I remember having the hardest time figuring out what to do in the final part of that game. I actually loved the underwater sections though, mainly due to the exploration involved.
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Tomb Raider |OT| Lara's Misfortune
- Thread starter Fracas
- Start date
I remember having the hardest time figuring out what to do in the final part of that game. I actually loved the underwater sections though, mainly due to the exploration involved.
Phonomezer
Banned
I was incredibly OCD about having the entirety of a level sonar mapped!
Finally I can come in here! I finished the game last night. Two words. So. Good.
I did a media blackout for this game, save the initial trailer and the odd screen shot here and there and I have to say I was totally amazed by the experience. I'll try to avoid tl;dr territory here, so I'll breakdown in bullet points what I did and didn't like about the game...
- - - - -
Liked:
- The scale of the game feels huge compared to previous games in the series.
- It isn't Uncharted (as much as I loved Uncharted) in the sense that you don't just run in a straight line and shit blows up.
- Percentage tracker for game completion and collectibles (OCD).
- I cared about going out of my way for collectibles: Relics to actually examine, the notes that are read aloud for you (sometimes too lazy to read myself) and the various other "filler" collectibles such as GPS trackers and the Challenges for each area.
- Gunplay is spot on; feedback is violent and the guns have weight. The damage is brutal.
- The death scenes scare me (falling into the ocean and cracking my head on the rocks, oh man).
- Good balance during exploration - for example: it takes ages to climb and travel to an objective. But you can get back in minutes due to some new equipment or shortcut.
Didn't Like:
- Lack of puzzles (I did go out of my way for the optional tombs, but it wasn't enough).
- Dragged a little at the end.
- Shielded enemies (oh please).
- The inclusion of multi-player (to be honest I haven't really given it a chance).
- Collecting Salvage felt a bit shallow to me - also the guns can be upgraded a little too much, considering you're stranded on a island... they felt good to use though!
- - - - -
I might think of a few others later on, but these are my first thoughts since finishing the game.
I'm excited for the future of Tomb Raider. This surely has to be a good thing for the franchise.
I did a media blackout for this game, save the initial trailer and the odd screen shot here and there and I have to say I was totally amazed by the experience. I'll try to avoid tl;dr territory here, so I'll breakdown in bullet points what I did and didn't like about the game...
- - - - -
Liked:
- The scale of the game feels huge compared to previous games in the series.
- It isn't Uncharted (as much as I loved Uncharted) in the sense that you don't just run in a straight line and shit blows up.
- Percentage tracker for game completion and collectibles (OCD).
- I cared about going out of my way for collectibles: Relics to actually examine, the notes that are read aloud for you (sometimes too lazy to read myself) and the various other "filler" collectibles such as GPS trackers and the Challenges for each area.
- Gunplay is spot on; feedback is violent and the guns have weight. The damage is brutal.
- The death scenes scare me (falling into the ocean and cracking my head on the rocks, oh man).
- Good balance during exploration - for example: it takes ages to climb and travel to an objective. But you can get back in minutes due to some new equipment or shortcut.
Didn't Like:
- Lack of puzzles (I did go out of my way for the optional tombs, but it wasn't enough).
- Dragged a little at the end.
- Shielded enemies (oh please).
- The inclusion of multi-player (to be honest I haven't really given it a chance).
- Collecting Salvage felt a bit shallow to me - also the guns can be upgraded a little too much, considering you're stranded on a island... they felt good to use though!
- - - - -
I might think of a few others later on, but these are my first thoughts since finishing the game.
I'm excited for the future of Tomb Raider. This surely has to be a good thing for the franchise.
I'm at the Shanty Town and just over halfway, with getting almost all of the collectibles so far. I kind of like some of the special challenge things - some don't make any contextual sense, but others, like pulling down totems, just shows how she's so pissed she wants to completely demolish their base!
And the larger areas like the Shanty Town and the Village have absolutely superb design.
It just needs bigger and more complex tombs.
And the larger areas like the Shanty Town and the Village have absolutely superb design.
It just needs bigger and more complex tombs.
You know if they can make her running around in the swim suit or naked , they will do it ...
