Tomb Raider - A survivor is born

[Zombie Fred]

Honestly why does she need mash buttons to climb out the cave instead of just holding forward to move forward? What good reason is there for making the player mash controller butons?

To get that sense of struggle at the beginning of the game since she has no experience until much later on as the game progresses to build her character?

The leaked footage that come out on the behind doors at E3 was damn good, showing multi-level buildings with plenty of platforming for Lara to try and rescue her friend from the ship. This will probably be the best platform/adventure game for 2012 I'm going to say.

[aris13]

E3 2012 Trailer

Release date is March 5, 2013.

[atlier00]

^ I freaking loved it!

[Archelon]

That trailer was really uncomfortable to watch. It's like torture porn.

[Vector]

Tomb Raider and Uncharted: a symbiotic relationship.

[Wrathborne]

This game should be called 'Unchart-Tomb-gear-Evil'.

[RiseAboveHate]

I like the trailer but I hope they tone it down in terms of over-the-top action. Keep it all about surviving within the environment and its inhabitants. Maybe it's just me but the "insane" action sequences in gaming has grown stale easily and is why I disliked Uncharted 3 so much.

[valentinesdead?]

I think it's funny this game was at E3 LAST year. Hopefully doesn't mean it risk being a poor game.

[RiseAboveHate]

If anything I'm happy they're taking their time, especially with how buggy TRU was

[atlier00]

I think it's funny this game was at E3 LAST year. Hopefully doesn't mean it risk being a poor game.

How is that funny? Bioshock Infinite was there last year too....and they both come out next year.

[Dracarys]

So anyone buy this? May mention mild spoilers but nothing game/plot ruining that isn't in spoiler tags.

Singleplayer

My main gripe with the game is the story and the gameplay just do not mesh at all and due to this my suspension of disbelief kept getting broken.

Right at the start Lara takes a nasty fall and a stalagmite punches clear through her abdomen which she then has to pull out. She holds it for a while but this is soon forgot about completely. Meanwhile she meets up with other survivors, one has a sprained ankle and gets a bandage put on, Lara just sits by a fire and ignores the set of holes in her gut. Shortly after she gets a bear trap spring on her own ankle and just shrugs it off.

Later on she meets another crew member who has hurt his leg and needs medical supplies, so he sends Lara who at this point has two holes in her gut and had a bear trap spring on her ankle not to mention several very nasty falls, possible stuff I forget too, to go fetch the supplies. Lazy bastard if you ask me. Anyway Lara gets these supplies, gives him treatment...and still ignores her own injuries which are far worse. It is only towards the end of the game she suddenly decides randomy that medical supplies for herself are important and a priority, at which point suddenly you cannot even jump without losing health.

Next up is the normal girl turning into a killer. This was done terribly also, one moment she is hunting a dear and saying sorry to it for killing it, then she is slaying wolves, then soon hundreds of fully armed people like she has been doing it her entire life. It doesn't fit into the character they're trying to portray her as. She is not a survivor, she is a killer, this is especially evident at the end where

Spoiler:

show spoiler

She takes on an entire army of ancient warriors that even the guys she has been killing all game fear

Everyone Lara knows is dumb, Lara often is too and the twist they leave until near end game is blatently obvious to anyone playing. Despite this the story early on keeps you wondering and remains interesting until end game. Story is a thumbs up overall, though Lara is not.

-------

As to the gameplay, for the most part it is good but in many ways is inferior to older TR games.

Puzzles - It doesn't really have a lot of them and they a joke compared to older games. If you find a puzzle the answer/everything you need is within 10ft of the puzzle. Compared to older games where a puzzle could be an entire level with multiple puzzles within puzzles and can take a long time to clear, TR2013 having puzzles confined to a small room with everything you need, lasting only 20 seconds is pretty poor.

Those are very few, mostly contained in 'secret tombs' (that aren't even always tombs), you know they are secret because whenever you get remotely close to one a big message you cannot turn off appears on screen telling you "SECRET TOMB NEARBY". They also have big door entrances and plenty of painted signs outside pointing to the entrance. Most of the games 'puzzles' are just masses of collecting items, items that get marked on maps and are completely optional, as are the secret tombs. So puzzles get a massive thumbs down.

