Watching Tom stream this last night for the second time, you can just tell how much he is enjoying the game and the story. I can’t wait for his review. :)
Sure, I really enjoyed the first two and am enjoying this one also. It’s pretty much MOTS, though they have added some additional stealth mechanics (you can see the Deus Ex influence there) and some additional take downs. They have added more tombs and the combat is less over at least the first half of the game, which is what some have been clamoring for. Great game so far, really enjoying it.
I beat it over the weekend. The writing is still terrible, but I enoyed the increased focus on tombs and puzzles, and I like the setting more than Siberia. The mud stealth mechanic is a neat addition, but I wish there’d be larger arenas to use it in when the combat does happen.
Am I right in thinking Lara has no way to just lower herself off an edge now? It’s dramatic leap or nothing as far as I can tell. I also think it strange she can’t lower a rope without first performing a death-defying leap onto an ice surface she slaps her ice axes into. Seems like that’s a lot of work when just… lowering the rope might work.
Lot of fun overall though. I bet it’s a a different experience if you don’t spend time in the tombs - strange that the best bits are optional. Paititi I found particularly dull personally - no acrobatics and some pretty basic questing. If they’re going to be a pseudo rpg they need to study some rpgs.
He sighed heavily during cut scenes, seemed to hate all the finding relics / hidden spots /dialogue moments, and died a lot when trying to jump and attach a pick axe to a wall. Also he didn’t like the puzzles he encountered. So yep, my comment above was sarcasm. :)
After playing all 3, I myself find the first one to be the best, even if the Tomb Raiding is better in Rise and pretty damn near perfect in Shadow.
Hah, figured.
Yeah I really liked TR1 a ton.
But I disliked Rise a lot with its facepalming story and ubisoftization of game design. About halfway through Rise I was bored with it and wanted it to end, telling to myself that if they make a sequel, I won’t bother with it until it is in humble or something, regardless of its review scores.
I am following that plan :)
Among its quirks does this game have the least useful map ever. On PC it seems plain broken, with scrolling randomly working/not working. The zoom levels seem crafted to be useless as well.
I was just going into the finale there, so no opportunity to experiment with dropping off ledges :)
My main observation is that there’s little choice in the modern Tomb Raiders, if there’s a climbable option of type X, then you take it. You don’t have to plot a route or a goal. Just climb what’s in front of you. That will be the way. This applies less with the puzzles, where sometimes you have to get levers into postions X, Y and F, but in those cases there are no exploratory acrobatics, just repetitive journeys between levers, which ain’t much fun. It needs at least a little route finding and back tracking IMO.
Having said that I hope we’ve seen the last of Lara and the series moves in a new direction.
Tom was playing this on stream Monday (Monday LK?) and he had her wearing a skirt. No tomb raider wear’s a skirt. Dress up or dress down. Girl needs some jeans and a t-shirt and a few .45 autos.