Tomb Raider |OT| Lara's Misfortune

border said:
Are you one of those people that's like "It's not a puzzle unless I get confused by it"? Because whether you figured stuff out quickly or not, there's plenty of stuff in there that's clearly intended as a puzzle.
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Pretty sure most people assume wandering around aimlessly looking for that one item, lever, or block to push is more of a puzzle. I would disagree though :P You want puzzles games. Myst says hello :D Now those games will rack your brains out :D
 
Wynnebeck said:
So just got to the
wolves den after finding Roth all messed up
and I have to say I have mixed feelings about the game so far. From the little bit I've played, the game looks great, pretty fun to play, etc. but on the other hand it's really hard to ignore the obvious Uncharted influence. Plus the game for the most part is pretty linear as fuck. I was expecting a little more open-ended gameplay but at least it's fun to play.
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The "Open-ended" bit comes from being able to fast travel to previously visited locations to and access new rooms and whatnot with new gear. But this is so utterly pointless not to mention really contradicts the urgency of the the main story.
 
Varna said:
I don't really know how many weapon stages there are. I just know currently, my bow has all the upgrades (4/4) and the other weapons are at 7/7 of available upgrades and I'm sitting on a lot of salvage.
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You aren't anywhere close to finished. Every weapon has 3-4 stages. You have to collect weapon parts to advance forward for each stage (except the Bow, where they outright give you your 3rd upgrade).

The Bow has a total of 10 upgrades available. Pistol has 9 upgrades, Shotgun has 9 upgrades.....I never got to the final stage of the Assault Rifle but I'm at 7 upgrades now.

The weapon parts thing is kinda frustrating just because they are randomly distributed throughout the world.
 
So I've seen the visual comparison shots where the PS3 version looks sharper. But what about the most important comparison - what about the framerate? PS3 version still on top for consoles? And no talk about a PS4 version yet?
 
border said:
You aren't anywhere close to finished. Every weapon has 3 stages. You have to collect weapon parts to advance forward for each stage (except the Bow, where they outright give you your upgrade).

The Bow has a total of 10 upgrades available. Pistol has 9 upgrades, Shotgun has 9 upgrades.....I never got to the final stage of the Assault Rifle but I'm at 7 upgrades now.

The weapon parts thing is kinda frustrating just because they are randomly distributed throughout the world.
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It just basically seems like you will always roughly have enough scrap to keep your weapons up to date with little effort. That is not a very good system.
 
Derrick01 said:
Usually a sense of horror comes from the fear of something dangerous getting you, and there is almost no risk of dying in this game.
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Usually a sense of horror for me comes through the atmosphere, tone, music, and general vibe. What you describe is rarely effective to me. The monsters or the idea of dying in Silent Hill are the absolute least scariest aspects of those games. So when I ask if there's a sense of horror, I'm not talking about something dangerous coming after me or dying because there's nothing scary about a game over screen or typically the "monster" for that matter.

Nonetheless-- thanks everyone for the replies.
 
I think every weapon has nearly 10 upgrades and 3 forms.

Yeah I have no idea how to get the weapon parts. If it's completely random then I guess that makes sense. I once got a weapon part from looting an enemy lol.
 
border said:
Are you one of those people that's like "It's not a puzzle unless I get confused by it"? Because whether you figured stuff out quickly or not, there's plenty of stuff in there that's clearly intended as a puzzle.
Click to expand...

There are degrees of puzzles. The puzzles in Tomb Raider are akin to those super big, 15 piece, disney jigsaw puzzles I would buy for my young niece. Sure, it might take her a bit to put it together, and it's still a puzzle, but not much of one for me.

Same thing for this game.

Dahbomb said:
I think every weapon has nearly 10 upgrades and 3 forms.

Yeah I have no idea how to get the weapon parts. If it's completely random then I guess that makes sense. I once got a weapon part from looting an enemy lol.
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I think armored guys have them. Or the first time they introduce a new type of enemy. Not sure.
 
brandonh83 said:
Usually a sense of horror for me comes through the atmosphere, tone, music, and general vibe. What you describe is rarely effective to me. The monsters or the idea of dying in Silent Hill are the absolute least scariest aspects of those games. So when I ask if there's a sense of horror, I'm not talking about something dangerous coming after me or dying because there's nothing scary about a game over screen or typically the "monster" for that matter.