Lara definitely suffers (or rather benefits?) from Invincible Drake syndrome. Just like Drake, she survives being thrown around countless times that would have surely broken every bone in her body a hundred times over, but miraculously gets up and keeps going while still achieving miraculous feats of athleticism.
But it's a video game.
Finished it yesterday. Yeah very good, was thoroughly enjoyable but I missed that Tomb Raider of old feel.
I understand why they had a supporting cast but Lara is the star of the show. Her character is a lot more developed and fleshed out that I was totally on her side where as the survivors not at all. Reyes came off as a cold jealous woman with Alex, Jonah and Sam as stereotypes. Only one I liked was Grim but it's hard not to like a Scot with some fighting charm (disclaimer: I'm quarter Scottish). Roth and Whittman had potential but ended up being throw away characters in the end.
As BruceLeeRoy said they can totally do away with the shotgun and the assault rife. Checked my stats on their website and I was using the bow and pistol the vast majority of the time. The bow could easily be fleshed out a bit more, non-leathal incapicitations, pin people to the wall Killzone 2 Boltgun style, use it more in a puzzle context.
The tombs were a joke. The amount of thinking involved a goldfish could work out what needed to be done and be snacking on xp before you knew it. I've heard the GameStop dlc challenge tomb is a bit more fleshed out but that's a horrid thing to do to your customers. All in all the traversal mechanics worked well but I'd like some puzzles to be built around them and then combine them rather than action scene after action scene.
Collectables, hunting and upgrades seriously need to be looked at. What's the point in having plants and even storage boxes just give xp? Why does hunting give no reward but xp either? I think outside of the initial tutorial I didn't kill a single animal (maybe one bird that got in the line of fire) so that was a whole mechanic wasted in my eyes. Collectables were a total mess and boiled down to nothing but a tiny bit of backstory in the logs but nothing more than percentage counters. Still achievement horders will be happy. Seeing as the game is about Lara's journey from an innocent graduate on her first exploration to a hardened woman with a 1,000 yard stare would it have been to hard to make her unlock abilities as she went on (see Spec Ops for how Walkers character gradually gets more violent and less professional as his journey goes on). Regards to weapon upgrades maybe they could be handled better than having to dig out salvage by maybe having them as a reward for completing a challenge, you know... like raiding a tomb?
Love the more fast paced action focused gameplay. While not an open world game really it always kept you moving when you needed to and let you explore to give you a breather. I'm glad that it wasn't the cutscene heavy QTE mess that previews were saying it was and that you still regained a decent level of control. Speaking of which did I see Cory Barlog of God of War 2 fame in the credits as cinematics director? I thought he was at Avalanche?
So great game, good to see it's selling well and plenty of potential now that some baggage from the old games has been left behind. Hopefully a sequel can get a bit closer to the Tomb Raider of old path that it's strayed from but still keep it's action focused pace but Underworld is still my fav Tomb Raider.
I understand why they had a supporting cast but Lara is the star of the show. Her character is a lot more developed and fleshed out that I was totally on her side where as the survivors not at all. Reyes came off as a cold jealous woman with Alex, Jonah and Sam as stereotypes. Only one I liked was Grim but it's hard not to like a Scot with some fighting charm (disclaimer: I'm quarter Scottish). Roth and Whittman had potential but ended up being throw away characters in the end.
As BruceLeeRoy said they can totally do away with the shotgun and the assault rife. Checked my stats on their website and I was using the bow and pistol the vast majority of the time. The bow could easily be fleshed out a bit more, non-leathal incapicitations, pin people to the wall Killzone 2 Boltgun style, use it more in a puzzle context.
The tombs were a joke. The amount of thinking involved a goldfish could work out what needed to be done and be snacking on xp before you knew it. I've heard the GameStop dlc challenge tomb is a bit more fleshed out but that's a horrid thing to do to your customers. All in all the traversal mechanics worked well but I'd like some puzzles to be built around them and then combine them rather than action scene after action scene.
