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Yeah I love the old TRs and have been replaying them lately, but most of the 'actual chance I'll fail' in many of the puzzles is just falling, especially in 1 and 2. They put the puzzle atop a series of ledges, and without modern TR's generous grab system a lot of the challenge is positioning and navigation with the stiff control system. Also as the thread title suggests, no one liked how slowly Lara pushed those dang blocks.
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Mar 12, 2013 12:06
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Paino posted:Why did you have to go and mention the old TR's? Let me put my rose-tinted glasses on. I'm glad somebody said what I've been thinking because the general opinion seems to be that while a little sidelined in this game the tomb raiding is faithful to the 'classic' games and it's weird seeing this said in review after review when it's really not true at all. Unless my memory of 1 and 2 are playing tricks on me this game has almost nothing in common with them. What you describe; being lost in gigantic puzzle rooms is how I remember the games, yes there was combat but it was most definitley not the focus whereas in TR2013 it is absolutley the meat of the game. The optional tombs (and I didn't do them all, maybe 5 or 6) have 1 single puzzle and then you get the treasure, how is that even remotely like the original gameplay? It's an okay actiony game but why isn't it getting called out for sidelining and diminishing what the series is known for? It shares much more DNA with Gears of War than tomb raider. I'm not saying it's a bad game for what it is but it is a bit disingenous to call it tomb raider and it was a bit dissapointing because we're not exactly starved for choice in the third person action-shooty man game dept, did we need another entry into a bloated genre? Also Lara; is she a paranoid shizophrenic? because her behaviour really suggests that she is having some sort of psychotic break with reality. As the game is from her persepctive we can fairly deduce that she absolutley revels in the brutality she visits on her genocidal oddyssey. Slow mo kills are performed in gratuitous detail, she doesn't seem interested in trying to evade her enemies and no or few non-lethal methods are available through upgrades. At first she expresses outwardly some remorse and uncertainty about what shes doing but this seems like it's for her benefit as if she's trying to reconcile her murderous actions before gaily charging back into the fray because this girl fuckin loves killing people. After a while she just seems to embrace the madness ("Come on then you bastards") and tellingly at around the same time her stealh kill goes from being a non lethal looking bow-choke to stirring peoples brains around in their head with her axe. She also shoots an injured man in the head and quips "You don't deserve to live". Whoa. Her companions seem to slowly realise what's happening as their dialogue with LAra becomes stilted and non-confrontational (Reyes goes from wanting to leave ASAP on the boat to telling Lara she will wait for her no matter what oh god please don't visit some gruesome violence on me Lara you mad bitch). Finally she is seen, alone, on the boat while a nervous captain tells her she'll be home soon. But Lara doesn't want to go 'home' she's had a clean break with reality now, shes stared into the abyss and she loves it. A survivor is born she tells herself defining herself in opposition to the hundreds who couldn't survive her. They didn't deserve to live anyway did they Lara you fuckin maniac.
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Mar 12, 2013 12:26
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Started this tonight. Holy heck, the shipwrecks caving in on all sides, what a great opener. Got a bow! Killed a deer! This is certainly one of the much better looking games on Xbox, too.
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Mar 12, 2013 13:09
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We already had the discussion about the conflict between the gameplay and the story. I agree with you, but I don't think they were trying to paint Lara as a psychopath. At all. They go to great lengths to make her the opposite, actually. She's really, really presented as a sympathetic character. They have the same problem as Uncharted, which is that a modern action game requires you to kill 500+ people, even if it doesn't fit the story or characters. My guess is that their initial design was a far more gritty, survival type game. Which they either realized they couldn't finish, or wouldn't sell, so they took the easy way out and made an Uncharted clone. But they kept in the brutal animations because they thought they looked cool I guess. It's a good game, but drat the gameplay and plot are at odds.
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Mar 12, 2013 14:12
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The Lone Badger posted:Your best bet might actually be Far Cry 3. Though Jason trades 'the ability to grab ledges' for 'the ability to carry an LMG'. Jason can totally grab ledges. And he can zip line. And he has a bow. Also he started the game innocent and ended it a crazed gone native tribal warrior. Clearly the next game in both franchises needs to be a crossover where they cooperate or have a showdown or something. Man I hadn't thought about the similarities before but there are many more, it's kind of ridiculous.
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Mar 12, 2013 14:31
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Spite posted:We already had the discussion about the conflict between the gameplay and the story. I agree with you, but I don't think they were trying to paint Lara as a psychopath. At all. They go to great lengths to make her the opposite, actually. She's really, really presented as a sympathetic character. I personally feel like Uncharted is a much worse offender.