Nonetheless-- thanks everyone for the replies.
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I don't get it, if there's no fear of death from something then how can you be scared or have a sense of horror? Is it possible to have a sense of horror in a game like Flower?

You're not scared of the air in Silent Hill, you're scared of what could be lurking around the corner or whatever. I would think at least, I have no idea what else could convey an atmosphere of tension.
 
Derrick01 said:
Is it possible to have a sense of horror in a game like Flower?
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Yes. Being scared doesn't have to equal something "coming to get you" and rarely does.

Derrick01 said:
You're not scared of the air in Silent Hill, you're scared of what could be lurking around the corner or whatever.
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Again the monsters are the least scary thing about Silent Hill. It's about being trapped in oppressive, unpredictable, and generally fucked up environments. If there were no monsters it wouldn't lose much and that's the beauty of the series.
 
Holy shit Rueben Langdon was Stunt Coordinator on the game.

So for the people that beat this how long was it?
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It took me 12 hours to beat. I did all the optional Tombs but I didn't go on an item collection spree (still have a shit ton of items to collect). The game is just the right length for what it is IMO and is well paced.
 
Derrick01 said:
I don't get it, if there's no fear of death from something then how can you be scared or have a sense of horror? Is it possible to have a sense of horror in a game like Flower?

You're not scared of the air in Silent Hill, you're scared of what could be lurking around the corner or whatever. I would think at least, I have no idea what else could convey an atmosphere of tension.
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Lots of people think of video games like movies.
 
Derrick01 said:
I would like to think a legit puzzle can keep most people stumped for more than 1 minute, which is about the length of time I've seen people posting for the optional tombs. There was 1 tomb in particular that I walked in and literally solved in 20-25 seconds, that time being the time it took me to actually solve the puzzle. It didn't require 1 second of thinking time by me.
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I gotta imagine most people were kept busy for more than a minute though. My experience with the puzzles was pretty pleasant, as I am someone who pretty quickly gets fed up with puzzles and looks up the answers on the internet after a few minutes of frustration. I only stopped playing and asked for the answer here at one point, and I even figured out the puzzle before coming back to look at the responses to my question. So I guess that's an indication that they're all pretty easy, but I liked that I was able to solve them on my own and rarely worried that I was missing anything important.

I would have thought they'd make the optional tombs harder since they're optional, though.
 
brandonh83 said:
Yes. Being scared doesn't have to equal something "coming to get you" and rarely does.
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It doesn't have to be an enemy, it could be the fear of falling off something or missing a jump and dying. There has to be conflict of some kind to create tension or an atmosphere of dread. Otherwise what's stopping you from feeling horrified right now as you sit in your house, staring at your PC monitor?
 
Dahbomb said:
It took me 12 hours to beat. I did all the optional Tombs but I didn't go on an item collection spree (still have a shit ton of items to collect). The game is just the right length for what it is IMO and is well paced.
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DukeBobby said:
Took me 15 hours and I finished with 97% completion. Only had a few more challenges left to beat.
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Interesting, I am probably going to wait until a lower price copy come in, so much games to buy.
 
Derrick01 said:
It doesn't have to be an enemy, it could be the fear of falling off something or missing a jump and dying. There has to be conflict of some kind to create tension or an atmosphere of dread. Otherwise what's stopping you from feeling horrified right now as you sit in your house, staring at your PC monitor?
Click to expand...
Nothing, man. I'm scared as shit, North Korea goin' all crazy.
 
Derrick01 said:
It doesn't have to be an enemy, it could be the fear of falling off something or missing a jump and dying. There has to be conflict of some kind to create tension or an atmosphere of dread. Otherwise what's stopping you from feeling horrified right now as you sit in your house, staring at your PC monitor?
Click to expand...

I think you're trying to explain something far from simple in very simplistic terms.

And my house isn't Toluca Prison.
 
Dahbomb said:
Favorite death scenes in the game?
My two favorite ones in the game are getting mauled by the big wolf in the cave and getting stabbed in the throat by a samurai sword while he holds your head.
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The former must have been the favorite of someone on the staff. Every qte was a breeze in comparison.
 
