Tomb Raider Reviews Are Upon Us (And They Are Good)

Solids impressions gives me hope cause so far while the game is clearly high quality it feels so derivative, like every cliche of this gen is in there. The combat seems pretty good but so far (up to the radio tower) it hasn't opened enough to really be special. That is the thing nothing feels special, I can't find this games hook, what does this game do better or different than any other. It seems great at everything though.dvader654

At the moment nothing. I don't think that this direction was ideal for this IP. The game is good for a non Tomb raider game but once you start trying to fit it into the tomb raider mold it breaks. It also kills me that the cliche story, gameplay mechanics and pacing is so blatantly obvious that I can anticipate what going to happen next. There has been no surprises. Everything is by the book. Perfect execution of the overused formula. Get to point A, something happens so now kill everyone and then go to point B. Meet person at point A, surprise something happens so now you have to kill everyone. [spoiler] You can see climbable rock in the distance and conveniently enough you have to use a rope to get across. Surprise the rope breaks so you have to use the climbable rock. Happened twice. [/spoiler] Then there is the fall, fall, fall, grab, fall, fall, fall. You would think after the twentieth fall the devs would have another mechanism but there we go again Lara is falling. Doesn't help that each fall is a cutscene. I think I would have been more forgiving if this was several years ago but now it doesn't work for me. It also pissed me off in Uncharted 3 with the numerous falling animation that is there to set the mood but after it happens so many times the effect is totally worn out.

[QUOTE="Grammaton-Cleric"]

[QUOTE="MonoSilver"] This is exactly why I won't be getting it. It's not a Tomb Raider game anymore. It's just another generic blockbuster, action and set peice heavy cinematic game. Which I am not a fan of anymore.MonoSilver

But here's the thing: It is a Tomb Raider game.

It just happens to have altered the formula and left some longtime fans out in the proverbial cold.

The good news is that this reboot is offering up this first entry as Lara's inception and I would assume the next game would offer a more traditional experience as it pertains to her globetrotting and treasure hunting escapades.

The series first started going in a different directio with Legend. Anniversary and Underworld certainly felt closer to oldschool TR than Legend did or the reboot does, but nevertheless they were still nothing like the original games.

Solids impressions gives me hope cause so far while the game is clearly high quality it feels so derivative, like every cliche of this gen is in there. The combat seems pretty good but so far (up to the radio tower) it hasn't opened enough to really be special. That is the thing nothing feels special, I can't find this games hook, what does this game do better or different than any other. It seems great at everything though.dvader654

What D, you don't trust my positive impressions?! :P Give it some time, it gets better and better.  I had the same feeling early on.  This is a damn fine action-adventure, whiney-ass naysayers be damned.

I tried this game. The original destroys this game to be honest.

[QUOTE="Jbul"]

[QUOTE="dvader654"]Solids impressions gives me hope cause so far while the game is clearly high quality it feels so derivative, like every cliche of this gen is in there. The combat seems pretty good but so far (up to the radio tower) it hasn't opened enough to really be special. That is the thing nothing feels special, I can't find this games hook, what does this game do better or different than any other. It seems great at everything though.dvader654

What D, you don't trust my positive impressions?! :P Give it some time, it gets better and better.  I had the same feeling early on.  This is a damn fine action-adventure, whiney-ass naysayers be damned.

What do you think of the Zelda styIe level design of the game? Namely the upgrades that allow you to explore hidden or blocked off areas?

I love that stuff in games. 

[QUOTE="dvader654"][QUOTE="Jbul"]

 

What D, you don't trust my positive impressions?! :P Give it some time, it gets better and better.  I had the same feeling early on.  This is a damn fine action-adventure, whiney-ass naysayers be damned.

S0lidSnake

What do you think of the Zelda styIe level design of the game? Namely the upgrades that allow you to explore hidden or blocked off areas?

I love that stuff in games. 

[QUOTE="S0lidSnake"]

[QUOTE="dvader654"] It's getting better and better especially after I unlocked melee attacks.dvader654

What do you think of the Zelda styIe level design of the game? Namely the upgrades that allow you to explore hidden or blocked off areas?

I love that stuff in games. 

Yeah I wanted to say Metroid, but since I have never played one I didnt want to risk the wrath of Metroid fans by getting it wrong.

I kinda like that it doesnt respawn enemies since it just let's me focus on exploration but I do agree that it makes the game a tad less exciting. 

