Tomb Raider Review Thread!

Lara goes from innocent girl to killer in 5 minutes, wah wah. Yeah, let's just have every videogame star a psychopath that feels no remorse killing 100s of people. Lmao, the narrative disconnect criticism is so cliche at this point.
 
C.Monkey said:
The narrative disconnect criticism is so cliche at this point. Let's just have every videogame star a psychopath that feels no remorse killing 100s of people.
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That'd be fine with me as long as they don't pretend the story is any more than that, or ultra serious.
 
C.Monkey said:
Lara goes from innocent girl to killer in 5 minutes, wah wah. Yeah, let's just have every videogame star a psychopath that feels no remorse killing 100s of people. Lmao, the narrative disconnect criticism is so cliche at this point.
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I don't have a problem with this in a kill or be killed situation. What's she supposed to do? Sit down and have a cry after every kill? I'd like to think in a do or die situation I wouldn't be cowering in the foetal position in the corner of the room. It'd be a pretty shitty game if she just let them kill her.
 
C.Monkey said:
Lara goes from innocent girl to killer in 5 minutes, wah wah. Yeah, let's just have every videogame star a psychopath that feels no remorse killing 100s of people. Lmao, the narrative disconnect criticism is so cliche at this point.
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Uhm...isn't that we're already having?

Also, the "wah wah" and "lmao" phrases don't help your argument. They make you come across as an extremely immature individual.
 
The Mango Sentinel said:
I always figured the old ones were challenging because of how incredibly stupid the controls and the grid system were. I was more than happy to be done away with that shit. I welcomed Legend with open arms. Absolutely loved it and Anniversary.
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No. The controls were easy to manage once you'd gotten used to them. The platforming simply wasn't as easy or forgiving. You didn't have magnetic ledges or the like. Compare Legend's platforming to Mirror's Edge's. The latter is pretty close to what a modern version of TR platforming would be like IMO.
 
If you want to focus on death, do you have any idea how many Mushroom Kingdom inhabitants Mario has killed over his 25+ year career?

For the uninitiated:

According to the instruction manual for Super Mario Bros. [NES], Bowser was jealous of the Mushroom Kingdom and decided to take it for himself. To accomplish this, he used magic to transform all of the Mushroom Kingdom citizens into bricks/weeds/peculiar objects. Since Princess Toadstool [Princess Peach, most commonly known as] was the only one unable to un-do the spell, Bowser kidnapped her for his own. Thus, the "heroic" Mario ventured forth killing various Goomba's, Koopa Troopa's, and [unfortunately] destroying many...many blocks in the process. That's thousands upon thousands...upon thousands of dead Mushroom Kingdom inhabitants.

Enjoy the nightmares.
 
C.Monkey said:
Lara goes from innocent girl to killer in 5 minutes, wah wah. Yeah, let's just have every videogame star a psychopath that feels no remorse killing 100s of people. Lmao, the narrative disconnect criticism is so cliche at this point.
Click to expand...

Does it need to be 5 minutes, though? Can't we just pace it out, like the first half of the game she's battling the environment, animals, the weather, death traps in tombs, and then latter half more human enemies get involved when she teams up with survivors. By that time, she's skilled enough and mature to take em on.

If Uncharted can pace out supernatural enemies towards latter halves of games, why can't Tomb Raider with human enemies?
 
C.Monkey said:
Lara goes from innocent girl to killer in 5 minutes, wah wah. Yeah, let's just have every videogame star a psychopath that feels no remorse killing 100s of people. Lmao, the narrative disconnect criticism is so cliche at this point.
Click to expand...
I get the feeling you'd call a politician claiming there's social injustice as "cliche", too.

If there's a narrative disconnect in a game, the creators have failed on a very fundamental level to create a working narrative. It is not then "cliche" to point out this lack of basic storytelling competence.
 
Messofanego said:
If Uncharted can pace out supernatural enemies towards latter halves of games, why can't Tomb Raider with human enemies?
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Because the entire point of the game is that you're stranded on an island with incredibly hostile inhabitants who don't want you or anyone else to be there. Believe it or not Lara having to kill these people is written into the narrative. If the narrative calls for a character to harden up or die I don't think that's unrealistic at all.
 
chrono01 said:
If you want to focus on death, do you have any idea how many Mushroom Kingdom inhabitants Mario has killed over his 25+ year career?

For the uninitiated:

According to the instruction manual for Super Mario Bros. [NES], Bowser was jealous of the Mushroom Kingdom and decided to take it for himself. To accomplish this, he used magic to transform all of the Mushroom Kingdom citizens into bricks/weeds/peculiar objects. Since Princess Toadstool [Princess Peach, most commonly known as] was the only one unable to un-do the spell, Bowser kidnapped her for his own. Thus, the "heroic" Mario ventured forth killing various Goomba's, Koopa Troopa's, and [unfortunately] destroying many...many blocks in the process. That's thousands upon thousands...upon thousands of dead Mushroom Kingdom inhabitants.