They could've made the Tomb puzzles a lot harder if they wanted. All the puzzles generally use one mechanic or theme (like wind, fire, water, electricity or some sort of playing around with the physics and platforming) but imagine if they made puzzles using the full range of your toolset and the different themes.

Imagine a puzzle where the wind is blowing while the tomb is covered in water with electricity running through it and there are flammable objects all over while you need to use your rope arrow/ascender, pick axe and torch to traverse and interact with object. You can make a really complex puzzle combining all the elements seen in the game.
The former must have been the favorite of someone on the staff. Every qte was a breeze in comparison.
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So I wasn't the only one who had trouble on this. Jesus christ thank god. I seriously thought my PC version was bugged or something, the 2nd QTE prompt just wouldn't come up for me.

By the way I just completed the game officially. 72% completed.
 
I am really enjoying this game a lot, but at the same time if they incorporated more TR stuff from recent games along with this new stuff, this game could on another level. Like if instead of relying on super-easy traversal and too many setpieces in the linear sections, how about that is where you put more classic challenging platforming and puzzles. You could still leave the more open hubs as are. More about exploring and finding routes, using abilities and stuff to find various things.

There are some moments that happen that make me think they just aren't full utilizing the items and platforming possibilities here. Like this little moment where you had to pull this swing bar so you could make a jump across this gap. I just started imagining this big puzzle where you had to turn various bars and make quick jumps before they turned back. Like that on a much larger scale. Hazards (like blade traps and stuff in more traditional tombs) could also go a long way towards making the platforming more challenging too. The game's biggest failing so far is definitely how easy it is.

This game seems to bring all these elements from different games in. And there is still a little TR in there, but it has kind of been overshadowed by some of the other elements. Uncharted, Arkham, etc. Even LOST as some have mentioned. And it makes for a good game to me. The combination even kind of feels like a thing of its own, but at the same time not that original.

Now Tomb Raider previous to this, was like one of the only games on the market like it. You know a challenging platformer with thoughtful puzzles. A game that made you think as opposed to challenge you with combat or something like a lot of other games do.

So I just think a sequel that could kind of combine this game with more of that classic TR feel would be really excellent. You know more Tombs and large scale puzzles. Challenging platforming. Even some other old stuff could be worked into this game structure. Make swimming a new ability of sorts. And you get some kind of air tank upgrade that lets you get further with the swimming to open up new areas or get to collectibles. Bring in the grapple as a swing device and then have it upgrade to the wallrun move or used to repel.

I am still not finished this game and I hope I don't sound like a downer because I am loving it, but I just keep thinking how much better it could be at times. And I hope the sequel will be able to pull that off.
 
Just finished it. This game reminds me of Resident Evil 4 a LOT. The pacing, the weapon upgrades, cultists, Saddler, the cheese...

Really fun game, will play again
 
Varna said:
It just basically seems like you will always roughly have enough scrap to keep your weapons up to date with little effort. That is not a very good system.
Click to expand...

I think for most gamers a "good system" would be one that lets you go relatively far down the upgrade path for every weapon.

But it hardly seemed that way to me. I finished the game with zero upgrades on my shotgun, 9/10 upgrades to bow, 10/10 upgrades to pistol, and 6 upgrades to rifle.....about 600 scrap left in my account. The assault rifle upgrades I bought only because I just had 2000+ scrap at certain points in the game and I figured I ought to spend it somewhere. It's easy to run a surplus of scrap at times due to the fact that the weapon upgrades come somewhat randomly.

I tricked out only my Pistol and my Bow since those are the weapons I favor heavily.
 
Totobeni said:
video games should NOT be like movies.
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Well, look around... that's sort of were we are now.

I agree with atmosphere and story being important for to a certain degree. If for example, STALKER was released with the exact same gameplay, just a much more generic setting I really wouldn't give a damn about it. Suddenly those really tense underground moments really wouldn't be scary at all, I would just be annoyed at the lack of lighting. The need to eat food would just be cumbersome, etc. Those things work because of the setting and atmosphere.

Now on this front you have this game were the atmosphere and story try to convey everything. But the gameplay not once reflects this.
 
This is gonna sound weird, but so far the most standout thing for me is that I've never been more annoyed by fake lens shit in the foreground in my life. I keep wanting to pause the game and wipe off my goddamn TV.

