Tomb Raider (reboot)

johnny_ultimate

Again, the gamecentral review (generally positive, by the way) seems to sum it up:

In the end Lara’s gender is irrelevant, as what’s most interesting here is that she reacts to the events of the game something like a real person would. When she has to kill a deer for meat she apologies to it, and when she’s forced to kill someone for the first time she almost has a nervous breakdown. Little known British actress Camilla Luddington is excellent as both the voice and motion capture actress, and instantly makes the role her own.

But in truth the opening hour or so is by far the most interesting, as Lara’s character never really goes anywhere after that. Soon enough she’s gunning down bad guys by the dozen and barely ever comments again about what she’s being driven to do. You do always feel sympathy for her – her first major success when climbing to the top of a radio tower is almost euphoric – but the game never quite delivers on its opening narrative promise.

From Polygon:

While Tomb Raider starts with Lara's journey from regular person to "survivor," most of that transformation takes place in the narrow first few hours. As Lara pushed through narrow caves, crawled along ledges, killed her first animal and scavenged for parts with often minimal input from me, I worried that the whole game would be like this: heavily cinematic, low on actual interaction and full of inoffensive but unappealing quick time events. Those fears proved unfounded.

As Lara's arsenal grows and as she moves from fighting wildlife to fighting people, the pretense of her weakness drops away, outside of a handful of cutscenes and one particularly brutal (and effective) gameplay sequence. Tomb Raider becomes less narratively unique — it's not long before Lara is running through a village of enemies, guns blazing, screaming, "I'm coming for you!" like a blood-soaked action movie star — but the clichés serve the gameplay.

That is the one major direction I did not want this game to take. While the game seemingly works well on its own merits - one encouraging and common praise is the relatively open environments - I can't help but be disappointed it doesn't deliver on the thematic and character potential outside of the opening chapters. We already have Uncharted, this could have offered something really different.

SeantheMan

Far Cry 3 went the same route though, the guy had to kill and was shocked. But in no time he is killing everything in every way possible.

johnny_ultimate

SeantheMan wrote: »

Far Cry 3 went the same route though, the guy had to kill and was shocked. But in no time he is killing everything in every way possible.

At least Far Cry 3 pushes it really far, with the hasty establishing scenes necessary to get to the pivotal point where Brody gets consumed and addicted by the power & violence. I don't think it's as well handled as it could have been, but at the same time they do push the increasingly demented mental state of the protagonist to insane, uncomfortable extremes. I believe Spec-Ops does something similar albeit more provocatively.

But you're right - we've seen the simplistic transition from innocence lost to mass murder done way too many times before. I had really hoped this game would be different, and it seemingly isn't. Oh well, at least Tomb Raider seems to play well as is, but again maybe not the way a lot of us were hoping it would.

Retr0gamer

Spec-Ops does it exceedingly well. As the game progresses the team gets less and less professional and you can tell from the voice acting that they are getting progressively more unhinged. It's done in a very subtle way. The only difference is that they start off as hardened marine killing machines.

It will take a brave game to pull off the kind of narrative we are talking about here, one that manages to have very infrequent combat. However in an industry that is very adverse to taking risks and one where violence is a big selling point we won't be seeing it in any big mainstream games for a long time, if ever.

Mr. K

I'd like to point out that the Conan O'Brien clip has been linked to/posted three times!

Zero-Cool

Yeah, but mine was the best link!

Anyway, just preordered this with Gamesnash. Looking forward to it!

ShadowHearth

Who the feck is Conan and why should i care?

Azza

Retr0gamer wrote:

Spec-Ops does it exceedingly well. As the game progresses the team gets less and less professional and you can tell from the voice acting that they are getting progressively more unhinged. It's done in a very subtle way. The only difference is that they start off as hardened marine killing machines.

Spec Ops had a great story but I don't feel that kind of decent into madness and guilt would be the right fit for Tomb Raider or Lara Croft the character.

The story angle the developers are for going for is scared navie young women who through advertisty develops into the skilled, smart and confident treasure hunter she is in the pervious games. Developing into some other character away from her orginal incanarnation would probably throw alot of fans of the series off. It wouldn't be Lara Croft as they say! I'm not saying they should totallyignore that aspect of her development where she has to learn to deal with the consequences of her actions but I don't think she become bogged down with guilt, because it doesn't make for a fun character. Fun is why we play games. This character is going to be around for a while. Probably not a good idea to have her mopping around for 3 or more games.

Aside from this if they had her crack like the characters did in Spec Ops, I'm sure the developers would be accussed of being sexist in that their showing a female lead character can't handle the pressure where as male lead characters in gaming generally can.

sink

€27.97 for PC on gamestop.ie with standard shipping it comes to €29.97. Think I'll give it a lash.

GottaGetGatt

Anyone know where will be the cheapest place to pick this up for xbox?
Had a look on a few websites smyths and gamestop are €49.99

Star Lord

Azza wrote: »

What reviews are you reading?