Enjoy the nightmares.
Click to expand...
lol yes, Mario is the worst mass murderer of all. He's a torturer too, just think of the citizens who were turned into the 10 coin blocks.
 
sublimit said:
I'm completely the opposite.I want to be in control of my games and not my game to play by itself.Especially when it comes to Tomb Raider.
The old games had precise controls and they always felt like i was in control.No automatic bullshit and no pointless QTEs.

Of course they required from you some time and devotion to master them which i knew that not everybody was patient enough to learn them.I had a friend who simply sucked at them and he wanted to rush through the levels.It's no surprise that when Legend came out he called me and said "now this is TR."But in truth i don't think this series was ever the right kind of game for him and for others who bashed the old games because they were never patient enough to master the controls.

Youtube is full of speedruns of people who gracefully play through the old games which proves how great the controls were in capable enough hands.The only problem was that the animations were slow but this doesn't have to do anything with the actual control system itself.
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Harlequin said:
No. The controls were easy to manage once you'd gotten used to them. The platforming simply wasn't as easy or forgiving. You didn't have magnetic ledges or the like. Compare Legend's platforming to Mirror's Edge's. The latter is pretty close to what a modern version of TR platforming would be like IMO.
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Well of course it's gonna look good, it's a speedrun. You have to have absolute control over the character. I can do some damn good speedruns of Resident Evil 2, and I love the game, but that doesn't change the fact that it controls like dogshit

Yeah I guess we're gonna have to agree to disagree. I just remember popping in the original Tomb Raider before I played Anniversary because I wanted to go through it again before I played Anniversary. All I could think was how the fuck did I ever manage to put up with these controls? Some games just age like shit, Tomb Raider is one of them.
 
For those who care, GameFront's review will not be up until after launch since Square Enix is not giving out PC review codes (they get the game when everyone else does)

All reviews have apparently been on console.

http://www.gamefront.com/wheres-game-fronts-tomb-raider-review/

Tomb Raider isn’t officially available to players until March 5, but the review embargo actually ends today, Feb. 25. That means you’re already seeing reviews of Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider reboot hitting the Internet right now. All of these reviews include one important distinction: They’re all console reviews.

Sites that service the PC side of things, including Game Front, won’t be getting review code from Square Enix until March 5 — the game’s release date. Because we want to give you a PC-focused review and make sure to do the game its full justice, that means you probably won’t be seeing our review until late next week, after launch. We hate to delay giving you guys our thoughts on the title, but that’s just the way things unfold sometimes in the world of early reviews, embargoes, and PC gaming. It’s not just us, either: no PC-centric sites are going to have review code available before Tomb Raider’s launch.
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chrono01 said:
If you want to focus on death, do you have any idea how many Mushroom Kingdom inhabitants Mario has killed over his 25+ year career?

For the uninitiated:

According to the instruction manual for Super Mario Bros. [NES], Bowser was jealous of the Mushroom Kingdom and decided to take it for himself. To accomplish this, he used magic to transform all of the Mushroom Kingdom citizens into bricks/weeds/peculiar objects. Since Princess Toadstool [Princess Peach, most commonly known as] was the only one unable to un-do the spell, Bowser kidnapped her for his own. Thus, the "heroic" Mario ventured forth killing various Goomba's, Koopa Troopa's, and [unfortunately] destroying many...many blocks in the process. That's thousands upon thousands...upon thousands of dead Mushroom Kingdom inhabitants.

Enjoy the nightmares.
Click to expand...

I don't think you understand the criticism of ludonarrative dissonance (unless you're simply making a joke?). In any case, hopefully you will notice there are severe qualitative differences between Mario and Tomb Raider.

Besides, if you want to criticize Mario for anything, it's much more valid to focus on its sexism.
 
Lime said:
I don't think you understand the criticism of ludonarrative dissonance. Hopefully you will notice there are severe qualitative differences between Mario and Tomb Raider.

Besides, if you want to criticize Mario for anything, it's much more valid to focus on its sexism.
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I guess it's hard for people to acknowledge really easily understood criticisms. Instead of just admitting they're okay with the dissonance they're now bringing up Mario as if the platforming series was marketed as a story based adventure on Mario's struggles with the Mushroom Kingdom.

If Square Enix/CD didn't market this as a vulnerable girl struggling to survive there would be almost no marketing hook, it would look like a brown jungle corridor shooter.
 
