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Tomb Raider Review Thread!

Andrew.

Banned
No...no it was not. I just remember thinking "Wow I got this on my 11th birthday and now I'm 12 and I still haven't figured this out...ugh let me try again"

I actually figured it out on my 12th birthday.....it's was like a present from my brain. One of the best gifts I ever got.

Well I meant it in a funny way. It was a good, humorous story. And damn, you were 11 playing that? Were you scared at all? I feel really old now.
 

KNT-Zero

Member
I can't yet get the actual appeal of the game. As far as I'm concerned, the GameTrailers review, the Rev3 review and the Machinima Inside Gaming review feel the most realistic. The others feel kinda kiss-ass-y :/

In my opinion, Guardian of Light looks even better than this....
 

XOMTOR

Member
Watched a bit of the video Fabrik posted and my God, the animations look almost identical to TR Underworld. And that's not a good thing.
 
So it's ok to cater to you who don't want to be bothered with actually playing a video game but it isn't ok to give the rest of us anything remotely similar to what we enjoy out of the medium that can't be done anywhere else? Dumbing down is exactly what is happening since instant gratification has become so incredibly important to people.

I take offense to this. The reason is that the fact that I can't accommodate a significant amount of time to playing games, has no bearing on my enjoyment of playing them.

This idea that complex = more enjoyment is not always true. A joke is not always more funny if it has 7 layers of reference. A song is not always better if it is complex musically. There's also appreciation to simplicity, streamlining and so forth.

Tons of games are being made every year. There are games that cater to that complexity. This is not one of them. Doesn't make it any less enjoyable to those that want to play it. Harping the lack of complexity will not make any those that enjoy it, "Oh well, those hours of fun didn't count".
 

sublimit

Banned
It's not about having to 'figure out where to go', and you almost never had to do that in TR games either. It was always about figuring out HOW to go, not WHERE to go. Most of the time it's immediately obvious where you progress in these games, it's just not always readily apparent the how of it.

And that is partially the point of the game, that's correct. That you're EXPLORING a tomb and using skill sets you've learned throughout the course of the game and applying them meaningfully to overcoming a set of challenges, whether that be in puzzle form, combat form or exploration form. The whole point of these exercises is that they ARE challenging, because the best developers trust the gamers enough to understand that a genuine sense of accomplishment is probably the greatest feeling games can offer - and such a feeling is only possible when applied against real gameplay challenges. They don't think of it in terms of 'well the average QA tester finished this segment in 15 minutes, that's far too long for today's modern ADHD-addled audience to sit and think', they think of it in terms of 'the only players worth catering to are those who are going to put in the effort to actually apply themselves and overcome great gameplay design challenges.'

Nailed it.
 

Certinty

Member
I really need to give this game a go.

Pretty much stopped buying games for this generation so will hopefully give this a rent next Tuesday if I can.
 

Lime

Member
It's not that it's not possible for people to take issue, it's the stance that if one doesn't take issue then you are somehow less intelligent or thoughtful than the people who do.

I thought El Shaddai was a fascinating discussion on the issues of technological advancement, and whether or not we are trying to evolve as a species faster than what we should be, but I don't try to condescend to people who thought it was nothing more than a nifty twist on the rock-paper-scissor mechanic.

There is a lot of 'oh, you're not reflecting on the ludonarrative dissonance in the same way I am, so your opinion must be less worthy' going on in this thread.

You seem to be reading a lot of this "objectivity vs. subjectivity of opinions"-topic into this thread. sonicmj1 was talking about how some people react differently to violence in games, not whether or not some opinions are "better" than others.

In any case, I already provided a response to the problem you're having with the position that some reviews provide less knowledge than others (i.e. some are better than others), in case you wanted an elaboration on your issue with some people's positions.

Besides, nel e nel, on a more general note, your position moves into extreme relativity if you state that all statements are equally valid. This is not only a counter-intuitive position to take, but it also contradicts itself (unless you choose to deny the principle of non-contradiction, which doesn't make sense). I would recommend to check out Paul Boghossian's little book called 'Fear of Knowledge' on the problem of equal validity.
 

-tetsuo-

Unlimited Capacity
Is there a mode that disables it, gets rid of the waypoints, compass, hints, xp feedback, regenerating health, lowers ammunition drops and makes stealth viable? Because I would be there day one if there was.

That's basically what 1999 mode in Bioshock Infinite is suppose to be right? If games want to continue to head down this path at the very least this should be in everything. Not hidden as an unlockable either.