Other than that, this looks amazing for a PS3 game.
 
Dahbomb said:
They could've made the Tomb puzzles a lot harder if they wanted. All the puzzles generally use one mechanic or theme (like wind, fire, water, electricity or some sort of playing around with the physics and platforming) but imagine if they made puzzles using the full range of your toolset and the different themes.

Imagine a puzzle where the wind is blowing while the tomb is covered in water with electricity running through it and there are flammable objects all over while you need to use your rope arrow/ascender, pick axe and torch to traverse and interact with object. You can make a really complex puzzle combining all the elements seen in the game.
Click to expand...

It's not like they can't make good environmental puzzles (they made Legend,Anniversary and Underworld after all) the problem I guess is CD/SE think if if they put any complex and hard thing in the game and they will risk losing the Uncharted crowd/casuals money.
 
Totobeni said:
It's not like they can't make good environmental puzzles (they made Legend,Anniversary and Underworld after all) the problem I guess is CD/SE think if if they put any complex and hard thing in the game and they will risk losing the Uncharted crowd/casuals money.
Click to expand...
I think the puzzles presented in the game were just fine. I just wanted more like it. They were very organic and well thought out but CLEARLY designed to not frustrate the player and allow them to figure out in a couple minutes max with some basic trial and error.
 
I just got to the
Arid Caves
in the campaign, I think I'm around 40% in or something. Anyway, the campaign is good but not great. Everyone who is comparing it to Uncharted 2 needs to get their eyes checked, because while it attempts to follow the same formula, it doesn't have the ability to recreate UC2's sense of urgency or momentum. That scene with the rope where
you're traversing a large gap using a rope and then it breaks and you have to press Square to grab the wall before you drop
made me laugh out loud because of how silly it was. I mean really, that's the lamest way to create an "oh shit" moment.

The multiplayer is actually what I'm quite pleasantly surprised with, as it is quite a bit of fun. The PS3 version does turn into a slideshow sometimes when playing online, but otherwise I could see myself putting some serious time into this mode. Who would have thought?
 
Totobeni said:
It's not like they can't make good environmental puzzles (they made Legend,Anniversary and Underworld after all) the problem I guess is CD/SE think if if they put any complex and hard thing in the game and they will risk losing the Uncharted crowd/casuals money.
Click to expand...

I think they're totally right. Most people do not want difficult puzzles that bring their progress to a slamming halt. Nor do they want a game that just requires them to go look up puzzle solutions on the internet.

There's really not much excuse for making the optional tombs a bit harder though. I kinda thought the point of literally calling them "OPTIONAL TOMBS" was to let the player know that if they got stuck they could move on to something else and not miss out on anything. So they should have amped up the difficulty a little more there.
 
I die at least once or twice every QTE because the button presses don't register at all, it's such a pain in the ass. Not sure if I just suck or if it's a bug or something (it's not an issue in other games)

Really hope they tone down the combat in the sequel, too. It's getting so tedious.

Don't dislike the game, though.
 
I think for the Optional Tombs, they should have a separate option that lets you choose the difficulty of the puzzles. I know a few games have done this, but I can't recall offhand which ones... Silent Hill, maybe? Scaling the difficulty and the Tombs altering the puzzles might appease both the casual player and the puzzle lover.

I want to marry Lara and then she can protect me. Just emerged from
the Geothermal Caves
. That was pretty fucked up.
 
The big TR watermark when this autosaves makes me feel like I'm watching some syndicated rerun. Really completes the Saturday morning breakfast cereal feeling.

Still very early, QTEs still, and boy are they dire. Like, nothing I've seen or seen discussed prepared me for how bad they feel.

I get a kick out of her freaking out over doing some automatic scripted thing, then I can promptly make her jump off a cliff to her death without her even flinching.
 
Andrew. said:
Ok let me eat some crow for a moment.

The waves in Shantytown. Jesus christ. Even I was like "Are you kidding me?". At one point it felt like they wouldnt stop coming. I eventually just ran off after wasting what felt like a fucking battalion. That one wave put every other Uncharted wave Ive experienced to shame in an instant. I never cower from gunfights but man, it was an endless supply of assholes.

