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Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests

Finally a Playlist



Latest Video


The Game

Rise of the Tomb Raider is the second game in the Tomb Raider reboot franchise, so it is a direct sequel to the 2013 game Tomb Raider (See Here For LP) and the prequel to the just-released-as-of-2018 Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Pinning down Rise of the Tomb Raider's release date is a bit more difficult, though. It was a timed Xbox release, so if you had an Xbox360 or XboxOne you got to play it in 2015. PC and PS4 players got a crack at it in 2015. Supposedly, day one of the game going multiplatform it outstripped the XboxOne lifetimes sales, so that may explain why neither publisher SquareEnix or Microsoft chose to continue the agreement for the sequel.

If the game undersold that is just too bad. It is a really solid action/adventure game with a lot of really good set pieces, fun combat, great exploration and movement and a pretty good story that will make you want to keep moving things along. It also improves heavily on the previous title by adding more reasons to backtrack through the areas, a reformatted game map along with improved hunting, crafting and combat options over the reboot game.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is set about a year and a half after the first game. Lara and her companions made it off the island where a Japanese ghost was keeping sailors from up to 30 years ago and an army of the undead prisoner and was trying to come back to life through Lara's best friend who was somehow a decedent of the ghost lady. It was a whole thing. Anyway, if you collected all the collectibles in the game you would find out some Templars-in-Assassin's-Creed style order called Trinity wanted to harness the death conquering powers of the ghost queen. Yo, guess who the bad guys are in this game? Really, just about all you need to know about the backstory of this game can be found in the first video, it's like an hour long. It's sort of jarring that so few elements from the first game's setting made it to this game considering both were written by Rhianna Pratchett and so you would think there would be more continuity there. Instead Rise of the Tomb Raider spends a lot of time fleshing out Lara's history and backstory, so the number of secondary characters is way down and the quest Lara is on is more personal for her, which means more emotions that aren't abject terror at the horrible situation she's in like in the first game.

The LP

For the most part I'm going to follow the formula I used by the end of the first Tomb Raider LP, in that I'll be moving all the Lore stuff to the end of each video, so don't let the format of the first video fool you. I'm going to show most everything I can on screen, though some stuff will end up being clean up collecting off screen. The idea is that each video will progress us in some way, either in the story or in the world. I'll be hitting all the tombs the game has on offer and the side missions, but I'm not going to strive to collect every cache of coins or anything. Hopefully the LP takes fewer hours than my first playthrough (27 hours...). I'm going to be choosing upgrades and weapon modifications, so this is going to mostly be viewer interactionless.

Should be on a Tuesday/Thursday update schedule for the LP, depends on how much time I have to edit and record.

Spoiler Policy
Don't spoil stuff.

Videos















































































Lazyfire fucked around with this message at 17:00 on May 25, 2019

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Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests



We're off to a very Uncharted start here, with Lara hopping around the globe and jumping forward and backward in time to break things in different environments. Some of them quite expensive, probably! One of the more interesting points about the plot to this game is that the previous game in the franchise is almost completely superfluous. Like, the island is mentioned, Trinity was hinted at existing if you collect all the things in the first game and Jonah is back, but that's about it setting-wise. If you liked the first game's mechanics, though, there's great news. Almost everything in the first game is back for a second round here, some of it improved or expanded upon, and a bunch of new features were added that we'll delve into as the game progresses that makes it really fun. There's not much of that in the first couple videos (like, wait till video five or six probably to see some of the really fun stuff), but the developers didn't just copy/paste the gameplay aspects of the reboot for the sequel.

berryjon
May 30, 2011

I have an invasion to go to.
Yay! :allears:

I've always passed this game over, it always seems like there's something better or cheaper to buy when it crosses my path, so I'll definitely watch this.

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests

berryjon posted:

Yay! :allears:

I've always passed this game over, it always seems like there's something better or cheaper to buy when it crosses my path, so I'll definitely watch this.

