Rise of the Tomb Raider

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cowsmanaut
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Rise of the Tomb Raider

Post by cowsmanaut »

I'm just drooling at this next game.. I can't wait. The last one was amazing in it's depth, story and immersion.. I can only imagine what this one will offer

https://vimeo.com/130810031

check out that channel, they have a "making of" in there too which shows the depth they are trying for.. so nice.. :D
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Re: Rise of the Tomb Raider

Post by Gambit37 »

Yeah, I watched some of the E3 gameplay trailer and got goosebumps.

Modern gaming is pretty cool these days :-)
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Re: Rise of the Tomb Raider

Post by cowsmanaut »

only thing that upsets me.. is they are starting as exclusive for xbox.. hoping after a year it will come to PC..
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Re: Rise of the Tomb Raider

Post by Gambit37 »

Oh I hadn't realised that....! Darn. I'm still PC only -- although seriously considering getting a PS4 as a lot of the games coming out that I'd like to play are PS4 only. I certainly can't buy a PS4 AND an Xbone!

That siad, I have hardly any time to play games these days so it's all moot really :-|
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Re: Rise of the Tomb Raider

Post by cowsmanaut »

yeah, there are a few exclusives to each that will only be there, but as MS doesn't own the IP.. there's a chance for it to hit other platforms later. It's just that they infused a lot of cash to help them pull off this title, so they likely need to be exclusive for at least a year.. for playstation.. the Uncharted series is VERY similar to the last tombraider and likely this one as well.. in terms of theme and story flow, cinematic experience.. etc. Those however are forever exclusive to sony as they DO own the IP..
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Re: Rise of the Tomb Raider

Post by Gambit37 »

So I finally got Rise of the Tomb Raider on PC and finished it the other day. Still as technically impressive as the first reboot, but now Lara is such an unbelievable homicidal maniac and the focus is so combat heavy, that it's no longer what I think of as a TR game. I'll have a full review on my new website coming soon, but for now I'll just say that I'm pretty much done with this sort of game.

I wonder if there are any TR like games out there which focus on puzzles and exploration and don't have all this over-the-top combat?
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Re: Rise of the Tomb Raider

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I've only ever played a couple of Tomb Raider games, and it was a loooong time ago so I don't really know too much about the newer ones. It may not be quite Tomb-Raider-ish but have you played the Portal games? I mean, they're not exactly new but they're highly puzzle-based and I don't recall whether or not you've ever said you've played them :D. The second game also has an editor and the ability to upload your creations to the Steam Workshop so you can still play stuff after the single and two-player modes are done ;).
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Re: Rise of the Tomb Raider

Post by Gambit37 »

Yep, played both Portals. They're brilliant, but nothing like Tomb Raider. :)

The thing that made TR special were the incredible locations, the amazing sense of isolation, the magic of feeling like you're the first person to visit a lost city in thousands of years, and the mysterious puzzles to solve and unfurl as you explored those ancient tombs.

Gun-play was secondary to the proceedings, but now it's taken centre stage and is the core game-play of the rebooted games. Indeed, the whole skill system in the new games is really focused around making Lara a better killer. I don't think that's what the original spirit of TR was about (Well, you could argue that Lara always was a stone cold psycho, and she was, but still the gun-play was never the focus of those early games).

That said, using bow and arrow in the new games and playing as stealthily as possible is great fun. What I resent is then being forced to take on waves of grunts in forced, linear all-out battles that you can't bypass. Given that the camera in their engine is *still* shitty after 10 years, it makes fast fire-fights a massive pain in the ass to play.
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Re: Rise of the Tomb Raider

Post by Ameena »

