours.
-Exploration, how I can say this..it's umm a horizontal game, the design of the areas just feel completely flat.
I wont compare it to the classic Tomb Raider games because it's just unfair since this game is not a classic Tomb Raider(let be honest here they are from different genre of games),but let say to game that let you explore stuff like Assassins Creed games or even Demon's Souls/Dark Souls and even compared to them this game do bad job, really limited exploration you can't go up and down and climb everything, the design of the area is just..again..completely flat, in Souls series you can see how complex and layered the areas are that force you to go and look but here they are not like that.
The other problem is the design of the island itself, as someone who live on an island with see everywhere this is really a poor design,the different areas look the same most of the time, there is not enough variety of locations,hell even the island in Risen 1 was more interesting than this,islands can be cool place for a video game..not here tho..really missed opportunity.
-Collectables,optional "tomb" and side stuff are useless and sadly there is no satisfaction of doing any of them.
-Really jerky animations in many places (not sure if this is a PC port problem)
and speaking of the PC port..PC port was total garbage, crashed on me just too many times,too many problems and bugs,it remind my of the bad era of PC ports (like in 2005-2008) the worst port by Nixxus so far.
and please tone down the damn TressFX ffs, it's unrealistic, real long hair don't move like this(it move like team of angry snakes on Lara's head)kept breaking the immersion experience, and it impact the framerate too much,had to disable it.
uninstalled it,because I don't see myself playing it again anytime soon if maybe ever I wont buy any future DLC or anything.
5/10 No depth in gameplay or shooting,lacking everything it try to do,it's just not fun.
sigh
Game is lacking in almost all fronts, everything the game does is just not good enough ,not in the same level of quality of the other games in the market or the games that "inspired" this one, like the open gameplay, explorations,shooting,story and everything,weirdly enough it share many of AC3 issues, if AC3 had a lost sister then it's TR2013.
-Story is predictable mess and full of cliches, C-grade storytelling,dialogue and characters ,if The Asylum ever made a straight to DVD ripoff of Indiana Jones this will be it, it bizarre but it sound like the main story was an afterthought here or at least it was changed completely at some point during the development because many things that happened don't match with eachother, the ending also was completely rushed, did they run of budget or something?
-The new Lara, one of the main focus on this game was the new Lara and how different she is and very real compared to the old one, but honestly aside from the look they both really non-human,if the old Lara was a robot then this one is not a cyborg but a psycho humanoid, the new Lara was just another Hollywood style action hero,that go from a lil girl to untouchable monster in no time, she is still shallow shell,her emotion and how she grew up is completely non realistic.
-Also game got really weak supporting cast/villains, I cant even remember anyone ,it's pretty sad really..even the annoying characters in Legend/Underworld like Zip,Amanda,Natla,yeah it's really pathetic job from the writers here(if the focus on Lara was good one may ignore this, but the focus on Lara was also bad).
-The pacing is all over the place,it start fast then slow down and stay like that till the very end when it just go crazy fast like it need to wrap this as fast as possible.
-game structure suffer too much, since it forced me to do the same thing over and over, it's you need to go here then here then kill waves of enemies,sneak and get that thing then kill tons of enemies anyway and repeat, its really a boring way to design any video game(sadly many games have this issue)
-Variety problem is also return with the enemies, you fight the same dude over and over again, it's really boring and wasn't a people of any older Tomb Raider games since they used change the type of enemies completely each level.
-while the shooting feel nice, the entire combat stay the same,it's really an average shooter to its core because you don't need to be creative or use the environments for you advantage or anything like that,and because of that I didn't enjoy the long fights at all, they almost feel like a work.
I don't mind the QTE(I'm a Shenmue fan after all)they don't bother me,but the problem on where they throw them at you and here they just take the control from you in the wrong moments
-It is really damn boring game, forced me to stop playing many time,I can't even play for a full hour without stopping, this is also the same problem that I have with Assassin Creed3,there is just nothing that keep me interest here, the way they made the story feel disconnected to the free play/side activities is just wrong and just killed my experience here,they should've learn a thing or two from RDR or New Vegas of how they can mix the two and keep the player going.
-Way to easy,there is no challenge here, they try to cover this by making the fights last for too long but they just made the tons of shooting parts just too long and repetitive as hell, and there is no fun doing them just Shoot,dodge,take cover,shoot and repeate all the time, the stupid AI also hurt it too much, there is just no satisfaction for anything you do, there is just none of it.