It's a good game, and engrossing. I put something like 26 hours into my first playthrough and still didn't collect everything. Granted, a great deal of that was aimless wandering and killing animals for skins I didn't need. It's a really worthy successor to something like Arkham Asylum where you have these hub areas where you need to go get an upgrade or gadget to progress through stuff and then you can get on a path to the next story set-piece.

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests



Now we're into the meat of the Rise of the Tomb Raider experience. This game is a bit of a collectathon in that you are constantly killing animals, harvesting plants and breaking open crates to get scrap in order to upgrade your equipment and craft ammo and healing items. You are also on the lookout for the lore stuff (now at the end of the video as it will be for the rest of the LP) and coins. The coins won't have a real purpose for some time yet, but they are worth grabbing as you can bypass some of the gatekeeping the game does by spending them on the right things, but it isn't enough to think that's a reasonable idea at the end of the day; you are better off spending them on the quality of life stuff when that comes up.

I have to say that they did a great job expanding on the secondary fire mechanic in this game. Each weapon has a version of it, you can always craft the ammo if you have the right stuff and they are all worthwhile. The bow actually gets three and they are all really good, though you won't see all of them till close to the end of the game. The only knock I have on the system is that with the variety of weapons (revolvers vs. semi auto pistols or Assault Rifle vs. SMG, etc) they had a chance to do multiple types of secondary fire for each weapon class and then have the bow be the equalizer with its three types of secondary fire so you only ever needed that type of special ammo to progress. It's a minor issue to be sure, and one that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but with only four weapon types a little bit more variety wouldn't have hurt.

nutri_void
Apr 18, 2015

I shall devour your soul.
Grimey Drawer
Oh god I missed the beginning of this and now I'll need to find the time to catch up with the first two videos

I don't know how far you got into this so I'm being very careful not to spoil anything, but I must point out that due to my nationality and linguistic background, my playthrough was like 60% cringe
Even though I liked it

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests

Alexeythegreat posted:

Oh god I missed the beginning of this and now I'll need to find the time to catch up with the first two videos

I don't know how far you got into this so I'm being very careful not to spoil anything, but I must point out that due to my nationality and linguistic background, my playthrough was like 60% cringe
Even though I liked it

I've beaten the game. Most of the early to mid part of the game is basically Gulag Archipelago the game with regards to the setting. DLC is nice and weird/fun, though.

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests



In the Tomb Raider reboot there's a scene early on where Lara has to hunt a deer and then for the rest of the game the entire concept of killing random animals (that aren't wolves) goes right out the window. It was one of those weird design decisions in the first game that they completely rectified in this game, if you were wondering. I actually do wonder if they purposefully had Lara track down a deer in this game before introducing the bear as an enemy to highlight the fact that yes, it is going to be different this time. Tracking and killing animals is going to net you important upgrade materials, there are "special" animals that have special skins that are used in specific upgrades, there are rare animals you can only hunt at specific times in the game and there are a limited number of others (bears, mostly) that make you have to consider how to use the upgrade materials you get from them. Yes, this video is mostly Lara hunting other humans so this is sort of a tangent, but the change to Lara's interaction with the animals in the game is worth considering and mentioning in more detail here because I only brush past it during the videos. The developers could have just left it well enough alone as it doesn't necessarily add anything to the gameplay or ramp up the replay value or make you feel like you have to do something for completionist reasons, but it's a nice, inoffensive addition/expansion on the previous game that is more in line with how sequels should treat game mechanics. Keep the things that work, improve the things that almost worked and expand the stuff you hinted at but didn't have time to incorporate fully.

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests



The best addition to this game gets introduced here. Yes, setting things on fire is very much in line with the previous game, but setting people on fire is kind of new. Lanterns now, molotovs, grenades and smoke bombs later; the game gives you a ton of different options for taking out or confusing enemies in the middle of a fight and it adds a layer of depth to the combat and set pieces that was missing from the previous game. I just wish rope arrows could pull people off ledges, then my life would be complete as you could gently caress with NPCs in even more ways at that point.