No way to turn it off.
 
Well I meant it in a funny way. It was a good, humorous story. And damn, you were 11 playing that? Were you scared at all? I feel really old now.

Haha, I was just kidding. It's damn hilarious looking back on it. And yeah I was terrified at certain points, but I've always liked being scared. I scare easily too. I am a bitch. It's likely gonna be the first thread I make once I'm out of junior status.....whenever the hell that is.


To be fair, Guardian of Light is pretty fuckin' awesome

In fact, can we just get Guardian of the Light 2, as an unlockable or something? I'd pay cash money for that shit
I think I need to play this with someone, cause I couldn't really appreciate it as much alone.
 
Seriously. If this game represents trends for the future of gaming, well, then what got me into games in the first place is fast becoming the same thing moving me away from it. Violence is now an acceptable substitute for unique environmental puzzle gameplay, because people don't want to have to think? Is that seriously what I'm reading here?

There's a simple quote from Sid Meier, "A game is a series of interesting choices." It seems that the only choices in games are quickly turning into 'shoot enemy in face' and 'move forward'.

But hey! At least it's cinematic! And look at all the bars you're filling! Gaming equivalent of empty calories.
 
Warning: long post incoming

I know it's not popular to say, but it's not usually a big mystery to figure out what the general tone and attitude is towards a game on this site at any given moment. Nobody goes back and dissects a thread looking for each specific commenter that posted so they can cross-reference it just to make a point about a video game. The hate that this site has felt towards this game is pretty well known.
"General tone and attitude" is a nice euphemism for "hive mind." If the people saying the first thing are not the same as the people saying the supposedly contradictory thing, there is no hypocrisy. This isn't hard.

What Lara is showing in the new TR is survival, and I think that's strength. I think the transition from being near death multiple times, to then being the death dealer is very powerful. Revenge, survival, instinct. These are primal emotions that we all feel. It doesn't mean that the game is sadistic, or that she's a serial killer. It doesn't mean the fans of this new game are.
This really has nothing to do with my point. Literally no one is complaining that the new Lara is "strong." That's a straw man (and not your only one). Do you think that type of character arc, depicted in that way, is the only way to create a "strong" character in fiction? If not, then can you see how simplifying the argument to being about a "strong" character is disingenuous?

Again, I just think it's solid fight choreography. You're really trying to inflate your point's significance by abusing words like "sadism" and "serial killer" when they really have no place here.
She (apparently) takes pleasure in the kills. That's sadism. She kills many people unnecessarily. That's a serial killer.

Totally disagree. Seems like pretty clear cut hypocrisy to me.
What you call "hypocrisy" is a feeling felt by almost every person on the planet when exposed to objectionable content beyond what they are accustomed to. By this logic, someone who's OK with the level of violence seen in Star Wars, but who is uncomfortable by the level of violence in Saw--which, I would hazard a guess, constitutes the majority of the moviegoing public--is a "hypocrite," just because they have a mental barometer for what kind of violence is tolerable and what kind of violence is positively disturbing to them that sits somewhere in the middle. Are you saying you don't have such a barometer? That there is literally no depiction of violence in any form of media that could make you flinch and feel uncomfortable, and that everyone who ever does feel disturbed by some violence anywhere is a hypocrite? Because that's the only way you are not yourself a hypocrite as well, by your own logic.

Different degrees of content elicit different reactions. Mario is not as violent as Zelda is not as violent as Grand Theft Auto is not as violent as Gears of War is not as violent as Dead Space. Which is to say nothing about how even the same act of violence, depending on its depiction, inspires radically different reactions (seeing people get shot in Pulp Fiction feels very different than seeing people get shot in Schindler's List). If you're saying that anyone who enjoys the first thing on that list but has a hard time with the last thing is a hypocrite, then not only are you rendering the term meaningless by including almost everyone in the world in it, you're demonstrating an inability to engage with aesthetics and context I can only describe as robotic.

And again, you try and cover this game with meaningless buzz words like "fetishistic" or "sadistic"
If you can't even agree that these words have meanings then I'm not sure we can even have a discussion.

when all it's really doing is glossing over the reality that it's the same shit that we see in countless other games. Being okay with it in some games, then radically opposed to it in others won't keep me up nights, but it seems hypocritical and borderline sexist.
Please identify these people who are OK with such gruesome, fetishized violence in certain games and are radically opposed to it here. For the record, I belong to neither group.