Collectables, hunting and upgrades seriously need to be looked at. What's the point in having plants and even storage boxes just give xp? Why does hunting give no reward but xp either? I think outside of the initial tutorial I didn't kill a single animal (maybe one bird that got in the line of fire) so that was a whole mechanic wasted in my eyes. Collectables were a total mess and boiled down to nothing but a tiny bit of backstory in the logs but nothing more than percentage counters. Still achievement horders will be happy. Seeing as the game is about Lara's journey from an innocent graduate on her first exploration to a hardened woman with a 1,000 yard stare would it have been to hard to make her unlock abilities as she went on (see Spec Ops for how Walkers character gradually gets more violent and less professional as his journey goes on). Regards to weapon upgrades maybe they could be handled better than having to dig out salvage by maybe having them as a reward for completing a challenge, you know... like raiding a tomb?
Love the more fast paced action focused gameplay. While not an open world game really it always kept you moving when you needed to and let you explore to give you a breather. I'm glad that it wasn't the cutscene heavy QTE mess that previews were saying it was and that you still regained a decent level of control. Speaking of which did I see Cory Barlog of God of War 2 fame in the credits as cinematics director? I thought he was at Avalanche?
So great game, good to see it's selling well and plenty of potential now that some baggage from the old games has been left behind. Hopefully a sequel can get a bit closer to the Tomb Raider of old path that it's strayed from but still keep it's action focused pace but Underworld is still my fav Tomb Raider.
Hum, I don't understand why you are saying this. Reyes is not jealous of anyone: she's angry and bitter towards Lara.
Roth, her lover, died, and she is blaming Lara for this (arguably, Lara is the one who insisted to come to this island in the first place).
Tricky I Shadow
Banned
So much praise on this page....
Yeah I know what you mean. With the scene played out on Sam's camera and later on when she's saying 'it's always about Lara' after
Roth died
He represent marketing's target audience.
edgefusion
Member
Was the Alex character included to take potshot at Uncharted ?
If u read his his journal it hints at him having a crush on Lara...... and later he dies trying to impress her.
Dang, I wish he looked more like that in game. This dude is hot!
The supporting cast were very poorly realized. There was never a sense that they were at one time a team or a group that really cared about Lara. They seem to barely care that you're alive the first time you see them since the ship crash, and there are multiple times where they just split and have zero reservations leaving you behind. The only one that seemed to care was Roth, and he had an excuse as to why he couldn't follow her around.
Lara: "Hey, I gotta do this thing in this extremely dangerous place! I might die!"
Crew: "...OKAY! See ya later!"
Having sections of the game where they actually help you like AI partners in recent RE games or Uncharted would have gone a long way to flesh them out and make them act like real supporting characters.
Lara: "Hey, I gotta do this thing in this extremely dangerous place! I might die!"
Crew: "...OKAY! See ya later!"
Having sections of the game where they actually help you like AI partners in recent RE games or Uncharted would have gone a long way to flesh them out and make them act like real supporting characters.
Tricky I Shadow
Banned
Love this screenshot:
-tetsuo-
Unlimited Capacity
I believe this isn't the best analogy lol
Is no one else irked by the abundance of Quick Time events? It's worse than Resident Evil 4. Sometimes I'm wondering if I'm playing Track & Field on the NES with all the button mashing.
Character animation is also so bad they're distracting.
Regardless I'm enjoying the game, two hours in.
Character animation is also so bad they're distracting.
Regardless I'm enjoying the game, two hours in.
There's more QTE's in the first hour than the rest of the game (well at least that's how I remember it). Other times there are button prompts in the middle of a certain action or move but I'd hardly call them QTE's. I was surprised you're given quite a fair bit of control. Then again Crystal Dynamics got it in the neck with the amount of absurd ones in Legend I think they might have learnt their lesson.
Bah, I would have KILLED for something like this to be in TR:
http://youtu.be/h0X3xazZsso
http://youtu.be/vQObGTJFFNA
Something like the above is what I expected from TR's tombs anyway.
edit: Even shit like this!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkJTet51nKg&t=3m40s
Really hope the next Tomb Raider ups the real tombs and puzzles.
True, this is closer to something like TR Anniversary than anything in the new TR.
Edit: For some reason it also annoyed me how almost every puzzle in the optional tombs revolves around modern stuff made out of scrap metal and junk instead of the typical ancient mechanisms.
Lara did say that the
Solarii were inhabiting the tombs
Lapidus' Beard
Member
This exactly! At first I was impressed with the amount of detail used for the level decorations, but a few areas later i realized that the set pieces were repeated a lot. In the end I actually started singing the "1000 bottles of beer on the wall" song and couldn't get it out of my head!