SubponticatePoster
Aug 9, 2004

Every day takes figurin' out all over again how to fuckin' live.
Slippery Tilde
I got this game and made it a bit further into the area you're in, then got distracted by something shiny. I've beaten the first and the latest, I'll have to come back to this one at some point (and do the VR thing).

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests

SubponticatePoster posted:

I got this game and made it a bit further into the area you're in, then got distracted by something shiny. I've beaten the first and the latest, I'll have to come back to this one at some point (and do the VR thing).

It's funny you say that because I tore through the first and preordered the third before I even loaded this one on my PC and I've owned it for over a year now. I think there's something about the series where I know it is really high quality, but my dumb brain keeps saying I don't have enough time to dedicate to it.

Of course I tore through this in the course of a week and had a great time doing it, so maybe I'll remember that next time I try to convince myself I don't have the ability to sit down and just play a game.

SubponticatePoster
Aug 9, 2004

Every day takes figurin' out all over again how to fuckin' live.
Slippery Tilde
I beat the latest one in a week, I think I just got Rise on sale when I had a bunch of other games to play so I got distracted by something shiny.

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests



Rise of the Tomb Raider brings back a lot of the structure of the Tomb Raider reboot. You have collecting scrap, you have documents and artifacts, you have challenges and tombs. One of the newer elements are these structured side missions. Most of them are pretty simple "collect this many of these" or "find all this" things that just send you around the map and are overall pretty simple. The reason I like them is that 1) the reward is often new stuff or weapon parts so while optional, they are genuinely helpful rather than being paltry or useless rewards (challenges, by the by, are just going to net you points to spend in the game's Card Shop and can be safely ignored) and 2) they are effective ways to take you around the map instead of just running from point to point to point for collectibles like you may be tempted to do. Instead you get encouraged to explore a bit from the main body or where quests require you to go and you can learn more about how the area is arranged than if you were just running between the objectives the maps and monoliths uncover.

That said, there are only a few of these side missions and they are pretty basic. The game lacks some sort of grand reward for doing all of them, so they don't really add to a sense of amazing progression. It would be kind of great if that by finishing them you got like an expanded equipment bag or a special bow type or an outfit or something. Instead you just get a sense of accomplishment. If the game had a faction or trust system or something maybe it could have been incorporated in there, but with only one friendly faction and the story dictating the level of trust said faction has in you, I don't think that was ever in the cards. In the end the side missions are that new feature that adds a bullet point to the back of the box without making a major impact on the game, at best it is a nice thing to have included, at worst it is an inoffensive little addition that probably doesn't warrant two paragraphs of text.

berryjon
May 30, 2011

I have an invasion to go to.
In a way, your distractions are a good thing as it's a constant reward for a player to keep moving, that there are no dead areas in the game that the developers skipped over as a glorified loading area for the next big thing, or used as a visual set piece that is then ignored for the rest of the game.

Darkest Auer
Dec 30, 2006

They're silly

Ramrod XTreme

Lazyfire posted:

It would be kind of great if that by finishing them you got like an expanded equipment bag or a special bow type or an outfit or something.

But that's exactly what you get from the side missions :confused:

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests

Darkest Auer posted:

But that's exactly what you get from the side missions :confused:

You get special equipment from EACH side mission, but if you do all of them there's no like, uber reward. I think that isn't such a huge deal as you won't finish them till the end of the game and so it would just be a final chapter only item, but it would be fun to just wander in with God's Own Climbing Tool and just being able to one hit melee kill everyone or something nuts.

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests

LP curse has delayed things a bit here. I've actually not sat at my computer for more than a few hours this week and that was spent trying to figure out why the next episode wouldn't process right. I still have no idea, but I changed out a transition (how do you feel about those, by the way?) and that seemed to fix it. Weird thing is that there were no actual errors with the video, just something in the way I structured the edits caused issues the first time through.