Harlequin said:
Oh and here's a PS3/360 comparison in case it hasn't been posted:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svlHuWlAGvM

They look almost identical but the PS3 version seems to have sharper textures and better contrast.
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Well this is certainly unexpected considering we’ve seen zero footage from the PS3 version until now....

I’ll just wait for the Digital Foundry article before I change my pre-order....I don't really trust this video.


krYlon said:
Reviews are surprisingly positive, but they are praising the elements that I am not interested in (combat, gritty story, polish etc) and are luke-warm towards the elements I am (puzzles, platforming and exploration).

But I want a brand new modern tomb raider fix, I want puzzles and exploration and well... tombs, and I can't see any other games out there that will give me that fix :(

I'm really in two minds about buying this...
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WAT.


Lettuce said:
Hmm this is the 360 version that i captured from my gameplay session....

iTTv5Nr6vtXGl.bmp
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Hmmm....yeah, I'll definitely be waiting for the Digital Foundry article now.


Mendrox said:
Played the game for about 9 hours at my friends places (he has an special box, was so hyped about the reboot that I had to play it beforehand)

The graphics and this is no joke, rival Uncharted at so many points! I am gonna go as far as to say that the graphics are one of the best on the Xbox. Many unforgetable places are in this game...

The story is kinda nice so far and really explains why Lara kills people and goes in to that more and more and well... there are parts (and one special part about 5 hours in) that show how crazy she goes to save her friends.

The gameplay is standard like Uncharted, climbing, shooting (with four weapons so far with some second modes
a grenade launcher which is my favorite scene lol
)

All I have to say that this game is a very very good reboot and everybody should just play after the prolouge. The beginning is pretty long (about 2 1/2 hours with the first "Wow" Scene
climbing that radio tower and going down
)

I would even go as far as to say that the shooting mechanics and the gameplay itself is way better than Uncharted 3 because of the skilling system, the flow of the battles and the wow scenes which come every 30 minutes. The QTE flow nice too.

If anybody has a question, just ask, but I am gonna wait for my copy now. :)
Oh loading times are very short too.
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!!!!!
 
Grisby said:
What. Gunner Wright voices a character in the game or something?
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In Dead Space Isaac is always getting separated by something malfunctioning or getting destroyed. He is constantly doing everything for everyone else because all of the others always have an excuse not to do things themselves.
 
Plywood said:
So my main gripe based on some reviews so far is that the game's gameplay is counter intuitive to its narrative.

That and the multi-ethnic stereotype gang.
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One wheelchair guy away from the BK Kids club.

Honestly for me, its the brutality thats turning me off a bit. The over the top brutality of Dead Space 2 compared to the first game kind of pushed me away. There's a bit of that here because its so contrary to what Lara used to be which was Indiana Jones with a good pinch of James Bond.
 
Lime said:
I don't think you understand the criticism of ludonarrative dissonance (unless you're simply making a joke?). In any case, hopefully you will notice there are severe qualitative differences between Mario and Tomb Raider.

Besides, if you want to criticize Mario for anything, it's much more valid to focus on its sexism.
Click to expand...

Haha, yeah. It was just a joke. I really didn't think anyone would take it seriously.

It seems I was wrong. :(
 
The Mango Sentinel said:
Yeah I guess we're gonna have to agree to disagree. I just remember popping in the original Tomb Raider before I played Anniversary because I wanted to go through it again before I played Anniversary. All I could think was how the fuck did I ever manage to put up with these controls? Some games just age like shit, Tomb Raider is one of them.
Click to expand...

Completely agreed with this, but in fact, I thought it controlled like shit back in the day too... ;) and I was okay with Resident Evil: Director's Cut and Resident Evil 2! And it's not just the controls. Dat camera, argh.

Like I said in a previous post, I can understand the old-school TR fans lamenting that they "ruined the concept", and I'd certainly prefer an updated version of the original concept with tighter controls, good camera, etc. rather than having a modern shooter, but I'm fairly confident I'd still enjoy the new TR more than the old one, simply because it just played like ass. Good ideas, not so good execution.
 
this just remind me of Hitman,when some of GAF people who got it early were saying it's the best thing ever and best of the series but then more actually played it and it turned to be absolute crap.
 
Messofanego said:
Does it need to be 5 minutes, though? Can't we just pace it out, like the first half of the game she's battling the environment, animals, the weather, death traps in tombs, and then latter half more human enemies get involved when she teams up with survivors. By that time, she's skilled enough and mature to take em on.

If Uncharted can pace out supernatural enemies towards latter halves of games, why can't Tomb Raider with human enemies?
Click to expand...
because the core gameplay is killing humans, and gameplay comes before narrative in gaming.
 
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