[QUOTE="rragnaar"]Three crashes in 67 minutes of play. I think I'm going to wait for a patch.dvader654

Three crashes in 67 minutes of play. I think I'm going to wait for a patch.rragnaar

That blows. What are your settings? Most of the problems are caused by DX11 features like Tesselation, High Precision, Tressfx and High SSAO.

The game will still look great if you turn off all those features. Just leave SSAO to Normal and tone down the Draw Detail and Shadows to High or Normal. See if that works. 

BTW, the game has already been patched by Crystal Dynamics so that's as good as it gonna get until Nvidia releases new drivers. And they wont release them until late March. Turn off the features I suggested above and see if it runs. Trust me, the game will still look great. 

This game is excellent. Just when I think I am close to the end, it throws me in another massive area. With another gadget that opens up even more areas in the game. I spent nearly three hours exploring one massive area after another. There is a fantastic stealth section mid way through the game that puts you in a rather large jungle area full of enemies in the moonlight and lets you climb trees and stalk your enemies any way you please. You rarely ever see that in action adventure games anymore. It's refreshing to see this much freedom in an action shooter. 

Oh and the setpieces are just insane. I think this is the first game since Uncharted 2 that comes close to matching its setpieces. Hell I'd say it even outdoes Uncharted at its own game. The main thing Tomb Raider has going for it is scale and man they put it to good use during these setpieces. Amazing stuff. If this is what CD can do with current gen, I cant even imagine what they'll do with 8GB of RAM! :lol:

I love/like almost every Tomb Raider game there is. This one is awesome and just so much fun to play. I guess the only thing it could use more of is actual tomb raiding, not optional tombs that can be completed in 5 minutes but...I'm willing to cut it slack since this is Lara just starting out. She's not going to be full blown Tomb Raider in this game. I'm in love with just about everything else in the game. I've already put in 8 or 9 hours and during a work week, that is a lot for me. I thought I was over searching game worlds all over in every nook and cranny for meaningless items, but I guess not when it comes to Tomb Raider. My file is sitting at 41% at the moment.Saruman1719

Same. I've played it for four days straight now and put in nearly 12 hours since Tuesday. I am at 75% so looking at a 15+ hour game. They've done a really good job pacing the game even with all the collectibles and optional tombs. 

I'm about half way through the game and I have to say if it keeps up that it is easily going to be one of my favorite games of the generation. The detail is amazing and I frequently catch myself stopping just to look at everything Crystal Dynamics created. Combat feels great and only gets better as you upgrade your weapons and gain new abilities. I love getting new tools and revisiting old areas just to find more treasure. I also love how you can examine a treasure and find various things with it while Lara narrates. When the game goes all out with a set piece I actually think it out does Uncharted... and I know I'll be in the minority there.

Also, the weather effects that go with the story and overall atmosphere deserve massive kudos. 

I'm loving the game, no question about that, amazing visuals, atmosphere and god I love her voice but I have one really big issue...It has about as many puzzles as Call of Duty. The optional Tombs that I was really looking forward to are essentially a corridor and a room.

I'm loving the game, no question about that, amazing visuals, atmosphere and god I love her voice but I have one really big issue...It has about as many puzzles as Call of Duty. The optional Tombs that I was really looking forward to are essentially a corridor and a room.

 

AzelKosMos

Yup, my only gripe with the game. Some of them get a bit trickier later on but they have to be more eloborate than just a room. 

Loving it so far. I particularly like the way Lara is thrust into the struggle for survival. Sure, she takes to all the shooting people stuff rather quickly but at no point does she enjoy it. This is a woman grimly determined to survive but desperately wishing she were somewhere far away.

So I beat the game today. Meh. Well, it was a fun ride at least. I'm left feeling disappointed and unsatisfied. But I'm also left wanting more and hungry for the sequel. The controls are great, it's fun to explore looking for collectables, the action is pretty cool and the presentation is top notch. Too bad everything else is mediocre and not even close to the series standards. The platforming is super weak, and the puzzles are even weaker. There was not one platforming section in the game that was really involved or had even a remote sense of challenge or intricacy. Every single puzzle was very small scale, and were all solved within a few minutes. This is a game that looked pretty but had very little substance to the gameplay compared to most other games in the series.