This cannot be understated. I was literally blown away. The entire experience wasps that island was pure fun. I didn't want to leave. Crystal D. Jumped to top 5 developer after TR. somebody get these guys a next gen kit pleeeeease.
I'm praying for a DLC announcement. Especially after the last few words she uttered.
JimmyRustler
Member
Bought the game yesterday and played it for about 2 hours.
It's pretty good so far but I felt that the beginning of the game felt incredibly rushed. Thought it to be exremly lame to use the inital announcement trailer as the actual games intro. I really hoped the ship sinking section to be playable similar like the one in Underworld.... Also, it's always weird when the main character knows all the ingame NPCs but I as a player don't. Really think they should have started the game differently.
It's pretty good so far but I felt that the beginning of the game felt incredibly rushed. Thought it to be exremly lame to use the inital announcement trailer as the actual games intro. I really hoped the ship sinking section to be playable similar like the one in Underworld.... Also, it's always weird when the main character knows all the ingame NPCs but I as a player don't. Really think they should have started the game differently.
Just finished the game on 75% completion.
I thought it was really amazing game. I had good expectations, but was worried that it might not come out great.
The overall game seemed a lot more polished than I initially expected. The visuals were great, and I love the new Lara.
I was surprised how much I enjoyed platforming and gunplay. platforming was natural, and maybe a little too easy overall. But it really felt good, and the camera was near perfect.
And I was also surprised how long the game was. When I thought it was the end, it was only a bit over half way.
The only negative thing would be soundtrack. There aren't any memorable tracks in the game for me.
Overall I really liked the game and I am really looking forward to a sequel in next gen.
I thought it was really amazing game. I had good expectations, but was worried that it might not come out great.
The overall game seemed a lot more polished than I initially expected. The visuals were great, and I love the new Lara.
I was surprised how much I enjoyed platforming and gunplay. platforming was natural, and maybe a little too easy overall. But it really felt good, and the camera was near perfect.
And I was also surprised how long the game was. When I thought it was the end, it was only a bit over half way.
The only negative thing would be soundtrack. There aren't any memorable tracks in the game for me.
Overall I really liked the game and I am really looking forward to a sequel in next gen.
Play more. QTEs are front loaded in the game. Later early middle stuff you won't see em (much).
Phonomezer
Banned
I think for me, Uncharted excels in most areas But the combat, it's mind numbingly boring, the enemies are not fun to fight against, i despair at every single heavy combat section. I stopped playing U3 because of combat fatigue, it's just shit. So the same feeling of dread overcame me with TR, but it felt surprisingly fun, the guns feel better and enemies go down on a satisfying way that you want to hunt another . Great so far.
People would say they need skin to sell the game, but if you take a look at the previous games, you'd see that Lara changed her clothes according the the weather, granted it's a bit different here since she doesn't has access to anything but the island, you'd hope a survivor could sure as well hope to pick some clothes up from the countless people she kills.
Option C: create a pretense for the campfire mechanic.
SniperHunter
Banned
Just beat the game...overall mixed feelings about this. Uncharted is a 7/10 series IMO, this game is about 8/10.
I really enjoyed the platforming in this game, especially using the ice climber tool. The platforming wasn't as automated as Uncharted, which is a good.
Combat wise, I thought Uncharted is a bit tighter with the encounters, I also enjoy the hand to hand melee combat in Uncharted compared to what's present here in Tomb Raider.
The QTE sequences with heavy enemies sucked (pressing F to dodge and counter).
Game created a good illusion of an open world, but I never really cared about exploration, I just wanted to progress the story.
I think all three Uncharted games were ruined by the bullet sponge special enemies at the end, Tomb Raider handled the undead samurai's really well.
Looking forward to the next Tomb Raider game.
I really enjoyed the platforming in this game, especially using the ice climber tool. The platforming wasn't as automated as Uncharted, which is a good.
Combat wise, I thought Uncharted is a bit tighter with the encounters, I also enjoy the hand to hand melee combat in Uncharted compared to what's present here in Tomb Raider.