Eurogamer, IGN, Game Informer, Gamespot and Edge all said good things about the character.

Eurogamer said this:

Eurogamer wrote:

However, it feels like there are two conflicting forces at work here - a story that wants to be told, and a game that wants keep reminding everyone it's a game.

The most obvious example of this occurs early on, after Lara performs her first kill. A short cut-scene shows her contemplating the gravity of what it means to take a human life, and realising she has crossed a threshold over which she can never return. The pathos of this moment is somewhat undermined by the fact she spends the next 10 minutes blasting away at everyone like a toddler in a water fight - one who has been promised extra biscuits for headshots.

Within a couple of hours Lara has overcome her moral qualms to the point where she's blithely hacking enemies to death with a pickaxe, mainly in the head. This kind of excessive violence may be common in video games but it feels incongruous here, alongside a storyline that's trying to be subtle and realistic. Despite the narrative's best efforts, the transition from ordinary innocent to violent murderer happens with about as much thoughtful discourse on conflicting moral complexities as there is in an episode of The Wright Stuff.

It sounds that first kill aside, there's not really any build up, it's just the first blood she spills turns her into a female Rambo. If there was a more gradual build up to it, in both the narrative and the actions that you can take (as Lara) I think that it would carry across better. I'm still interested in the game, just a little disappointed at how something that sounded like it was going to be a harrowing journey into how she became as she was, into something more like "Well, I've killed one, may as well kill'em all!"

Azza

They also said this.

Eurogamer wrote:

Lara's persona is mostly sketched out through interactions with other characters, and she comes across as likeable and believable. Shrieking aside, the script does a good job of depicting a character who possesses real inner strength, while being plausibly unnerved by the constant prospect of violent death.

cloud493

Hope this isn't gonna be too expensieve on the hIgh street. 50 quid in symths look good

Ronan

If you can wait a day or two after release it is on amazon for £33 (€38) for xbox/PS3 or £26 (€30) on PC. About the cheapest I've seen.

cloud493

I'm not patient enough for internet shopping :P if i get it for 48 in symths with loyalty card discount I'l be happy enough.

degrassinoel

cloud493 wrote: »

I'm not patient enough for internet shopping :P if i get it for 48 in symths with loyalty card discount I'l be happy enough.

You might as well buy it from steam and download it at that price, you'd end up saving yourself the price of bus/train/petrol/diesel

GottaGetGatt

Mmmm, id say this will reduce in price after a week or two the same as far cry 3 did.

cloud493

Sure far cry 3 took a while to reduce. It only went cheap in xtravision. And I don't even have steam

Zero-Cool

Just got the dispatch email from Gamesnash, should have it tomorrow!

GottaGetGatt

sheehy83 wrote: »

Just got the dispatch email from Gamesnash, should have it tomorrow!

How much?

Zero-Cool

GottaGetGatt wrote: »

How much?

€49.99 including delivery

cloud493

I was reading another forum where someones already playing it. Pretty excited now

Gunmonkey

cloud493 wrote: »

I was reading another forum where someones already playing it. Pretty excited now

Apparantly Tesco UK broke the street date.

Zero-Cool

I saw a secret trophy

kill Fee Fee the crab

, there is a vid on youtube if you're interested. Apparently a crab was in one of the 1st trailers for this in 2011 and someone made a tribute to the crab on the TR forums that got a bit out of hand. Not really sure but it looks like the devs were reading it as well and wanted to kill it off.

Anyone else hear of this? a bit bizarre.

krudler

SeantheMan wrote: »

Far Cry 3 went the same route though, the guy had to kill and was shocked. But in no time he is killing everything in every way possible.

sure look at Uncharted 2, Drake is all bummed out that whatshisface has tranquiliser guns in the first level, by the end of the game you're a genocidal maniac ploughing truckloads of people of a mountain and killing people in cold blood left right and centre :pac:

biggebruv

No stores in dublin break the street date????

Anyone know how much xtravision and gamestop are charging instore

Agricola

Mine dropped this morning from Shopto. Wasnt expecting it til tomorow at the earliest. Just hoping now that the PC version doesnt differ greatly from the console reviews!

cloud493

Think I'l be taking advantage of Gamestop's trade in deal

humanji

Agricola wrote: »

Mine dropped this morning from Shopto. Wasnt expecting it til tomorow at the earliest. Just hoping now that the PC version doesnt differ greatly from the console reviews!

Well for one thing, she'll have lovely hair.

http://www.lazygamer.net/general-news/the-amazing-hair-of-tomb-raider/

Zero-Cool

3rd and final part of the Gametrailers Tomb Raider Retrospective was released. Makes me really want to play Trilogy.

http://www.gametrailers.com/full-episodes/8zp1vb/gt-retrospectives-tomb-raider-retrospective--part-three