But on to the left wanting more and hungry for the sequel part. The thing is is that the mechanics are all there. The game has the best jump and control in the series. But for whatever reason the devs decided to dumb the platforming down in terms of level design. The new controls would absolutely allow for some killer challenging platforming segments, but unfortunately they chose to take the easy route and cater to the masses that don't want platforming with any substance. But I remain hopeful that they'll go all out with the sequel. I mean just look at Legend and how pathetic the platforming was in that game. Then look at Anniversary. Despite the same mechanics, the level design made it a complete turn around and had really engaging smart platforming gameplay. Same thing with the puzzles. They were super simple in this game, but I'm hopeful they'll go all out with the sequel.

This game fails in many aspects of what makes the Tomb Raider series good. But the gameplay mechanics on show here are full of amazing potential. Potential Crystal Dynamics can fully realise in the sequel. And with all the improvements to presentation and action already present in this game, they can really make the next game godly if they get the platforming and puzzle solving elements back up to par with what the series should be. I look forward to finding out.

Multiplayer is doodoo. At least of what I played.dvader654

[QUOTE="dvader654"]Multiplayer is doodoo. At least of what I played.Jbul

Finished the game. I liked it a lot more than burgreg even though I agree with nearly all his complaints. The game borrows a bit too much from Uncharted and suffers as a result. Uncharted platforming is NOT platforming, it's a traversal mechanic designed to give the player a breather in b/w shooting and action setpieces. They do the same thing here. It's nearly automatic. Lara will grab on to everything regardless of how well you timed the jump. I suppose the old school Tomb Raider platforming is dead. Developers just wont kill you for miss timing a jump or make you do the whole thing over again. It's kinda sad that we may never get challenging platforming in a video game again. Thanks Uncharted!

The automatic platforming does make the action setpieces work flawlessly. There are a couple of them that were simply awe-inspiring. Uncharted quality, and thats the biggest compliment I can give to an action adventure. I loved collecting stuff, loved the open areas, and loved how long the single player was. This is how you make a meaty single player game without worrying about keeping the player on track or any other bullsh*t reason Naughty Dog gives us for making their games linear as f*ck. Tomb Raider combines a lengthy campaign, wide open levels, exploration and action setpieces into one game and that's its biggest achievement. And that's what makes it stand out from the crowd of these so called big bugdet shooters. It's more than just one action setpiece after another. Easily the best action adventure game since Uncharted 2. 

For the next game though, they MUST bring the puzzles back. They MUST bring actual tomb raiding back. I am fine with keeping this in one locale. Loved that there was no globe trotting. The island was beautiful, scary and diverse. It reminded me of how much I liked the levels in Uncharted Drake's Fortune. It kept things very intimate and the island became a character in the story. I am also fine with the focus on action and action setpieces, but you cannot have fewer puzzles than Uncharted. You are doing something wrong. If they are scared that people might get stuck and give up, well make the optional tombs more challenging and in fact make the whole game open world like Batman AC and make these tombs side missions dungeons.

Overall, CD got almost everything right. I haven't been this impressed with a game since I dont know... Mass Effect 2, Uncharted 2 and God of War 3 before it. They've really hit it out of the ballpark in terms of graphics, the atmosphere and the setpieces. I ended the game with a 91% completion rate, and that's my rating of the game.

P.S Lara! Props to CD for not making her a nymph or a slut. And hell yes at the last QTE and dat ending! Got a Batman Begins vibe from it.

After playing this game for over 4 hours I am left confused by the game being confused of what its trying to be. First and foremost, this is not a Tombraider game. Its called Tombraider but,if you are expecting the traditional mechanics of the Tombraider game you have grown accustom to then you are "S" out of luck with this game. The first two hours of the game are cutscene heavy and there is the occasional QTE. There are also several force walk/ walking cutscene moments. Luckily all of the cutscenes are skippable. The graphics range from great to good depending on the location. The core gameplay mechanic is akin to a third person shooter. You will be killing enemies for the majority of the game. It is this reason you would be left confused as to who is the game geared towards. Is it new fans or existing fans of the game? At the moment there is very little essence of Tombraider in this game. The game plays and feels like a new IP. The game is good game but a horrible Tombraider game. Again this is from what I have played so far.

Pedro

Any reboot or reimagining of an old franchise is ALWAYS geared towards new fans 1st and foremost. More money in slapping a popular name on a game than calling it a new IP.