The QTE sequences with heavy enemies sucked (pressing F to dodge and counter).
Game created a good illusion of an open world, but I never really cared about exploration, I just wanted to progress the story.
I think all three Uncharted games were ruined by the bullet sponge special enemies at the end, Tomb Raider handled the undead samurai's really well.
Looking forward to the next Tomb Raider game.
At 4:01
I would actually KILL the Naughty Dog responsible for HINTING at
zombies
Let me guess, do you mean
the burning building section and Roth getting an axe in the back? I thought I had maybe one hour max to go from there. I was more impressed by the first half of the game as well. Final hours is all rollercoaster and more full on shooter. I did have fun circling around the samurai guys and countering them one by one. Stripping them of their armor with melee attacks was pretty fun.
SniperHunter said:
Same here. In most games with these elements you deliberately put the main quest on hold to go in search of goodies, but here somehow I cared way less. A factor may be that most of the upgrades weren't that essential. When I scrolled through them, my reaction always was 'that's cool... I guess' and not 'I need to have this.' I upgraded for the hell of it, not because I needed to. Late game the melee/counter stuff turned out to be pretty useful though.
For a sequel it'd be nice to get an overhaul of the exploration aspect and more puzzles. It'll be interesting to see where they go from here.
Beat it today and I loved the
dual magnums in the end. You could see it coming, but it's still a great nod.
I had that misconception as well and it's usually a deal breaker I remember pushing the difficulty down to easy just to blow through the end of uncharted 2. But for some reason this game didn't bother me with it. Rather enjoyed it.
clutch.as.it.gets.
Member
I felt exactly the opposite. I think the game was a little bit too short for the type of game it was.
If it went on for any longer than 15 hours I wouldn't have finished it.
It was the perfect length.
speculawyer
Member
Finished up after milking it a bit. Those final boss fights were a bit of a let-down but that always seems to be the case. It started out good with
but it kinda lost steam after that. But I do appreciate final bosses not being frustratingly hard like is often the case.
I'll probably go back & finish the collect-o-thon. I like survivor instinct cheat aspect because the platforming & puzzle-solving is fun. But just endlessly searching is not fun.
That bit near the end with
was weird. It seemed a bit unfinished & silly. How did she
I was actually stuck there for a bit because that just didn't occur to me as a rational thing to do.
the Samurai protectors
I'll probably go back & finish the collect-o-thon. I like survivor instinct cheat aspect because the platforming & puzzle-solving is fun. But just endlessly searching is not fun.
That bit near the end with
the armies of Samurai
shimmy along the ledge in front of hundreds of Samurai?
elguerosinfe
Member
I really enjoyed this but the game has its problems. In the last few hours especially the experience gets worse with irritating puzzles, abysmal dialogue and a final scene that seems generically tacked on. CD obviously had more ambitious plans for the game than their development time [or budget] allowed. So many of the systems seem half-baked or oddly implemented. I love the idea of upgrading skills and equipment but none of the upgrades seemed to make much of a difference in the gameplay.
As noted many times here already the game draws inspiration from lots of other titles, but the overwhelming vibe I got took me back to RE4. The atmosphere, the enemies, even the level design and architecture really reminded me of that game. I think this was one of the things that sucked me into the experience at the beginning. Overall a very pleasant surprise and one of the best titles I've played this year.
As noted many times here already the game draws inspiration from lots of other titles, but the overwhelming vibe I got took me back to RE4. The atmosphere, the enemies, even the level design and architecture really reminded me of that game. I think this was one of the things that sucked me into the experience at the beginning. Overall a very pleasant surprise and one of the best titles I've played this year.
Just finished the game, absolutely loved it.
Positives:
- I'm not sure about consoles, but the game looked GREAT on PC. I seem to be one of the lucky Nvidia card users and have experienced little in the way of problems. The environments are beautifully lush and impressively expansive, the characters were quite detailed and distinct (it toed the line between somewhat cartoonish and realism in this regard), the lighting is damned good and the textures were serviceable for the most part.
- This game easily has some of the best level design since Resident Evil 4. The large maps, puzzle designs, diverse environments/levels within a single locale, etc were all very Resident Evil 4-esque and the game was better because of it.