-Can't believe myself saying this because I'm a pro long games,but this is one of few games that needed to be shorter, it just overstayed its welcome,I really wanted it to end after 5 hours.
-Exploration, how I can say this..it's umm a horizontal game, the design of the areas just feel completely flat.
I wont compare it to the classic Tomb Raider games because it's just unfair since this game is not a classic Tomb Raider(let be honest here they are from different genre of games),but let say to game that let you explore stuff like Assassins Creed games or even Demon's Souls/Dark Souls and even compared to them this game do bad job, really limited exploration you can't go up and down and climb everything, the design of the area is just..again..completely flat, in Souls series you can see how complex and layered the areas are that force you to go and look but here they are not like that.
The other problem is the design of the island itself, as someone who live on an island with see everywhere this is really a poor design,the different areas look the same most of the time, there is not enough variety of locations,hell even the island in Risen 1 was more interesting than this,islands can be cool place for a video game..not here tho..really missed opportunity.
-Collectables,optional "tomb" and side stuff are useless and sadly there is no satisfaction of doing any of them.
-Really jerky animations in many places (not sure if this is a PC port problem)
and speaking of the PC port..PC port was total garbage, crashed on me just too many times,too many problems and bugs,it remind my of the bad era of PC ports (like in 2005-2008) the worst port by Nixxus so far.
and please tone down the damn TressFX ffs, it's unrealistic, real long hair don't move like this(it move like team of angry snakes on Lara's head)kept breaking the immersion experience, and it impact the framerate too much,had to disable it.
uninstalled it,because I don't see myself playing it again anytime soon if maybe ever I wont buy any future DLC or anything.
5/10 No depth in gameplay or shooting,lacking everything it try to do,it's just not fun.
sigh
kunonabi
Member
Really? I spammed the crap out of the dodge and it made most of the battles a cake walk. It's super easy to just roll past entire firefights or roll in big circles to regenerate health. Enemies without guns can't even punish it all. Once you get the counter abilities you get free kills for almost nothing since you don't really need to time the dodge all that for counter opportunities. Machine gunners occasionally hurt you for it but it's easy enough to regen or find a safe spot. The game provides no real resistance even on hard with the ridiculous dynamite throws.
NullPointer
Member
Absolutely. From an audio/visual perspective this thing is polished as all hell. Really digging the PC version performance too.
And the lack of load times.
I know I come across as negative with this game, and on the whole I am ;P But there is a lot here to like, almost all of which is related to the presentation, and yeah, even the approach to Lara's character and storytelling.
most of the fights are really piss easy even without dodging.
kunonabi
Member
True. The game basically escorts you the ending with as little resistance as possible.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Sounds like you (and many others) went in with set expectations and were disappointed. That may be Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix's fault. I don't know. I barely paid attention to any media about the game before launch--that's what I usually do with games, because most marketing is bullshit and will give you the wrong idea about what a game really is. I prefer to go in with as few expectations as possible and let the game speak for itself. In that respect, I'm finding Tomb Raider to be an awesome game. Five hours in and it keeps getting better and better. That's not to say there aren't any flaws, but it's been a very enjoyable experience.
I agree. This is especially true if you have a mouse for aiming. It doesn't bother me, though. Most of the attraction here for me is traversing the environments and seeing the sights. The combat in most past Tomb Raider games has been annoying and unwieldy. At least this time they made it super satisfying, even if it might be a bit too easy. It's still quite a bit of fun to run around, sinking my climbing axe into the skulls of all these island hobos.
I'm not going to 100% this game. I got all of the relics and I got all of the documents and those are the only collectibles worth a hoot; hell most of the relics are pretty uninteresting in themselves. Crystal Dynamics forgot that that thrill of secrets in past Tomb Raiders was the challenge of getting to them, not just the items within them; and the rewards for finding them weren't bad, either, since ammo, health packs, and save crystals were precious. In this game they're just sitting out in the open and the only way you'd miss them is that they can blend in to the environment. A very small amount of them are hidden well. Then you have the GPS caches and XP challenges; FUCK THOSE. The GPS caches are just busywork and so small and inconspicuous that you NEED the map to find most of them; they're nearly invisible. And those XP challenges. It's not fun running between those 2 beginning forest areas looking for extremely small talismans hanging from trees, especially when those 2 areas are divided by an incredibly tedious bunker crawl.
I like collecting things, but not when they are just tedious like this. "Ha ha! You already went through this exact area, but you didn't see the GPS cache because it was so small, go there again and get 5XP!" They went overboard.