Finished the game this morning. Overall I loved it. Loved new Lara, the visuals (Ship wreck coast looked amazing!), art, design and music. The lack of decent platforming, puzzles and the garbage multiplayer are negatives I hope are adressed but they don't bring down the overall experience. Can't wait for the next game in the series which I assume will be on the next gen systems :)

I started this late, but so far I am really enjoying it. The visuals are amazing to me, but I am especially susceptible to organic environments, so these really speak to me. The story is fvck-awful so far, with giant gaping plotholes and inconsistent devices (an enemy gets shot in the face while a search party full of enemies is underway and no one notices, for example). I also found that some of the QTE is stuff is really heavy-handed. I mean, sometimes, the game walks Lara for you, which is kind of bullshlt. Further, during the escape sequence in the beginning, an enemy grabs Lara's leg and a QTE comes indicating that the left stick should be wiggled back and forth, so as every gamer who grew up with a Track and Field machine at their local corner liquor store would do, I started hammering on that shlt. And I died, again and again. Apparently you are supposed to rhythmically perform the action instead of hammering on it. Not a big deal, just an adjustment. I am playing on Hard mode and thus far all the enemy fights are pretty easy, but a lot of fun. Too many games have focused on the environment being the setpiece, but in this game, so are the enemies. For example, there's a scene where you can take two guys out on a ledge quietly, or you can alert the third guy above them on a rope ladder by making noise. When I was messing around, I shot both guys and then plugged rope ladder boy with an arrow as he came down to investigate, which felt really badass. 

So far, it all feels really great and I'm having a good time, but this is not a Tomb Raider game. At least, not yet anyway. The island itself is in a way a puzzle, and I dig that, but there's been nothing so far like any of the tombs in the original series. Still, there are some puzzles and that's kind of what I'd hoped for with Uncharted -- an action adventure with light puzzle elements, and this delivers that experience better than Uncharted so far. The animal mechanic is kind of underused as well -- I've only killed the first deer in the tutorial and nothing since. From what I can gather, they are treated more as resource points than for sustenance, which is fair enough I suppose. 

All in all, it's a lot of fun. Everything plays tight, there are great setpieces, the action moves along at a nice clip, and some of the death animations are amazing. 

 Apparently you are supposed to rhythmically perform the action instead of hammering on it. 

Shame-usBlackley

I have found that the enemies do repopulate when you fast travel back. Got into some pretty intense fights again in the mountain areas. Pretty cool. 

I have found that the enemies do repopulate when you fast travel back. Got into some pretty intense fights again in the mountain areas. Pretty cool. 

S0lidSnake

[QUOTE="Shame-usBlackley"]

 Apparently you are supposed to rhythmically perform the action instead of hammering on it. 

JustPlainLucas

Maybe on Hard mode it's different. 

[QUOTE="S0lidSnake"]

I have found that the enemies do repopulate when you fast travel back. Got into some pretty intense fights again in the mountain areas. Pretty cool. 

JustPlainLucas

You get A LOT of xp for 'completing' sets in every area. Even if you just find the relics in each camp, you get 500 xp. That's a lot for collecitng 2-3 hidden items. I was a bit pissed at myself for not going back earlier. Would've leveled up fast. 

EDIT: What I am saying is there is no grinding as long as you are willing to go find the collectibles. With the tombs revealing all of them on the map and the waypoint being a giant blue searchlight at each collectible location, finding these hiddent items is really easy. 

You get A LOT of xp for 'completing' sets in every area. Even if you just find the relics in each camp, you get 500 xp. That's a lot for collecitng 2-3 hidden items. I was a bit pissed at myself for not going back earlier. Would've leveled up fast. 

EDIT: What I am saying is there is no grinding as long as you are willing to go find the collectibles. With the tombs revealing all of them on the map and the waypoint being a giant blue searchlight at each collectible location, finding these hiddent items is really easy. 

S0lidSnake

So I started playing Tomb Raider Anniversary again so I can compare it to the reboot. Yep, my memories weren't decieving me. It's definitely a hell of a lot better than the reboot. Dat platforming. Graphics look worse than I remember though. Playing that game again reminds me of something else they need to bring back for the next game. I want Croft Manor back. Crystal Dynamics really did do a fantastic job with the mansion in Legend and Anniversary. It was really great to explore that outside the main game. Even more so than in the PS1 games.

One more thing. I was in the mansion in Anniversary and you can get Lara to read various things in places. One of the things I read was about the Dagger of Xian. Nice subtle TR2 reference. But here's the thing. When she was reading it she pronounced it Zyan. This blew my mind. Have I been pronouncing it wrong for the last 15 years? I always pronounced it Zeean. So come on people. I want opinions. Is Xian pronounced Zeean or Zyan?