Tomb Raider

fd1972uk said:
hmmmmm, do I go for it?

Maybe have a look at it, mind you i've not played the last 2 or 3 games. So maybe do a quick look at Youtube and get the story out the way.


FD
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I haven't played a Tomb Raider since the first ones on the PC in the late 90s.
 
Yeah, plenty of storms. I finished the story last night. Was a good game but the ending was a bit weak.

Anyway, just going back trying to unlock achievements now.
 
I don't think ive played Tomb Raider since the Playstation 1 :LOL:

Played this for 10-20 minutes last night and was very very impressed with it though.

Story and setting at the start seems great as well.
 
Quite enjoyed this in the end.

There wasn't the usual travelling around the globe I've come to expect and it was a bit samey it felt in the various areas but I enjoyed it.


FD
 
I just played through it and since I expected nothing I was quite pleased with the game in the end.

Pros
+ Visuals
+ Combat was fun and adaptive.. I was as stealthy as possible
+ Most of the action sequences were nice

Cons
- Poor puzzles
- The game is very short
- It is extremely easy even on hard

Notes:
The good sides are self explanatory for the most part, so I don't feel any need for elaboration. But the cons may need an explanation.

The puzzles are so easy to figure out that I hardly see the point of including them. I've noticed several sites listing locations and solutions for each of them and I have to seriously question the general intelligence of the worlds population if any of those sites are actually needed. I don't consider myself particularly clever and I'm probably far below average in terms of puzzle solutions but I didn't need to stop and think even once in this game.

The game itself can be played through in a few hours and if you add an extra two hours you'll even be very close to 100% completion. I didn't bother to spend much time exploring and I didn't get all my weapons fully upgraded. In the end I stopped at 88% completion and I don't think I had a single area at 100%. The game gives a sense of urgency in many cases and I don't feel like stepping out of the 'immersion' to dally around in optional caves and looking for treasure when my friends are in peril. Once the storyline is completed I find no pleasure in stomping around the island to get upgrades either as there are no enemies left anyway. If I had known how easy it was, I wouldn't bothered to pick up any upgrades at all and finished the game in two-three hours instead.

While speaking of easy, as the puzzles are, so are the game itself. I played on Hard because I was already aware of the fact that most people said the game is too easy so I went for the 'hardest' mode. I can't honestly see what was supposed to be hard about it at all. The biggest disappointment of this game is that it didn't give any sense of achievement upon completion like the older games did. You kill people left and right and there is no reason to really fear death unless you're equipped with ten thumbs and a crap for brains. I'm not saying I never died because I did a few times. I died because I 'missed' the right button during some of those (utterly stupid) interactive cut scenes. I also died because I managed to dive into a grenade while trying to escape a molotov coctail on occasion.

So, after that tirade of complaints how can I still say that I was quite pleased?

It's simple really, I was entertained even though it could have (and should have) been much better.

PS. In the credits the game developers say something in the lines of "We hope you enjoyed this game as we did our very best to give you the best game we possibly could" which is just hilarious. If that was the best game they could possibly offer then we have an eternal line of mediocrity to look forward to.
 
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Anyone else getting it for PS4/Xbone? Was a bit put off by the price considering I played it through on my PC @ Ultra settings but had a £10 off voucher when spending £30 at a Swedish online store so just bought it for £37.29 which is very cheap here for a new game (average price around £50) let alone a next gen game :)
 
I am thinking about getting it for PS4 since i didn´t play it on PS3, however i will wait for a price drop, won´t pay $60 for it.
 
Honome said:
I am thinking about getting it for PS4 since i didn´t play it on PS3, however i will wait for a price drop, won´t pay $60 for it.
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It's worth buying. It was one of my top games of last year. I'll only wait for a price drop because I've already played it, but it was so enjoyable that I may end up buying it for PS4 too. But only when I can get a cheap second-hand copy.
 
Suuuuupertalk said:
It's worth buying. It was one of my top games of last year. I'll only wait for a price drop because I've already played it, but it was so enjoyable that I may end up buying it for PS4 too. But only when I can get a cheap second-hand copy.
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Thanks for the info, i am tempted to buy it next month since i won´t have many games to play on my PS4 in the beginning. I will wait for some videos/reviews to see if the graphics are really improved from the PS3 version and if it worth the $60 dollars.
 
Honome said:
Thanks for the info, i am tempted to buy it next month since i won´t have many games to play on my PS4 in the beginning. I will wait for some videos/reviews to see if the graphics are really improved from the PS3 version and if it worth the $60 dollars.
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No worries :)

I think it'll be a big graphical upgrade, just the 1080p and lighting effects alone will be worth it. If you like games like Uncharted then you'll love it - there are lots of platform style gameplay, lots of combat, and the storyline is really good.

If the game is a really good update then it'll be the best PS4 game so far by a mile.
 