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Mar 12, 2013 14:50
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Cellophane S posted:I personally feel like Uncharted is a much worse offender. I agree, actually. The big thing about Uncharted is that Drake is almost abnormally nonchalant about what he's doing. It's kind of offputting in that it severely dehumanizes the enemies in a way that makes Drake feel like a sociopath. Lara's enemies are humanized but firmly evil and Lara is given more sympathetic traits. She's perfectly willing to yell at 'those bastards' to come and get her and she's clearly an ace at killing but she's not cracking bad puns while breaking people's necks. They do a lot of little things to make it feel more consistent instead of Wacky Fun Guy Murders A Country. There are still some problems with it. The first 2 hours of the game are wildly out of tone with the rest and so-on, but it doesn't hit Uncharted's level of nonchalance about killing. It's treated as 'serious' even when Lara is slaughtering entire bases full of people. That said, the game does contain unlockable extra-brutal kills which doesn't do a lot to help not paint Lara as a psychopath considering they have literally no benefit besides extra EXP. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Mar 12, 2013 |
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Mar 12, 2013 15:12
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ImpAtom posted:I agree, actually. I always felt that Uncharted rook place in some type of parallel adventurer universe where occasionally you've just gotta blast 500 mooks and its not that big of a deal.
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Mar 12, 2013 15:20
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Just something I read somewhere about similarities between Tomb Raider and the movie The Descent: There's a blood bath scene in the caves:   Not even mentioning the poster for the sequel:  It really feels like some of the horror/extreme moments were heavily inspired by it. Palpek fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Mar 12, 2013 |
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Mar 12, 2013 15:23
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Dogen posted:Jason can totally grab ledges. And he can zip line. And he has a bow. Also he started the game innocent and ended it a crazed gone native tribal warrior. It's because the "becoming a killer through pain/loss/hardships and then not being able to fully control what you've become" is the current fad they're passing for character development. I suppose if you're still a teenager it must look like some pretty hot poo poo, but it's really not, it's garbage storytelling. Far Cry 3 is a stellar product gameplay wise, but it's an even worse offender here. So this douchebag rich american kid goes to a tropical island to have a blast with his friends + Hollywood girlfriend (hahaha) and in mere months he becomes The Chosen One (I suppose being white, american and rich helps), some kind of legendary warrior that immediately bangs the hot tribal chick and kills everything that moves (gently caress your culture!). And this is a game that received praise for its story in several reviews. Not that older games had better plots, but at least they kept it neat and simple and didn't try so hard. I swear, to this day I don't understand why big developers don't spend 1% of their budget on someone who can loving write. It bothers me to no end. Paino fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Mar 12, 2013 |
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Mar 12, 2013 15:27
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Fonzarelli posted:I always felt that Uncharted rook place in some type of parallel adventurer universe where occasionally you've just gotta blast 500 mooks and its not that big of a deal. Most of the movie industry seems to exist there, so I guess it's Hollywood?
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Mar 12, 2013 15:29
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Palpek posted:Just something I read somewhere about similarities between Tomb Raider and the movie The Descent: Yeah, it was mentioned earlier I think, along with the whole Ripley taping a flamethrower to her rifle (in Lara's case, a grenade launcher) callback. As a fan of The Descent (2nd one was alright) and Aliens, I loved the homages to the strong female leads in those films. And serioulsy, those sequences in the geothermal caves were kind of freaky to wander around in playing at 3AM with the lights off and headphones on.
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Mar 12, 2013 15:31
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ImpAtom posted:
Exactly. And the brutal finishers only come late in the game when she has been through the poo poo. Yes, it's video gamey and not realistic but at least it tries. Uncharted doesn't.
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Mar 12, 2013 15:38
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Paino posted:
Heh. Someone doesn't understand satire.  Dude that whole angle was played up to an incredible extent. They're specifically making fun of the whole "rich white dude somehow shows the tribal people TRUE ULTIMATE POWER" trope. Unfortunately whiny white dudes (the vast majority of gamers in America) apparently can't understand subtlety (however imperfect the end result definitely was).
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Mar 12, 2013 16:03
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Chillmatic posted:Heh. Someone doesn't understand satire. I don't think it was satire. It was completely played straight. Judging by the way they handled some of the major deaths in that game, I don't even think the writer is that clever to begin with.
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Mar 12, 2013 16:08
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blackguy32 posted:I don't think it was satire. It was completely played straight. Judging by the way they handled some of the major deaths in that game, I don't even think the writer is that clever to begin with. The writer does claim it was supposed to be satire. Tommy Wiseau also claims The Room was supposed to be a dark comedy.