Oh, oh and then even better I went to edit things for the next couple videos and it turns out something went super weird with the source video that caused a completely black frame to insert itself every 5 frames. For the whole video. If it was just part of the time I may have been able to fix it, but not like that. So I need to rerecord is the story there. Finally, my insistence on swapping out saves doesn't look like stupid paranoia. I knew this poo poo would happen.

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests



The plan now is to spin off most tombs as their own thing so you can avoid them as they are mostly just flavor rather than story-relevant.

In an effort to be more efficient in my recordings I had recorded two episodes back to back, those became the ruined video that partially delayed this one (the other factor is that I was out till 11 on Thursday and fell asleep about five seconds into being home on Friday night and decided to wait on posting). You know how this is episode six and each video has been about half an hour or longer? I took me 45 minutes to essentially speed run back to where this video ends. I just skipped the tombs, finding the artifacts and texts, hunting down supplies and didn't bother much with stealth or flavor conversations. It's amazing how much not-gameplay the game packs in, frankly. Now that I think about it, when I played through the first time I probably went a few hours between combat sequences at some points. There's lots to explore and find and do that isn't fighting and the game doesn't bother railroading you along the story path over much. As a matter of fact, I think you can fast travel out of just about everything until the end game. I felt like the reboot game was a lot more linear than this one with a ton more combat to sort of slow your progress while this game focuses more on puzzles and background details to keep you searching the more wide open maps that the game is comprised of. We're about 20 percent of the way through and something like four hours into the game, I expect I'll have to cut lots of exploration before we finish, and it'll still be a really long LP. The Tomb Raider team really delivers on your investment if you want to do everything you can.

berryjon
May 30, 2011

I have an invasion to go to.
I refuse to mock you!

But I will enjoy watching you explore optional areas.

Lord Zedd-Repulsa
Jul 21, 2007

Devour a good book.


Even if this ends up on the long side for your LPs or for video LPs, you won't take nearly as long as some I've followed for jRPGs with boatloads of side quests :v:

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests

Lord Zedd-Repulsa posted:

Even if this ends up on the long side for your LPs or for video LPs, you won't take nearly as long as some I've followed for jRPGs with boatloads of side quests :v:

Oh, you mean the multi year LPs that update like twice a week and still make minuscule progress because there is just so much stuff? I hardly have the patience to read those, LPing them would be hell.

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests



So it turns out TR has an interesting way of dealing with the documents you find in game telling a story. Instead of you picking up a specific document each time, you get the next document in the sequence from a person. That's why the documents in this video are from my scrapped version of this level: I picked up almost nothing in terms of documents in my effort to get back to this point in the game quickly and so got documents from early in the game here. I think the approach is just smart. The journals, letters, recordings, etc. are backstories that add a lot of context and flavor to the world. If you miss one or two of them in the middle of the sequence you miss important parts of those backstories. The game also seamlessly drops in one or two shot document types, like what we saw in the previous video, in areas where context or clues about a puzzle or how to make progress can be gleaned from said documents. It's natural enough and done smartly enough you wouldn't normally notice it unless you had a moment like I did in this video or someone pointed it out to you like I'm doing now.

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests



Let's talk a second about how Rise of the Tomb Raider handles stealth: exactly like the previous game. You hide in bushes, Lara ducks behind objects and is invisible if you are not in an enemy's line of sight and the bow is completely silent while any silenced weapons still make a degree of noise. The "Throw stuff for distractions" mechanic is great as long as you don't, say, convert everything into an explosive the second you grab it and then ruin any attempts to stealth segments, something that I will surely do at some point. Stealth kills are pretty brutal and effective in the game, especially when in cover as Lara will pull the enemy right in to to bush or reeds or whatever she's hiding in. This is pretty great as the game has no body movement mechanic and so killing enemies in the open is often a detriment if you are trying to remain unnoticed.