- The gameplay is solid through and through. I loved the automated cover system, and hope more games adopt it in the future. The gun play was great, and the huge shoot outs, while a hair bit too long at times, were intense as hell. I do wish the game was more based around the bow and arrow in this regard though, it was easily the best aspect of the gun play and would have definitely helped to set itself apart from the competition. While the 100% dynamite accuracy from the A.I. was unrealistic, it forced you away from sticking to one spot. Although it would have been better if the dynamite did significantly more damage than it actually did.
- The platforming worked EXTREMELY well. Things were constructed in such a way where things that were and were not supposed to be platformed were obvious more times than not. And while the game definitely holds your hand, you feel incredibly badass leaping for ledges, scaling mountains and sliding down ropes.
Nitpicking:
- This one's not really a negative, but it would have been cool if they pursued the Metroidvania aspect of the game more than they did. Coupled with some true tomb raiding and the camp fire checkpoints (which I never used, but then again, I haven't backtracked yet), this would have worked wonderfully IMO.
Negatives:
- The characters outside of Laura were a bit too thin for my liking. Fleshing them out a bit would have made some scenes infinitely more emotional. The antagonist, in particular, needed to be fleshed out a lot more than he was. You learn a few things from journals scattered through out the island, but it's not nearly enough to compensate.
- Laura's transition from a terrified victim to murderous badass was a bit too sudden and jarring for my liking. I know it's a video game, but from a narrative standpoint, the game could have used a few moments where (I think she has such a moment for an animal, but that's a far cry away from killing a human) she's noticeably jarred by having to take a life.
- The AI was a bit wonky in areas. I wish the detection were more Metal Gear Solid like in terms of their vision, spotting dead allies and hearing me murder someone a few feet from their locations. Some kind of sound detection zone would have changed the game for the better IMO.
- Sometimes the game wasn't clear when cut scenes were ending and gameplay was beginning, which helped to create a seamless experience, but resulted in numerous deaths as I was not privy to the fact that I was in the middle of a QTE. And on that subject, the QTEs, while not overly numerous, were hit or miss for me.
- I kind of wish the game became super natural a lot faster than it actually did. After a certain point I became tired of killing the same bad guys, in the same exact manner that I had been for the past 8 hours. The protectors were a nice change of pace but they came far too late in the game. The game was definitely going for an Indiana Jones formula, or basically a fairly realistic scenario injected with just a pinch of mysticism, and I think they should have had more of the latter for diversity's sake.
- I think the game would have been better off if ammo came at a premium. I never felt like ammo was running low, and if that were the case, it would have forced me to strategize to conserve ammo. As it stands now, I basically went balls to the wall for the entirety of the game and wasn't punished for it.
- The upgrade and equipment aspect of the game, outside of a few areas, seemed relatively useless in the grand scheme of things. I'm not sure if its true, but it feels like I could have easily beaten the game without pursuing optional skill/equipment upgrades which definitely should not be the case.
- I wish the tomb raiding aspect of the game was more prominent, instead of being pushed as a purely optional feat.
- The final battle was such a let down.
Overall, I'd give the game a 4 out of 5.
Positives:
- I'm not sure about consoles, but the game looked GREAT on PC. I seem to be one of the lucky Nvidia card users and have experienced little in the way of problems. The environments are beautifully lush and impressively expansive, the characters were quite detailed and distinct (it toed the line between somewhat cartoonish and realism in this regard), the lighting is damned good and the textures were serviceable for the most part.
- This game easily has some of the best level design since Resident Evil 4. The large maps, puzzle designs, diverse environments/levels within a single locale, etc were all very Resident Evil 4-esque and the game was better because of it.
- The gameplay is solid through and through. I loved the automated cover system, and hope more games adopt it in the future. The gun play was great, and the huge shoot outs, while a hair bit too long at times, were intense as hell. I do wish the game was more based around the bow and arrow in this regard though, it was easily the best aspect of the gun play and would have definitely helped to set itself apart from the competition. While the 100% dynamite accuracy from the A.I. was unrealistic, it forced you away from sticking to one spot. Although it would have been better if the dynamite did significantly more damage than it actually did.