Combat is a step up from older games, I guess needed be as the clear focus of the gameplay is combat this game. The dodge move is pretty overpowered though especially with the counter attack upgrades. Combat gets a thumbs up though combat shouldn't be a focus.

Platforming has also taken big steps backwards, as expected has ditched the need for timing, judging run-ups, even aiming the jumps isn't very important, general direction needed only. There is a fair amount of platforming but the path to climb is always clear, the entire island looks like someone run around with a can of bright white paint to mark all the climbable ledges, no working out where to climb, no challenge to it. Only involved parts to it are timing your hook on wall jumps. Platforming gets big thumbs down.

The action set pieces are ok but compared to Uncharted they don't quite measure up, Uncharted also does a great job of keeping the player playing during the set pieces while in TR when they get too action packed they tend to cut away player control to a scripted sequence so nothing to do but watch.

Multiplayer

Shameful really. The quality of the campaign just isn't there, the matchmaking is bad, balance is bad, hitboxes are dodgy, melee system is terrible, the perks they added don't work well with the game modes they created, the animations are terrible. If you get a full game it is just barely playable. The traps are a nice addition to what Uncharted offers but otherwise if you want a platforming TPS stick to Uncharted 3, better in every way. MP isn't worth anymore words.

Overall I enjoyed the game a lot, it is a good game, but a number of disappointments and missing extras like chapter select, new game+, alt costumes, infinite ammo. Starting the game from scratch at the beginning every time kind of sucks.

Rent it, I'll be renting the sequel.

[atlier00]

So anyone buy this? May mention mild spoilers but nothing game/plot ruining that isn't in spoiler tags.

Singleplayer

My main gripe with the game is the story and the gameplay just do not mesh at all and due to this my suspension of disbelief kept getting broken.

Right at the start Lara takes a nasty fall and a stalagmite punches clear through her abdomen which she then has to pull out. She holds it for a while but this is soon forgot about completely. Meanwhile she meets up with other survivors, one has a sprained ankle and gets a bandage put on, Lara just sits by a fire and ignores the set of holes in her gut. Shortly after she gets a bear trap spring on her own ankle and just shrugs it off.

Later on she meets another crew member who has hurt his leg and needs medical supplies, so he sends Lara who at this point has two holes in her gut and had a bear trap spring on her ankle not to mention several very nasty falls, possible stuff I forget too, to go fetch the supplies. Lazy bastard if you ask me. Anyway Lara gets these supplies, gives him treatment...and still ignores her own injuries which are far worse. It is only towards the end of the game she suddenly decides randomy that medical supplies for herself are important and a priority, at which point suddenly you cannot even jump without losing health.

Next up is the normal girl turning into a killer. This was done terribly also, one moment she is hunting a dear and saying sorry to it for killing it, then she is slaying wolves, then soon hundreds of fully armed people like she has been doing it her entire life. It doesn't fit into the character they're trying to portray her as. She is not a survivor, she is a killer, this is especially evident at the end where

Spoiler:

show spoiler

She takes on an entire army of ancient warriors that even the guys she has been killing all game fear

Everyone Lara knows is dumb, Lara often is too and the twist they leave until near end game is blatently obvious to anyone playing. Despite this the story early on keeps you wondering and remains interesting until end game. Story is a thumbs up overall, though Lara is not.

-------

As to the gameplay, for the most part it is good but in many ways is inferior to older TR games.

Puzzles - It doesn't really have a lot of them and they a joke compared to older games. If you find a puzzle the answer/everything you need is within 10ft of the puzzle. Compared to older games where a puzzle could be an entire level with multiple puzzles within puzzles and can take a long time to clear, TR2013 having puzzles confined to a small room with everything you need, lasting only 20 seconds is pretty poor.

Those are very few, mostly contained in 'secret tombs' (that aren't even always tombs), you know they are secret because whenever you get remotely close to one a big message you cannot turn off appears on screen telling you "SECRET TOMB NEARBY". They also have big door entrances and plenty of painted signs outside pointing to the entrance. Most of the games 'puzzles' are just masses of collecting items, items that get marked on maps and are completely optional, as are the secret tombs. So puzzles get a massive thumbs down.