I also really, really like the "enemies in the line of sight of other enemies are highlighted red" thing. You can't always tell when that is the case on looks alone and not knowing can really mess up attempts to stay hidden. Later in the game when the maps get more complex it will also give you warning that there are guys you haven't seen yet out in the area, and that's a lifesaver if there ever was one. Once we get to that point in the game I'll have to talk about how the map design plays to the mechanics and how enemies just do not look up, which I think is a purposeful decision so the designers could give you flanking options over their heads.

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests



One of the things they brought back for this game that I love are the escape sequences like you see in this video. They are simple, to the point, fun and spectacular to watch and play. All you really need to do is hit the sprint button and press jump as necessary and you are good to go, yet you feel great doing it. I think these sequences end up being great showcases for the game as a whole, whether you want to focus on the motion capture/animation or movement or responsiveness of the controls. If you screw up one of these segments it is often your own fault rather than something the game forced you into through some deep seated fault in the controls or anything. The polish the studio puts into the game comes through in these because you can find flaws with animation/motion capture, movement and responsiveness at different points (see: Jacob's arm in previous video), but when it matters most they made sure to have their ducks in a row for stuff like this and the "issues" with those subject matter are generally pretty small or nitpicks rather than showstoppers. They absolutely could be in other games, but the developers made sure to iron flat most of the egregious issues, which in my opinion counts for a lot.

berryjon
May 30, 2011

I have an invasion to go to.
I like it that Lara and Jacob don't see eye to eye on everything. Each has their own priorities, and while gently caress Trinity is high on both of their lists, the Divine Source, the goal of the game, isn't something they can agree on. How this game handles this dissention is one of the better ways I've seen it done. Not the best, mind you, but definitely better.

Megillah Gorilla
Sep 22, 2003

If only all of life's problems could be solved by smoking a professor of ancient evil texts.



Bread Liar
Well poo poo, just found this LP. Always enjoy Lazyfire's work 👍


I get what you were saying about the animations in the second last video you posted. It looked like Jacob was on loan from International Rescue during that scene.

Programmed with supermarionation!

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests



This is about when the open world aspect of the game starts to assert itself. Yes, we've seen a side mission already and we know it isn't exactly a groundbreaking experience. Go find this, go collect that, accomplish a (seemingly) trivial task for me. You aren't going to find an Elder Scrolls style side-quest-that-takes-four-hours-by-itself missions here, they are just kind of quick and dirty quests that give you upgrades and such. I think it is a really workable solution to unlocking weapon pieces and whatnot as otherwise you would just be opening up storage boxes all day. Instead the game gives you a fairly trivial task, so it is hard to complain about even slightly more involved content in the game. Here's the other thing: it fits into the story of the game. In the reboot Lara and the other shipwreck survivors were struggling for survival and the only other people on the island were hostile. In Rise of the Tomb Raider Lara has made contact with friendly forces and wants to earn their trust as they have a mutual enemy, but she also has a level of guilt over the fact they need help as she more or less is responsible for Trinity showing up. Story wise the Remnant missions make a ton of sense and don't feel shoehorned in. If anything I would like to see more unique rewards or more involvement with the story tied to these (as I've mentioned before); finish them all and get a special weapon or technique or if you do X number one of the quest givers will help you out later instead of a generic character. Just something to make them feel a bit more tied into the main story and/or game structure than they are currently.

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests



So because this is more collecting of things rather than new story content I wanted to do a quick check on something. You may have noticed that when I cut the documents/relics/etc. from the video and put them at the end that I'm using different transitions. How are those? Are they distracting or a nice diversion from the stock standard fade in/fade out that you may see in other LPs? I try to add new stuff to each LP I end up doing and so my objective here was to provide something a bit different for these segments that let you know the cuts were purposeful. I guess the better question is if the transitions/cuts are really necessary in your opinion(s). I think putting the journals and relic investigations at the end of the video is the right thing for flow of the episode, but you may feel like your are losing context. In at least one video I'm going to leave things as I found them because it makes an impact on the story. Otherwise, I think putting them at the end is the way to go, but I'm interested in what everyone else thinks.

berryjon
May 30, 2011

I have an invasion to go to.