You also don't seem to understand (yet again) the motives behind the criticism: there are many who are criticizing the violence not because they're personally opposed to it, but because they they see it as wildly incongruous with what they think the character Lara Croft should be. A lot of the complaints have said, in so many words, "That might be OK in another game, but it's not Lara." I'm not endorsing that argument (I don't care about the character one way or the other)--but if you're unable to distinguish that line of criticism from criticism of violence in general then you're just being dishonest.

Again, I disagree completely. People cared about Splinter Cell: Blacklist, because Sam is literally just torturing people. But no one cared about Sam snapping necks, or slitting throats. People cared about Drake being a joker that didn't even seem to acknowledge that anyone is getting killed.

I haven't seen any broad outcry against violence in video games though. Actually, during the recent string of school shootings, most people were going out of their way to defend violence in gaming. I acknowledged that someone did complain about Watch Dogs, but it's really just one lone voice that does not represent the mainstream view, and will not be a factor in any reviews for the game - mark my words. One person on Gamasutra wrote an article saying that people cheering for The Last of Us after the shotgun headshot made him upset. That doesn't represent the majority view either - the people cheering do.

You're demonstrating a remarkable inability to grasp the fact that different groups of people react differently to different things differently. Is the whole human race one big hive mind to you?

1) Yes, there has been a broad outcry against violence in video games, especially after Newtown. The Vice President asked several major gaming executives to meet with him about the topic. There have been laws (since struck down) to outlaw selling violent games to minors. If you don't think the media and lawmakers are watching the games industry very closely at this point to determine if government action is necessary, and that such content is considered extremely controversial and possibly warranting oversight, then you simply aren't paying attention to the greater media landscape. Sadly, many gamers tend to be ignorant of how people outside the industry view it.

2) You've changed the goalpost to now saying that criticizing violence in games is not a "majority view." Great, no one claimed it was. I'm well aware that the majority of what we could consider "core" gamers have no problem with this kind of violence, and that any resistance to it is coming from a much smaller group. If that weren't the case (if the majority were opposed to violence), then these games wouldn't even be made in the first place. So I don't know why you think anyone is arguing this.

3) Based on what we've seen, there isn't anything as Watch Dogs that's as gruesome or disturbing as what's in Tomb Raider. I know this concept is foreign to you, but different degrees of content, especially violence, elicit different reactions. The comparison doesn't make sense except in your simplified "all violence is equally violent" view. Same with Splinter Cell: Killing terrorists in the name of stopping an attack, and literally torturing a person for information are not the same thing, no matter how much you try to pretend they are, which is why they elicited different reactions. Torture, is in fact, categorically different from murder. To be unaware of this is to have a moral compass that honestly scares me.

4) You seem to be making a thing out of how some people only make noise after they've been exposed to something specific. This is not hypocrisy. Sometimes people are persuaded by argument. Sometimes people tolerate something up to a certain point, until it reaches a tipping point or reaches an extreme, and then they react differently. This is just part of being human, and it happens with everything. If that's hypocrisy to only care about something until after it becomes particularly noticeable, then everyone on the planet is a hypocrite to some degree.

There were really no substantial complaints about even the "No Russian" level in Call of Duty,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contro...ll_of_Duty:_Modern_Warfare_2#.22No_Russian.22
(I see someone else has already posted this.)

To piggy-back on your later reply, you seem to think that the fact that CoD is "mainstream" is an argument in your favor. I honestly don't see how. The fact that one work enjoys a great deal of mainstream attention does not preclude it from also generating controversy. The people who enjoy "mainstream" games, and the people who criticized it, are probably different people. You, once again, seem to have a staggering inability to understand that one large group of people (mainstream gamers) can say one thing, and another large group (lawmakers and parents) can say the opposite.

Again, I think it's a question of proportion. One person getting angry at Watch Dogs, one person getting angry at Last of Us are not really equivalent to the sexism-related shitstorm this game has been in the midst of since E3 of last year. Really not even remotely close to equivalent, in any way. I think you're entirely missing the point.
Well, you've just muddied the waters by conflating two separate lines of criticism (stop doing that!). The sexism-related complaints ("Protect her" "she's weak") were not the same complaints as the violence complaints, and my perception is that the former was more prevalent than the latter. In some cases, they may have been made by the same people, but that doesn't change the fact that -- once again -- you're just combining a bunch of arguments into one big messy stew, picking out what you see as some overly simplified contradiction and holding it up as something that people need to reckon with. You have this odd fixation with holding up things someone has said -- or, in this case, things that people have not said -- and expecting somebody else to be account for it. I will not play that game.