- The platforming worked EXTREMELY well. Things were constructed in such a way where things that were and were not supposed to be platformed were obvious more times than not. And while the game definitely holds your hand, you feel incredibly badass leaping for ledges, scaling mountains and sliding down ropes.
Nitpicking:
- This one's not really a negative, but it would have been cool if they pursued the Metroidvania aspect of the game more than they did. Coupled with some true tomb raiding and the camp fire checkpoints (which I never used, but then again, I haven't backtracked yet), this would have worked wonderfully IMO.
Negatives:
- The characters outside of Laura were a bit too thin for my liking. Fleshing them out a bit would have made some scenes infinitely more emotional. The antagonist, in particular, needed to be fleshed out a lot more than he was. You learn a few things from journals scattered through out the island, but it's not nearly enough to compensate.
- Laura's transition from a terrified victim to murderous badass was a bit too sudden and jarring for my liking. I know it's a video game, but from a narrative standpoint, the game could have used a few moments where (I think she has such a moment for an animal, but that's a far cry away from killing a human) she's noticeably jarred by having to take a life.
- The AI was a bit wonky in areas. I wish the detection were more Metal Gear Solid like in terms of their vision, spotting dead allies and hearing me murder someone a few feet from their locations. Some kind of sound detection zone would have changed the game for the better IMO.
- Sometimes the game wasn't clear when cut scenes were ending and gameplay was beginning, which helped to create a seamless experience, but resulted in numerous deaths as I was not privy to the fact that I was in the middle of a QTE. And on that subject, the QTEs, while not overly numerous, were hit or miss for me.
- I kind of wish the game became super natural a lot faster than it actually did. After a certain point I became tired of killing the same bad guys, in the same exact manner that I had been for the past 8 hours. The protectors were a nice change of pace but they came far too late in the game. The game was definitely going for an Indiana Jones formula, or basically a fairly realistic scenario injected with just a pinch of mysticism, and I think they should have had more of the latter for diversity's sake.
- I think the game would have been better off if ammo came at a premium. I never felt like ammo was running low, and if that were the case, it would have forced me to strategize to conserve ammo. As it stands now, I basically went balls to the wall for the entirety of the game and wasn't punished for it.
- The upgrade and equipment aspect of the game, outside of a few areas, seemed relatively useless in the grand scheme of things. I'm not sure if its true, but it feels like I could have easily beaten the game without pursuing optional skill/equipment upgrades which definitely should not be the case.
- I wish the tomb raiding aspect of the game was more prominent, instead of being pushed as a purely optional feat.
- The final battle was such a let down.
Overall, I'd give the game a 4 out of 5.
Dunno, didn't enjoy the combat in TR and it made the bulk of the game. Something very off about it and the a.i. was alot worse than Uncharteds. Having just finished it, it's my fave Tomb Raider since the original, and though not directly comparable to Uncharted, it's not got that level of quality.
8/10
I am shocked how many people enjoy the platforming in this game. I really enjoyed this game and while I have a lot of problems with it, I totally get why people like it so much. But the platforming is just too damn easy. I'd complain about any game with platforming this easy, but the fact that its a Tomb Raider game makes it hurt twice as bad.
I know. It's boggling my mind. I almost wouldn't even call it platforming. Like the combat or the story, I can agree to disagree; but the platforming?
Dance Inferno
Unconfirmed Member
I honestly don't know what differences there are between the platforming in TR and the platforming in Uncharted. The only thing I can possibly think of is that you need to press Square to attach to certain surfaces, but otherwise it's just as automatic and straightforward.
Clockwork5
Member
While I may not agree with the general "dumbed down" nature of games this generation, I think I have the least complaints with auto platforming. I have always found trick jumping and lame insta-death traps to be a pain in 3D games. It seems that you are either fighting the camera angle or timing character animations. And if you do miss the jump it just screws with the flow of the game and I just don't find making that one insane jump after trying 15 times to be very rewarding anymore... That said, I can understand why some would appreciate the challenge of having complete control of their character.
I think there might be some options between "no-skill-required guided experience" and "broken camera and controls cheap death extravaganza." Nobody's asking for QWOP: The Platformer. Make the level design interesting beyond visually. Make it more dynamic in a non-linear way; let players look around and figure out how to tackle the obstacles.
More like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37C5MeJfRvY#t=10m53s