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Mar 12, 2013 16:13
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Speaking of crystal dynamics. I hope they are working on a new legacy of kain game with this engine.
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Mar 12, 2013 16:15
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^oh my, yes! Any word on some kind of survival/horde mode dlc for this? I need it so bad and I'm sure plenty of people would pay for it. farceyfarcryfarcrydatcyfarcry
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Mar 12, 2013 16:15
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Kilometers Davis posted:farceyfarcryfarcrydatcyfarcry Yeah that probably would have been much better than the current abortion that is their multiplayer.
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Mar 12, 2013 16:16
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Chappy posted:Speaking of crystal dynamics. I hope they are working on a new legacy of kain game with this engine. Dammit, this would be awesome. Especially if they made it not a reboot and carried on from where Defiance left off. Which would never happen.
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Mar 12, 2013 16:19
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Chillmatic posted:Heh. Someone doesn't understand satire. Palpek fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Mar 12, 2013 |
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Mar 12, 2013 16:21
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Sakurazuka posted:Dammit, this would be awesome. Especially if they made it not a reboot and carried on from where Defiance left off. Which would never happen. Didn't Defiance actually close out the story? Im not too sad about the series since it seemed like the developers ran out of ideas after Soul Reaver. I would even argue that they ran out of gameplay ideas during Soul Reaver, because even though I know it was rushed out the door, the last ability you get in that game is pretty drat useless. Soul Reaver 2 took out the cool finishing enemies off mechanic and Defiance was repetitive as hell.
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Mar 12, 2013 16:25
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blackguy32 posted:Didn't Defiance actually close out the story? It finished off Raziel's 'arc' but there were still unanswered questions. From what I remember anyway, I haven't played it since it first came out. 
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Mar 12, 2013 16:39
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Sakurazuka posted:It finished off Raziel's 'arc' but there were still unanswered questions. From what I remember anyway, I haven't played it since it first came out. I know some of the questions, you were expected to play Blood Omen 2 for, but from what I can tell, nobody played that game
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Mar 12, 2013 16:52
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Chillmatic posted:Heh. Someone doesn't understand satire. The problem is that there is absolutely no way to reconcile "this is satire" with the ending choice. Even the writer couldn't reconcile that when questioned about it. Claiming it is satire doesn't work if it fails at being satire to that degree. blackguy32 posted:I know some of the questions, you were expected to play Blood Omen 2 for, but from what I can tell, nobody played that game I did but it still didn't really answer a lot. They clearly intended for there to be one final Legacy of Kain game and it just never happened. Never will either. 
ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Mar 12, 2013 |
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Mar 12, 2013 16:58
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Chappy posted:Yeah that probably would have been much better than the current abortion that is their multiplayer. Is it really that bad? I haven't touched it yet but I'm surprised its so poo poo since the story is unbelievably well done. What's wrong with it?
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Mar 12, 2013 17:03
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Kilometers Davis posted:Is it really that bad? I haven't touched it yet but I'm surprised its so poo poo since the story is unbelievably well done. What's wrong with it? It's really not that bad it is just clearly a really half-assed product that was thrown together to have "Multiplayer!" as a sales bullet point. It's just really unpolished and half-baked.
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Mar 12, 2013 17:04
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The orange trees I'm guessing were part of some discrete hp system before they switched to regenerative, but kept them in there anyway because why not.
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Mar 12, 2013 17:04
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So I've gotten everything now except for one map in the geothermal caves area I think it is, because it's up on top of some platform where I exploded a big red crate that slid down to access the next part of the level; how the hell do I get up there? Did I have to get it before moving on?
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Mar 12, 2013 17:31
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JohnnyBigPotatoes posted:Also Lara; is she a paranoid shizophrenic? because her behaviour really suggests that she is having some sort of psychotic break with reality. As the game is from her persepctive we can fairly deduce that she absolutley revels in the brutality she visits on her genocidal oddyssey. I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment. Spite posted:We already had the discussion about the conflict between the gameplay and the story. I agree with you, but I don't think they were trying to paint Lara as a psychopath. At all. They go to great lengths to make her the opposite, actually. She's really, really presented as a sympathetic character. What they were trying to do and what they actually did are very different things. I personally do not see Lara Croft as a sympathetic character. In fact, I feel like she becomes the villain, a crazed killer to be feared by all, which is part of why I actually don't like the Lost-inspired story at all. (In Lost, there were no heroes.) The game is great fun for what it is, not what it tried to be, and that's disappointing.