In any case, I never said that the two controversies were equivalent. However, that's because such a thing is impossible to measure, and frankly a distraction. I have no interest in "Where's the outrage?" type of arguments because they hinge on a faulty premise: that the "level of outrage" against something can be quantified, and that it must be absolutely proportional in all respects. We're talking about large groups of people here. Sometimes one of those groups will be larger than another. Sometimes one member of that group will be more vocal or aggressive than a member of another. There's no way to properly gauge which group has "more" outrage, or whether that outrage is proportional to another.

It won't be the last either.
...Wow. OK, I just want to make this clear. I said "This isn't the first time I've seen you try to be absurdly reductionist about describing characterization and aesthetic properties." To which you say the above.

I thought I was being just a little harsh to describe you as refusing to understand context and nuance. But if you readily admit that's what you do, and in fact embrace such a naive and disingenuous way of looking at media, there really is no point here.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Nailed it.

Also for the record, the old TR games didn't take significantly longer to finish than many are saying the average time is for this TR title (10-12 hours, average ol' TR time was maybe, what, 13~15 hours, and probably a lot less if you had any experience with the series and knew what was expected of you?). So requiring thought is not some defining characteristic that demands 80 hours.

People are complaining because the game is to violent?

Some; more are complaining about the incongruity between the gameplay and narrative. What's new, right? Same old problem, new game.

I think I need to play this with someone, cause I couldn't really appreciate it as much alone.

They have this one puzzle that's so fucking sick to do with a partner, completely different than the one you do when you're solo. God that single puzzle I can write a book about.

There's a simple quote from Sid Meier, "A game is a series of interesting choices." It seems that the only choices in games are quickly turning into 'shoot enemy in face' and 'move forward'.

But hey! At least it's cinematic! And look at all the bars you're filling! Gaming equivalent of empty calories.

Well at least this game has optional puzzle tombs!

It is what it is. All this controversy could have been avoided if they just didn't molest the TR franchise on their road to making another lock-step modern dudebro game with the thinnest veneer of exploration to try to hide how much it copies every fucking modern convention like some creepy serial killer who never really had a soul but lives among people, hiding, trying to fake emotion. Shoulda just called it some other shit, controversy immediately evaporates.
 

kunonabi

Member
I take offense to this. The reason is that the fact that I can't accommodate a significant amount of time to playing games, has no bearing on my enjoyment of playing them.

This idea that complex = more enjoyment is not always true. A joke is not always more funny if it has 7 layers of reference. A song is not always better if it is complex musically. There's also appreciation to simplicity, streamlining and so forth.

Tons of games are being made every year. There are games that cater to that complexity. This is not one of them. Doesn't make it any less enjoyable to those that want to play it. Harping the lack of complexity will not make any those that enjoy it, "Oh well, those hours of fun didn't count".

The problem is games that cater to that complexity are becoming fewer and franchises that used to be that complex are being homogenized and dumbed down to be just like everything else. It's one for thing for Uncharted to carve out its own niche and have a few other games follow suit. I can ignore them and other people can enjoy them, different strokes for different folks. The problem is I can't ignore them because franchises I wanted to see properly evolve and take advantage of new hardware and advancements in technology are just imitations of the hot new thing instead of stamping their identity for a new generation.
 

XOMTOR

Member
No way to turn it off.

WHAT? Seriously? The other Crystal TR's allowed you to toggle hint icons and button prompts. Hope it's at least possible in the PC version since this engine doesn't support modding; everything has to be done via Texmod which means nothing but a few re-textures.
 

antitrop

Member
The thread I believe has reached levels beyond the DmC thread. That might just be me though, I dunno.
Except that people opposed to this Tomb Raider reboot actually have a point here.

Most of the complaints about DmC turned out to be non-issues once people actually played through the final game.
 
To be fair, Guardian of Light is pretty fuckin' awesome

In fact, can we just get Guardian of the Light 2, as an unlockable or something? I'd pay cash money for that shit

I would love to see it show up early on on the next gen consoles as a downloadable title. If this new TR game is as good and fun as GoL was, sign me up.
 