It's worth playing but if you don't hunt for collectibles and force yourself to spend time needlessly, the game is like three hours or so. It's very railroaded so there's really only so much time you can spend "exploring".
 
No offense, but then you must be really slow. I know I'm unusually quick with these cheap ass games but there's literally no freedom and you travel in quite narrow corridors with a few exceptions where the map is a small valley or the beach where actually can roam but it's really pointless to actually roam.

It's a decent story, virtually no difficulty to speak of as the AI is about as stupid as it gets and they die easily. It's actually a good thing that it's easy because the stupidity of the AI coupled with being hard to kill would've been torture. It gave me no sense of accomplishment or achievement to finish like some of the old Tomb Raider games.

In my opinion, if Tomb Raider was one of the "Top Games last year" it says more about the decline of computer gaming than anything else. There was a time when good graphics and a virtual ass weren't enough to win awards, the actual game had to be thoroughly good as well.

6/10
 
Disagree with that review in its entirety, but then there's people out there who rave about Bioshock Infinite and I think it's garbage so it shows we all have different tastes, and rightly so! :)
 
Placebo said:
Disagree with that review in its entirety, but then there's people out there who rave about Bioshock Infinite and I think it's garbage so it shows we all have different tastes, and rightly so! :)
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Pretty much.

It's all subjective.

One man's Uncharted 2 could be another man's Horace Goes Skiing.
 
I think Bioshock Infinite is garbage too. Skyrim as well.. good games are really rare these days.

As for Tomb Raider;

- What's the point of the puzzles? They don't give you any pause, they're obvious to the point where they're pointless.
- The "hidden" areas got big signs on them. Here's a big white box where you can put an arrow to pull something to get access.
- The "hidden" climb spots are so white that they light up like a damn Christmas tree.

The "hidden" stuff is simply screaming for your attention. Almost as if the developers are afraid you'll miss out on a few bytes of good graphics they spent time on preparing. The best part is that you'll get a message on screen whenever you're somewhat in the vicinity of a "hidden" tomb so you can't really miss it. So much for "hidden" in this game. The only thing that's hidden in this game, and it's hidden really well, is the difficulty.

Like I said, it's so dumbed down that an infant could play it. Your hand is tightly held throughout the game. You can't turn this help off, so in general it's barely a game, it's an interactive novel and you might as well watch a "let's play". Every major event is a quick-time-event. Quick-time-events is after all the easy way out for the developers and it leaves the players with no sense of accomplishment. Maybe the sequence is nicely made, but since you're busy with looking for what button to press next you won't really see it until you watch a let's play on youtube.

If you like easy dumbed down games then by all means, you'll love this one because the atmosphere and graphics is great.
 
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ZeroTheHero said:
I think Bioshock Infinite is garbage too. Skyrim as well.. good games are really rare these days.

As for Tomb Raider;

- What's the point of the puzzles? They don't give you any pause, they're obvious to the point where they're pointless.
- The "hidden" areas got big signs on them. Here's a big white box where you can put an arrow to pull something to get access.
- The "hidden" climb spots are so white that they light up like a damn Christmas tree.

Like I said, it's so dumbed down that an infant could play it. Your hand is tightly held throughout the game. You can't turn this help off, so in general it's barely a game, it's an interactive novel and you might as well watch a "let's play". Every major event is a quick-time-event. Quick-time-events is after all the easy way out for the developers and it leaves the players with no sense of accomplishment. Maybe the sequence is nicely made, but since you're busy with looking for what button to press next you won't really see it until you watch a let's play on youtube.
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What games do you enjoy?

Skyrim was absolutely magnificent. A masterpiece IMO. I did enjoy Tomb Raider but I do lean towards your comments to a degree because I didn't feel it was as good as the critics made out. Still enjoyed it though.
 
Loved Skyrim, Loved Bioshock Infinite, Loved Tomb Raider (To a lesser extent)... :P
 
Scutch said:
What games do you enjoy?

Skyrim was absolutely magnificent. A masterpiece IMO. I did enjoy Tomb Raider but I do lean towards your comments to a degree because I didn't feel it was as good as the critics made out. Still enjoyed it though.
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What was so magnificent with Skyrim?

The imbalanced weapon system?
The fantastic combat system that was outdated already with the with TES: Arena? (earlier actually, read below)
The stealth that they might as well have called invisibility?
The fact that your status as a Thane makes the city guard call you peasant?
The incredible behind the scenes thievery alarm-and-GPS system?
The random dragon, giant and mammoth skeletons falling from the sky?
The awkward werewolf combat?
The "perfectly balanced" sneak attacks?
The "well balanced" crafting system?
The "deep" character development?
The tough story choices? Oh wait...