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Mar 12, 2013 17:34
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blackguy32 posted:I know some of the questions, you were expected to play Blood Omen 2 for, but from what I can tell, nobody played that game Blood Omen 2 (which I have played not once, but twice  ) had a lot of background information on the Hylden which were brought up at the end of Soul Reaver 2 and a few other things, but was occurred solely in an alternate timeline that had been brought about by something I can't remember, maybe the end of SR 2. Ugh, gently caress, that series got convoluted after Soul Reaver.Edit: Legacy of Kain timeline. 
Sakurazuka fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Mar 12, 2013 |
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Mar 12, 2013 17:39
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Slim Killington posted:So I've gotten everything now except for one map in the geothermal caves area I think it is, because it's up on top of some platform where I exploded a big red crate that slid down to access the next part of the level; how the hell do I get up there? Did I have to get it before moving on? You can climb up the side of that structure.
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Mar 12, 2013 17:44
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Gaz-L posted:You can climb up the side of that structure. drat, I'll have to give it a try again. I jumped into it like an idiot for about 10 minutes last night.
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Mar 12, 2013 17:51
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Adraeus posted:I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment. What? How could you not paint Lara in a sympathetic light at all, from start to finish? Well, I mean yeah, she no longer needs our sympathy by the end of the game, but that was the whole point of her origin story here.
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Mar 12, 2013 17:53
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Slim Killington posted:drat, I'll have to give it a try again. I jumped into it like an idiot for about 10 minutes last night. If its the spot I think it is, she'll do that wall grab thing that means you can double jump and then be able to grab the wooden plank.
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Mar 12, 2013 17:55
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Adraeus posted:What they were trying to do and what they actually did are very different things. I personally do not see Lara Croft as a sympathetic character. In fact, I feel like she becomes the villain, a crazed killer to be feared by all, which is part of why I actually don't like the Lost-inspired story at all. (In Lost, there were no heroes.) The game is great fun for what it is, not what it tried to be, and that's disappointing. I am sort of confused at how Lara is painted as the villain when she does literally nothing but try to avoid getting herself and her friends killed. Like there's no point where she isn't trying to rescue someone or get away from people who are trying unambigiously to kill her, except maybe the tombs. This is not a game with moral ambiguity, not even Uncharted-style "Well, Drake's a selfish rear end in a top hat too" style stuff.
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Mar 12, 2013 18:24
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Adraeus posted:I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment. I agree. And I also think it's very disappointing. Again the gameplay at the cutscenes are COMPLETELY at odds with each other. Until developers realize the two have to work in concert this will be a problem. I agree that Uncharted is worse because he's a happy, quippy character, but it's hard to take this game's plot and characterization seriously when you are moving down waves of 20 dudes constantly. They want you to like Lara, want you to see that she's totally loyal to her friends and wants nothing more than to save them, etc. But they made an action game, which requires a huge bodycount. Even her friends aren't the least creeped out by the fact that you've killed a billion people. Hell, they cheer when you save them. (I know someone said Reyes withdraws, but that's not true at all. She's pissed at Lara for bringing them there and blames her for getting Roth killed. There's never a moment of "oh god you are crazy and have killed a small army") They do go to great lengths to show you that the bad guys are 100% evil and make sure you don't feel sorry for them. It's cheap for sure (human sacrifice! blood sport pits!) but they don't want you to feel bad for killing at all.
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Mar 12, 2013 18:24
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Chappy posted:Speaking of crystal dynamics. I hope they are working on a new legacy of kain game with this engine. For what it's worth (next to nothing), they recently registered a domain that could be for a new LoK game: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/02/09/possible-legacy-of-kain-domain-registered-by-square-enix/
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Mar 12, 2013 18:30
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ImpAtom posted:I am sort of confused at how Lara is painted as the villain when she does literally nothing but try to avoid getting herself and her friends killed. Like there's no point where she isn't trying to rescue someone or get away from people who are trying unambigiously to kill her, except maybe the tombs. This is not a game with moral ambiguity, not even Uncharted-style "Well, Drake's a selfish rear end in a top hat too" style stuff. I honestly think it is leading to a evolution of things. As much as I dislike Spec Ops: The Line, it at least tries to measure up the pretty reprehensible things you do. But it is clear in games like this and Uncharted, we are supposed to be cheering for everyday people to mow down dozens and dozens of people, especially when they begin enjoying it. At least Far Cry 3 tried to point out how much of a crazy person you became, even if it was out of necessity.
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Mar 12, 2013 18:42
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Spite posted:Hell, they cheer when you save them. People missing the forest for the god drat trees up in this thread
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Mar 12, 2013 19:05
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