IGN on Tomb Raider - How To Tell If You'll Love Tomb Raider

WhatMakesTombRaider1.jpg
 

sublimit

Banned
Also for the record, the old TR games didn't take significantly longer to finish than many are saying the average time is for this TR title (10-12 hours, average ol' TR time was maybe, what, 13~15 hours, and probably a lot less if you had any experience with the series and knew what was expected of you?). So requiring thought is not some defining characteristic that demands 80 hours.

Well TR3 (on playstation) and TR4 were definitely more than 13-15 hours on first playthrough.Still i couldn't care less if the game was even 8-9 hours if the TR gameplay quality was still in there.
 
They have this one puzzle that's so fucking sick to do with a partner, completely different than the one you do when you're solo. God that single puzzle I can write a book about.



Well at least this game has optional puzzle tombs!

Wow...alright I'm definitely gonna have to take another shot at this soon. Hopefully this weekend before Tomb Raider releases.
 

Andrew.

Banned
Except that people opposed to this Tomb Raider reboot actually have a point here.

Most of the complaints about DmC turned out to be non-issues once people actually played through the final game.

Yes, but there were still a copious amount of haters that wouldnt let up.
 

Lime

Member
"batshit insane"

"life and death quick time events"

"awesome freedom"

"massively epic highly scripted set pieces straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster film"

-Video games 2013.
 

RagnarokX

Member
It's too bad they couldn't make the game challenging and add some kind of optional mode that tells players where to go and what to do. Hmmm. How would they do that?
 

Lime

Member
Is there a mode that disables it, gets rid of the waypoints, compass, hints, xp feedback, regenerating health, lowers ammunition drops and makes stealth viable? Because I would be there day one if there was.

That's basically what 1999 mode in Bioshock Infinite is suppose to be right? If games want to continue to head down this path at the very least this should be in everything. Not hidden as an unlockable either.

PC no hud mods will save you.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Iconographic is misleading; you could love lots of those things (although is there seriously anyone on Earth who loves QTEs at this point?), just not the execution!

Well TR3 (on playstation) and TR4 were definitely more than 13-15 hours on first playthrough.Still i couldn't care less if the game was even 8-9 hours if the TR gameplay quality was still in there.

The average TR time, across the series. Although I haven't played TR4 in a long time... how long did that take to beat? I don't recall taking much longer than 15 hours, but then it's probably the TR game I've played the least of the old group.

Wow...alright I'm definitely gonna have to take another shot at this soon. Hopefully this weekend before Tomb Raider releases.

Don't expect that everywhere, but a lot of the puzzles do change up, and there is a few genuinely inspired moments that just made me grin ear to ear when I did it with a friend.

The one puzzle I'm thinking of, it's so good when you do it you'll probably immediately know what I'm talking about without me having to go into any more detail.
 

Emwitus

Member
Holy crap. I just watched the first hour to this..I know i know, But man, i'm impressed. With the exception of a few voice actors here and there....it's been surprisingly well written and acted so far. I stopped at the hour mark obviously but wow. Good job square.
 

Kinyou

Member
"batshit insane"

"life and death quick time events"

"awesome freedom"

"massively epic highly scripted set pieces straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster film"

-Video games 2013.
Don't forget that they're censoring "batshit" next to a screenshot of Leon getting his head sawn off.
 

Derrick01

Banned
For not being System Shock 2

I'm pretty sure most of us got that out of our system with Bioshock 1 and have now accepted the series as the dumbed down modern shit that it is. Outside of 1999 mode I'll probably just compare it to normal Bioshock, which it damn well better be a LOT better than that game.
 
Don't expect an old Tomb Raider then. Go in thinking you're going to play a solid third person action game.
I find it strange that its OK to use the Tomb Raider name to get press and boost sales, but its not OK to have any expectations of what that name entails from a gameplay standpoint.

But your advice is solid.

It's too bad they couldn't make the game challenging and add some kind of optional mode that tells players where to go and what to do. Hmmm. How would they do that?
This to me is perfection. Make it hardcore and then add assists. But it seems to be easier to sacrifice one audience to achieve a new one.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
I really am getting tired of people complaining about "hive mind." And yes, general thought and consensus is not a particularly creative way of getting your point across.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Come on. This has got to be a joke.

Just want to further illustrate how far game journalists are from the generally much more objectivity-based world of movie criticism: can you imagine a movie critic making some article on their site that was pretty much a wholesale advertisement for said film, even for a movie they adored? Those that are found guilty of such a thing are pretty much laughed out of the world of film criticism and nobody ever takes them seriously again
 
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