Lazyfire posted:

I think putting the journals and relic investigations at the end of the video is the right thing for flow of the episode, but you may feel like your are losing context. In at least one video I'm going to leave things as I found them because it makes an impact on the story. Otherwise, I think putting them at the end is the way to go, but I'm interested in what everyone else thinks.

Yeah, keep them at the end unless it's important.

Megillah Gorilla
Sep 22, 2003

If only all of life's problems could be solved by smoking a professor of ancient evil texts.



Bread Liar
Most of the stuff doesn't seem to connect directly to what Lara is doing at the moment, beyond general locational flavour.

Most of it so far is along the lines of Goes into tomb > finds book from guy who died in tomb > book's text says: "Boy, I sure hope I don't die in this tomb" which is generic enough that you don't lose anything by delaying when we read it.

If it was more, book's text says: "After careful study I have determined that the combination to the mummy safe is 23 left, 4 right, 77 arrgh help I'm being eaten by mummies!" I could see a reason to keep it within the main video.

Megillah Gorilla fucked around with this message at 11:16 on Jan 2, 2019

Lord Zedd-Repulsa
Jul 21, 2007

Devour a good book.


Agreeing with the others. I don't mind the transitions unless there are a lot within a minute or so of each other but the docs overall go best at the end unless their content is immediately relevant.

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests

Megillah Gorilla posted:

Most of the stuff doesn't seem to connect directly to what Lara is doing at the moment, beyond general locational flavour.

Most of it so far is along the lines of Goes into tomb > finds book from guy who died in tomb > book's text says: "Boy, I sure hope I don't die in this tomb" which is generic enough that you don't lose anything by delaying when we read it.

If it was more, book's text says: "After careful study I have determined that the combination to the mummy safe is 23 left, 4 right, 77 arrgh help I'm being eaten by mummies!" I could see a reason to keep it within the main video.

Luckily the latter scenario is not something the game ever does in the main campaign, but there are a few documents in the DLC that are relevant as soon as you find them, like the game requires you to pick one up to advance the plot and sends you on to your next objectives. Those three or so documents are the only ones that will stick in their original spots probably for the rest of the game. I was putting the other documents at the end of the videos because it worked well in the first Tomb Raider, but didn't want to make a bad assumption that it was still the way to go.

Megillah Gorilla
Sep 22, 2003

If only all of life's problems could be solved by smoking a professor of ancient evil texts.



Bread Liar
Works great as far as I'm concerned 👍🏽

I love that they not only wrote all this extra stuff, but they did the voice acting for it, too.

People often point to the big obvious things which make a game great, but for me it's all in the little details like that.

That said, I am missing all the insane set piece run-for-your-life bits the last game had. Being chased down a mountain by half an aeroplane, running along the side of a cliff as the buildings built onto it collapse. Those were cool as hell.

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests



As promised, we get into the DLC this episode. Well, the story DLC. I have to make that distinction because Crystal Dynamics did something a bit different here and incorporated not only a main quest/side quest DLC but also did a "start from the menu" DLC that I have not actually played yet. I think what they did here is pretty fun and incorporates into the rest of the game really well. If it tied back into the main quest somehow it would more or less be exactly what people want out of main mission DLC, but instead it lives in its own world in terms of story and what. At the same time, there is the tomb seen in this video that grants you an ability you will take back to the rest of the game and you can boost your Russian skills in here and get a leg up on the high level Russian monolith near the lumber mill. It doesn't disrupt anything overly much, and is different and new enough to justify it being there in the first place. I can't think of much negative to say about this.