Combat is a step up from older games, I guess needed be as the clear focus of the gameplay is combat this game. The dodge move is pretty overpowered though especially with the counter attack upgrades. Combat gets a thumbs up though combat shouldn't be a focus.

Platforming has also taken big steps backwards, as expected has ditched the need for timing, judging run-ups, even aiming the jumps isn't very important, general direction needed only. There is a fair amount of platforming but the path to climb is always clear, the entire island looks like someone run around with a can of bright white paint to mark all the climbable ledges, no working out where to climb, no challenge to it. Only involved parts to it are timing your hook on wall jumps. Platforming gets big thumbs down.

The action set pieces are ok but compared to Uncharted they don't quite measure up, Uncharted also does a great job of keeping the player playing during the set pieces while in TR when they get too action packed they tend to cut away player control to a scripted sequence so nothing to do but watch.

Multiplayer

Shameful really. The quality of the campaign just isn't there, the matchmaking is bad, balance is bad, hitboxes are dodgy, melee system is terrible, the perks they added don't work well with the game modes they created, the animations are terrible. If you get a full game it is just barely playable. The traps are a nice addition to what Uncharted offers but otherwise if you want a platforming TPS stick to Uncharted 3, better in every way. MP isn't worth anymore words.

Overall I enjoyed the game a lot, it is a good game, but a number of disappointments and missing extras like chapter select, new game+, alt costumes, infinite ammo. Starting the game from scratch at the beginning every time kind of sucks.

Rent it, I'll be renting the sequel.

Personally I loved it. I've spent well over 40 hours with it. Exploring every nook and cranny as well as grabbing all the collectibles. The platforming is FUN, doesn't bother me one bit that it wasn't difficult. You can still mess up if you aren't careful. All I can agree on is that the tomb/puzzles could have been better and multiplayer really wasn't needed (that stupid trophy/achievement for 100% included) .


Kinda spoilery for the beginning of the game.....

I have to disagree with your narrative dissonance complaint. Yes at the beginning, Lara does indeed fall onto the sharp rock and it does bother her until she gets to her first base camp. Its actually not that big a hole and it was in the "love handle" part of her side. Would it hurt? Hell yeah, but would she not be able to move at all from it? Doubt it. Also it didn't hit any organs so that probably helped a lot.

Now you seem to forget time passes from the moment she rested at the camp, to when she goes hunting for the deer. So during that time, it probably clotted. Though..Spoiler:

show spoiler

obviously it wasn't enough as the wound reopened and she had to use fire to cauterize it later, which wasn't at the end of the game(more like the middle)

The bear trap you complain about? You realize it has no teeth right? Its obviously a broken one, so at most it probably rolled her ankle a bit, which is why she rested at the next campfire for awhile. (She even mentions that she needs to do that to Dr. Whitman).

As for gathering supplies for Roth's wound and not thinking about her own wounds....she does heal herself. She has the gun shot wound on her arm when she takes the medkit to Roth and its bandaged up when he awakens. She could have taken care of her side as well.


As for normal girl turned killer......I think they did fine with it. It could have used a little more time before certain things happend, but one needs to realize the game needs to be fun as well.

Yes Lara feels bad for the deer as it did nothing too her. She needed to so she wouldn't starve. The other enemies however pretty much deserve what they get. Lara faces wolves about 10 minutes after the deer because she is caught in the bear trap. They are trying to kill her. I'd do the same thing.

It takes about 20-30 minutes into the game before Lara is even faced into killing Vlad (her first human kill). At that point he and his men have taken her and some other stranded Endurance crew mates as prisoners, people she has known for over a month. They proceed to then execute the crew.

When Vlad attacks Lara, its either him or her. The Solarii mean business and obviously Lara learned that pretty much by that point. And to be fair to Lara she does say several times to the men, that they don't have to do this.....that is if the player actually listens for it before going in guns blazing.

The guys she kills a little later depends also the player's playstyle. For a good chunk of the game, I personally played it stealthy. Obviously they don't want to force that play style on everyone, so thats when you have people seeing a disconnect. My friend for example was scrambling all over the levels, but the gun play is so much fun it works.