Game is still awesome, however if that shit keeps up then it's gonna get old real fast.
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That is nothing in comparison to what you'll face later on. Fucking annoying and I can't stand that kind of gangbang BS. Maybe it's tolerable if you play the game on PC with a mouse on. But with controller, the reticle decimal placement is far too sticky. You just want to move the reticle one decimal to the left and instead it moves 2-3 decimals to the left so you try to move it back to the right but again, it veers off too much. Meanwhile, your enemies are deadly accurate and throws molotov cocktails at you like there's endless supply of it.
 
Why oh why did they make missable achievements/trophies secret. I want to like you Tomb Raider...

I tried looking up what it is going on with my game. Apparently I am immune to snares online as well. Trade off for not being able to see objective markers on rescue I suppose.
 
So the map doesn't show the location of the challenges (just the relics, journals and GPS)...

Which means that you need to find those god damn Trinkets by spamming Survival instinct every 5 feet of the map. Man I only got 1 trinket to find to 100% Coastal Forest.
 
NotTheGuyYouKill said:
I think for the Optional Tombs, they should have a separate option that lets you choose the difficulty of the puzzles. I know a few games have done this, but I can't recall offhand which ones... Silent Hill, maybe? Scaling the difficulty and the Tombs altering the puzzles might appease both the casual player and the puzzle lover.
Click to expand...

I think it's more irritating that there's no special reward for doing the Optional Tombs (just XP or a random item). This game has me hunting down Relics and when I get one, it shows me a friggin' Chinese coin or a Japanese fan. The game acts like it's a big deal -- there's a voiceover explaining the item and an interactive 3D model that encourages me to admire and inspect it. Yet when I complete a tomb they don't even show you the loot you just scored, or tell you what was in the treasure chest you just busted ass to get to. WTF? The game has a high level of polish, but these things make it feel like it was rushed out the door. I don't think any other videogame in the history of videogames has ever had you open a gold-encrusted chest, and then neglected to tell you the item(s) you found inside.

I thought Assassin's Creed 2 handled optional puzzle areas much better -- you got a cool set of armor if you completed them all, but the armor wasn't really necessary to complete the game. It was a nice trophy, and since it was character clothing you were constantly reminded of your achievement.

antitrop said:
Good thing Steam achievements are worthless, anyway.
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As opposed to XBL Achievements, which are clearly worth cold hard cash.
 
wait this has a lot of enemy gangbangs? I can think of few things worse in videogames. it's the sole reason why I could never replay the infamous games and is one of the worst things about Dead Space.
 
I can't be the only one who found Shantytown really easy, right?

border said:
I think it's more irritating that there's no real reward for doing the Optional Tombs. This game has me hunting down Relics and when I get one, it shows me a friggin' Chinese coin or a Japanese fan. The game acts like it's a big deal -- there's a voiceover explaining the item and an interactive 3D model that encourages me to admire and inspect it. Yet when I complete a tomb they don't even show you the loot you just scored, or tell you what was in the treasure chest you just busted ass to get to. WTF? The game has a high level of polish, but these things make it feel like it was rushed out the door. I don't think any other videogame in the history of videogames has ever had you open a gold-encrusted chest, and then neglected to tell you the item(s) you found inside.

I thought Assassin's Creed 2 handled optional puzzle areas much better -- you got a cool set of armor if you completed them all, but the armor wasn't really necessary to complete the game. It was a nice trophy, and since it was character clothing you were constantly reminded of your achievement.



As opposed to XBL Achievements, which are clearly worth cold hard cash.
Click to expand...
You have a point. The rewards for the Tombs should be more substantial (shit, I'd just love more lore. I love all the Documents I'm finding on the history of the Island). I do like the relics and Lara talking about them. It's a nice touch.
 
Game play wise you are rewarded a lot for doing the Tombs. All hidden items are revealed on the map because you get the map for the area, you get a boat load of EXP which almost always gives you a skill point and of course you get a lot of salvage. You should always aim to do the Tomb first in a new area if you plan on 100% the game.

Other than that Tombs don't provide any special or unique reward. Every Tomb gives you the same thing. Its very confusing to me and underwhelming.
 
Damn. Watched a couple minutes of this game on a play through and it looks pretty dope. Never played a TR game before, but ran through the first Uncharted. I now may pick this up.
 
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