It's kind of funny, though, that this game has a DLC incorporated into the main story/mode of play. Or maybe that's only in my case. Back when the PS2 was still new and consoles were seeing their first online services (Ignore the Dreamcast, I guess) one of the franchises that was suggested would get "Episodic" content was Tomb Raider. You could go down a dark hole looking for it, but I clearly remember an issue of EGM that plotted out how it would work. Basically, you would pay for chapters to the game that you would then download and play after the main quest was over. Think the modern Hitman franchise (hey, both were published by Eidos back then. Must be a coincidence) where you have a set of missions and then more are released for the title as time goes on. I don't think they ever bothered doing that with Tomb Raider because the average internet connection sucked then more than it does now and the console hard drives that weren't the Xbox sucked. Today it is almost unconscionable that any game not have DLC, but the trend is now towards season passes and free post release content with microtransactions to pay for the continued work of the devs. I wonder how the average industry person who was involved in Episodic Content would look at the modern DLC/post launch economy of games. I can't decide if they think we hosed up or evolved exactly along the lines they always envisioned.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged
Wow, that wind puzzle is annoying as gently caress. Sure they technically give you "cues" to know you're set up right, but that's kind of crazy picky timing.

Megillah Gorilla
Sep 22, 2003

If only all of life's problems could be solved by smoking a professor of ancient evil texts.



Bread Liar
Wow, that puzzle sucked.

Turn the crank on the door another inch and you get a sound played to let you know something good happened. Don't and you get nothing to let you know you hosed it up.

Why even let the door stop in that position, then?

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests

Megillah Gorilla posted:

Wow, that puzzle sucked.

Turn the crank on the door another inch and you get a sound played to let you know something good happened. Don't and you get nothing to let you know you hosed it up.

Why even let the door stop in that position, then?

All of the cranks that move something Lara isn't standing on are just illusion of control intractable objects. You never have a reason to half or partially crank anything and it often ends up being detrimental if you do, as seen here. The game is incredibly forgiving when it comes to timing on puzzles and escape sequences; if you screw up and miss the first cue or get caught on something there is leeway in the timing of whatever platform/rope/jump is needed for progress. You would think because of that the interactable items like the cranks and things you can push or pull that show up later in the game would also have some slack. As we saw here, that isn't the case. They are more or less binary, on or off systems. If I had to guess, that is so players won't spend forever looking for a sweet spot or having to guess if they did something correctly on these. It just backfired hilariously here.

Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests



"tripping" sections in games feel almost mandatory now. Far Cry 3 basically made them a requirement because they were that good in that game that now everyone incorporates them. And why not? It give the art team something to do, gives you a chance to do something different with gameplay and is an instant mood/story builder if you make it on rails like this segment is. The one in this video works out because the developers don't overuse it, though. You won't really see it again in the entire game or in the DLC, and they aren't making you trip and shoot arrows or anything, no messing with the controls or what that other games may try. They know they are using it to add some back story or give some character depth or tell you how evil the witch is, etc. CD isn't going to make it the centerpiece of the rest of the DLC like some studios may have been tempted to do.

berryjon
May 30, 2011

I have an invasion to go to.
I still think the best "Trip" section came out of the original Max Payne, if only for the sheer mood whiplash it causes.

Although I also hold a special fondness for the one from Oni, where the lead character remarks afterwords, words to the effect of "That was one weird nightmare. Lay off the late-night pizza."

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Lazyfire
Feb 4, 2006

God saves. Satan Invests

berryjon posted:

I still think the best "Trip" section came out of the original Max Payne, if only for the sheer mood whiplash it causes.

Although I also hold a special fondness for the one from Oni, where the lead character remarks afterwords, words to the effect of "That was one weird nightmare. Lay off the late-night pizza."

I don't remember the one from Oni, but the Max Payne one I think everyone knows.

I think comparing the Max Payne trip sequences to Far Cry 3 and beyond is difficult because there was a generational leap between the two games. In the Xbox/PS2 era I don't think you could have pulled off what Ubisoft did in Far Cry 3 due to hardware limitations being what they were. You basically had to have a completely different level load in with different assets if you wanted players to have a "trip." By the the time the last generation of consoles were nearing end of life a number of developers were figuring out how to make assets pop in and out of existence in real time directly in front of the player.

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