Bleh, that sounds a bit crappy :P. Yeah, I remember the older games - the only ones I've played were II and III (used to play the first level of II multiple times jut 'cause it was fun killing the T-Rexes :D) and I certainly recall that they were mainly (often rather frustrating) puzzles with the occasional bad guy or two showing up, but I don't recall ever seeing more than about three or four guys at a time and even then I think you could sort of single-pull them if you were careful, rather than having everyone just rush you with all their guns. And some you had to be really tactical about, like the giant Shiva statues in the third game which I think could basically one-shot you with their sword, so you had to kite them around and plink them to death (why waste ammo when pistols are unlimited?) :D.
Did you ever play the Thief games? The whole idea behind them is sneaking about avoiding enemies (face-to-face combat is discouraged in favour of stealthy take-downs if you do want to deal with your enemies rather than just avoid them), though there isn't a massive amount of what I'd called puzzle-solving. I've finished the first game once, played the second but didn't manage to finish it (got stuck), and have played the third multiple times. The new one that came out a year or two ago I haven't bothered with - I haven't heard anything good about it and apparently it forces you to play in third-person for at least some of the game, or something, and apparently they've totally messed with the personality of the protagonist so he's now a grumpy bugger who steals because "he'a s thief and it's what he does" rather than a sarcastic, cynical guy with a slightly dark sense of humour who steals because he's good at it and he needs the money to pay the rent. I've mentioned the Thief games because there are certainly a few places you go in them which have been abandoned (or never visited) by the regular citizens, and you feel like if you died there, no-one would ever know because they either don't know about the location in the first place or wouldn't dare go there because of...things.
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Re: Rise of the Tomb Raider

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I had the choice of this or Uncharted 4 for my birthday.. based on your review Gambit, I went with uncharted even though, really it's because of uncharted that Tomb Raider has taken on much of it's more brawl heavy element.. though I do enjoy the upgrade element added into the game and will probably play this later. I'd thought you had played the previous one and liked it? is it more violent than that one? I have small reservations given my low budget for games these days.. must make them all count.. I'm sure a steam sale will arrive soon.
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Re: Rise of the Tomb Raider

Post by Gambit37 »

I did enjoy the first reboot, I think it was a bit more balanced overall (although even there I wasn't keen on the fighting). The new game has so much fighting, and Lara is so unbelievably proficient at dispatching her enemies, that it just seems like the original spirit of TR is all but gone now.
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Re: Rise of the Tomb Raider

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Well.. I suppose to be fair to the team.. she did spend the time becoming that killing machine in that first reboot. Though I know entirely what you mean.. for me the first one bothered me with it's deaths scenes. They were a little too graphic for me.. and while I suppose it gave greater incentive to not die, and did make me a little more terrified.. I kind of resented the experience a little more, as it took me out of the experience with the desire to just stop playing in areas where I died a lot.. not in frustration, but in disgust. There was a lot of good in the reboot though, so obviously why I finished it despite this issue.

Uncharted 4 was worth taking though. Unlike previous games which was far more on rails.. this game seems a little more open world. They have not just the random trinket to find, but they've wrapped some of those trinkets in tiny rooms with minor puzzles sometimes.. They may also provide a bit of side story and information that may even be based on real history.. it sounds real.. I didn't look it all up :D This idea that I can take a different path to the same location either in my climb, in car, on boat, etc. Just opened the world more for me. What I've always enjoyed in the games were the cinematic experience and the story/acting/characters. They also opened combat up a bit, allowing for more stealth, and even letting you go past the entire thing if you don't really want to fight.. and for me, the camera worked fine for most of the game, the only place it get's bad is in close spaces, like airducts.

It was my hope that with the new team of environment artists and money, and the new rendering tricks and desire for greater detail and realism that we'd be rewarded with a more open feeling Tomb Raider.. the sense of exploration (as you say above) returned to it's roots. I love to explore and discover small things.. that a new place I find feels like I discovered it as opposed to simply pushed in that direction. I remember in DM wandering up and down a wall looking for a tiny switch, or that grey key on a grey floor.. walking into dead ends, etc.. I felt a sense of panic as I had to bolt a door shut and sit in a room to make potions and hope I'd soon find food and water, and knowing I had to let the characters sleep..