Skyrim is a big world filled with empty promises. With the right amount of mods it's certainly enjoyable but out of the box, including all official DLC it's a piece of crap game in a nice wrapping. I actually remember seeing a developer diary where some happy schmuck said that the gamer no longer had to make these "limiting" class choices because you could become everything at once! ISN'T THAT GREAT? So much for replayability. So, your big, strong and bulky quasi Viking warrior is a cat burglar, high magician, sniper and the perfect gladiator in addition to being a Dragonborn and a Vampire, Werewolf or a wannabe van Helsing in one package. Let's not forget guild master of the fighter's guild, thieves guild and assassin's guild at the same time, guilds that lore-wise have opposing interests. How fantastic... I got two words for that; DUMBED DOWN!

I've enjoyed many games but I am also very aware of the issues with the games I've played. I did enjoy Skyrim for a little while despite its archaic combat system that wasnt even good when it first came around with Ultima Underworld in 1992.

I enjoyed The Witcher, especially the enhanced edition with bug fixes and increased loading speed. I enjoyed Dragon Age: Origins. I enjoyed Assassin's Creed and AC2 (to a lesser degree). The new crap they call AC is just a sequence of video clips to divide up the pointless free roaming. I didn't hate playing AC3 or Black flag but I did slap my forehead more than I should have to during a game.

I'm not saying the games I've really enjoyed are perfect for everybody in any way but they didn't feel like my hand was held and I didn't want to slap my forehead constantly while playing.

I want a game that has used its potential, preferably. Games like Skyrim is barely half done when they release and if there is a single "wow" point to the game it will be ultra focused upon and the happy gamer will swallow it raw. I wish I could settle for mediocrity on a regular basis, it would certainly make it easier to find games to fill my days with. The positive side is that I generally don't feel drawn to the computer when I spend time with my wife and kids...

The bottom line is, the things I want in a game like deeper stories where the player is more involved in the outcome, exploration possibilities, meaningful character development and a semi realistic combat and weapon system.. I don't think those are things the majority would hate. We won't ever get them if simple games like Skyrim gets a lot of credit and praise for hardly being anything more than a mod-able engine with a half arsed story set to it.

World and NPC interaction-wise Skyrim hasn't evolved one bit since Arena and Daggerfall. If anything there's regression and that's what worries me. The combat system in Black flag, for example is much worse than its predecessors. Why is that? It's visually identical yet there's suddenly a huge amount of bugs and weird animation that was never present before? The system in AC1 was too easy when you got the hang of it, yet they made it even simpler for each and every iteration of the game... why?

WHY?

*sobs*
 
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You can't say "nothing personal" and then say something personal. Well you can but it doesn't make sense. I'm not unhappy at all by the way.

I have one for you though, "Nothing personal but average people settle for average entertainment".
 
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Well, video games are an average entertainment, or not? So we´re all average people here discussing about video-games. :SMUG:
 
That's an over-generalization in my opinion.

Video games are getting worse because the kids today is all about the graphics and game developers don't want to walk an extra mile to blow you away. All the games mentioned here could have been utterly fantastic with a little more effort put into balance and depth.
 
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Honome said:
Zero, nothing personal mate, but you must really be an unhappy people...
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If you actually compare some of the games you've played in the past with the newest "blockbuster" titles, you can see how big of a dip there is in the latter, in terms of quality and gameplay design/details/decisions.

Having said this, I agree to some extent with ZeroTheHero, and since we are in the Tomb Raider thread, it's best to talk about that. I have posted quite a few times in this thread, before and after the release of the game, about how different the game has gotten. At that time I hadn't completed the game and since now I already have done so, I can honestly say that this was by far the easiest and most lacklustre Tomb Raider game I've played (and I've played every single one of them!)

Yes, you can say that it's a good game to you, but I advise you to play TR Chronicles or TR Anniversary (you can get a pack with all of the older TR games at a great price on Steam, totally worth every penny). The thing is, those were real masterpieces, games of which you'd get a real sense of achievement at the end.

In comparison, after I had finished the latest iteration of the series, I felt a bit peculiar - it was a decent game but it was strongly lacking the depth, the contemplation, the exploration and the satisfaction you would get in the older titles.

Why did they get rid of the cleverly organised puzzles? Why did they include so many of these quick-time events? Why did they replace the classic TR level design with this dull and ugly looking island? Etcetera, etcetera...

And the most important question that I have to ask is this: Why does every single one of the major game elements and mechanics that they've introduced last year feel inferior to what we've had in the past TR games... and why do all these things feel so dumbed down that they actually insult you in a way (at least that's how I felt)? Yes, it's somehow insulting to see that you only need to press two buttons in quick succession in order to complete an action which could have been implemented in the actual gameplay... I can do that by myself ffs, there's no need to dumb it down to the level that even a 5 year old could do it!

Anyhow, before anybody says that I'm an unhappy person too, I want to say that I'm very happy in my personal life! :D
But yes, I'm unhappy with the path the game industry has taken in recent years. You can even say it's nostalgic in a way. :)
 
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