As graphics increased, I wonder if we haven't lost something.. or am I perhaps just jaded.. :/
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Re: Rise of the Tomb Raider

Post by Ameena »

If you are, I am too ;). I think a lot of games these days put too much value on graphics over gameplay, with linear play, terrible UIs, forced actions/combat, unnecessary cutscenes, a load of handholding, and various other things that make it less fun to play even if the scenery looks amazing. You probably would get a lot of younger people now taking one look at something like DM and going "Ew, I'm not playing that, the graphics look like a load of crap". Fancy scenery is nice, but I don't mind stuff looking a bit/very/completely pixelly if it plays well :).
It's like the Elder Scrolls series - I like Skyrim, I've enjoyed playing it, I think it's a really good game in general, but there are a bunch of things I could list that I definitely don't like about it, all of which are things that have been changed/added/removed since Morrowind (which funnily enough is my favourite of the series ;)).
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Re: Rise of the Tomb Raider

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yes, I could tell you liked that one from your post in the guess the game thread :D I played that for months before realizing I had a main quest I was supposed to be doing... which I never finished.. That series has always offered the ability to explore anywhere, but not until oblivion did it have any kind of puzzles.. and skyrim, while more advanced on the puzzles has never hit the level of Prince of Persia, or Uncharted, or Tomb Raider.. You see.. the freedom of skyrim, with the puzzles of Tomb Raider is my ideal game..
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Re: Rise of the Tomb Raider

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Hehe yeah, Morrowind is pretty huge, both in terms of geography (though its predecessor, Daggerfall, actually has the biggest game world of the series so far) and content - there are all sorts of tombs and ruins and houses and stuff all over the place that have nothing to do with any quest, they're just there for you to find and explore, kill any bad guys and get whatever loot is stashed in there...though as the level of a place is set from the first time you enter it, it can be a good idea to do the majority of your exploring when you're somewhat of a higher level, so the loot is better (grand soul gems, hello!) :D. I also like Morrowind because you can become ridiculously uber and basically unkillable purely through having enough knowledge of the various mechanics in order to create various spells and enchantments to give yourself whatever abilities and powers you could want :D.

Skyrim is geographically tiny compared to Morrowind (Oblivion was pretty small, too), but is still packed with content. And I like how stealth works - I can basically one-shot anything if I can manage to sneak up on it and get in a melée attack without it noticing, otherwise just slowly plink away at it from a distance and move if it comes looking for me :twisted:. But I don't like the UI of Skyrim, it's a pain in the arse and I would much prefer the Morrowind one (sadly I have checked and there doesn't seem to be a mod to change the Skyrim UI to the Morrowind one, thogh someone has made a mod to change it to be like the Oblivion one...which I also didn't like very much :P).

And I also don't like the stupid quest markers that pop up whenever you get a quest, both on the map and even more so the really horrible immersion-breaking ones that come up in the game world which I turn off as soon as I start a new game. At least those stay turned off - whenever you get a new quest, it always activates the map marker for that quest. But because quest descriptions are more in the format of "Talk to X person who is at Y" (with no directions given, unlike Morrowind which filled in a proper journal entry with lefts and rights or compass directions or whatever) and you may not yet know where "Y" is, I do leave the marker on just to se where I should be heading...then turn it off once I know where I need to go ;).
I replay Morrowind every couple of years or so. Skyrim I recently finished my second playthrough...though my first one was not too long after it came out so there were no expansions at that time - this time around I have all the expansions so have now played through them as well and really enjoyed Dragonborn, largely because a decent part of it was like a massive nostalgia trip into Morrowind (it even reuses a lot of the music) :D.

It will be interesting to see what Argonia (Elder Scrolls VI) is like - I've heard they are going back to a more Morrowind-like engine or something...but I think that's not due out till something like 2018 so we have a bit of a wait for it yet ;).

I've heard the Witcher III is really open-worldy with many many many quests and a huge world - have you checked that out? I've not really looked into it. I played the first game for a while, then got distracted by other stuff and never went back to it :D.
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