Rise of the Tomb Raider [XO, XOX, X360, PS4, P4Pro]

This. Yes, DSoup is right - TR2 had lots of killing. But I've always felt that the core experience that made Tomb Raider such a great game was the emphasis on its exploration, going to remote locations of the world together with the mystical element. I still think TR1 was an unparalleled experience. To be exploring the caves of the Himalayas, then later Egypt or ruins of other mystical places was simply breathtaking.

I agree with this. I bought a PlayStation because of Tomb Raider. I was at the other end of the country with a bunch of friends I we walked past an Electronic Boutique (now GAME) and Tomb Raider was being played on one of the screens by the door. I bought a PlayStation and a copy of Tomb Raider right the and we spent much of the remainder of that weekend playing the hell out of the earlier levels.

Tomb Raider was my watershed 3D game and it worked because combat was almost an aside.

Yes, the game started with Lara ruthlessly killing wolves, bats and later apes (that were more dangerous because they were more intelligent) and bigger animals/predators but it was a beautiful build up. Starting small, the foes got bigger and more dangerous until the climax when you first tackled the one-off mercenaries, then later the whole mystical beings. What a game that was.

I think your memory is clouded :) Tomb Raider had 15 levels and the first included bats, bears and wolves. Level 2 (City of Vilcabamba) had tons of more of these and introduced the dart traps. Level 3 (the infamous Lost Valley) then decided to throw velociraptors and the T-Rex at you. There was no gradual buildup to enemies in Tomb Raider, it was welcome to level three, now you had have better mastered your running and evasion skills because... RUN! :sly:

Remember the first game only had four weapons: pistols, shotgun, magnum and uzis and the shotgun was also on level 3 so you already had half of the game's arsenal barely a fifth of the way into the game, i.e the combat ratcheted up quite quickly. The first human (Larson) was on level 4.

This [the new TR] however, looks to be again some remote island location. It would have been really great if they had gone for the first Tomb Raider experience: Fighting wildlife, then perhaps climaxing in perhaps human enemies. Wildlife can be just as fun to fight against, because they have predator skills. But today's "shooters" just seem to be too popular and people seem to like to fire on opponents that fire back. :S

I agree on this also and I think they're showing gameplay sections to appeal more to people who want to shoot things which seems to be a large segment of the market.

I think there are some game experiences like exploration (and the same can be said for Journey and to a degree, The Last of Us) where you really only can appreciate it when you are experiencing it for yourself. Tomb Raider (and The Last of Us) do not throw that many enemies at you but you know they are out there which makes all of the quiet moments a little apprehensive because you never know what is around the corner.

I vividly remember first setting foot in the Lost Valley having dispatched a couple of raptors (which I first ran away from screaming like a girl!) knowing, and actually hearing, something much bigger out there. The tension as you ease forward never knowing if the next step is going to bring something terrifying into visibility just does't work in a video, you have to be in control, pushing forward slowly.

As soon as you design your game to feature some kind of human enemies, you are quickly progressing to a point where you need some form of shooting mechanics, preferably the 3rd person shooter-mechanis like Gears of War or Uncharted feature. The skillset of aiming and shooting becomes a core element of the game.

Tomb Raider was one of the first 3D platforming third person shooters and I think the mechanic was spot on for the game. On PlayStation you drew your weapon and locked onto a target with triangle then Lara could leap around like a maniac with her arms trying to hold the lock while you fired. Not only was it a better system than GTA (which was a generation later) it looked great on screen to see Lara flipping backwards, forwards and sideways while blasting away at attacking enemies.

A conventional third person weapon aiming reticle makes these kind of acrobatic combat moves pretty much impossible.

I think they'll be plenty of quiet exploration moments in the final game but they're just not showing them because they want people to experience them for themselves. There are a fair few in Uncharted as well and Naughty Dog just never showed them.
 
I have got so incredible moment with my brother on TR1 and TR2... effectively the aiming + flips jump ( in nearly every direction ) was just spot on.. but i think what was made it was the incredible exploration zone ( the pyramid with the Sphynx who finish completely covered of water flood ).. It was a real pleasure to find the higher place on a room / zone just for dive in the water 50m under in an acrobatic move. Or master a zone that never your Lara will hit a wall, trying to make it like a fluid parcour.

It was a serious mix of acrobatic movement, of plateform, exploration, fights, some slow and some speed moment.... and for the period, damn they was know how to use verticality, changement ( water, sad completely recover a part of a zone completely changing the way you had explore it.. )
 
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I think your memory is clouded :)

No, no, you are right. I remember Larson well and I know he was already in level 4. But i think by the end of the game, there were like 5 human enemies in total and in the end, they weren't even the most feared ones. But it definitely made those 5 stick out like a big deal, a memorable experience, like a boss fight. BTW: one of the best ever moments in Tomb Raider - the first "mummy" / half horse breed in one of the underground ruins at the end of the level. You knew it was going to come, or you thought (because the camera shifts to it when you first see it, and nothing happens) it might, but when it does, it's a really really scary moment. Unforgettable.

About the buildup. You are right - the T-Rex is right at the beginning, but on the whole; I still think the game was done masterfully. In the Himalayas, ignoring the Lost Valley bit, they were rather easy targets. I think the apes and lions were definitely more dangerous, especially the apes because they could get to you, unlike the lions and other animals that were avoidable when jumping onto higher points where you could dispose them easily. As the game progresses, the foes got generally more difficult or started to appear in higher quantities/packs. And they made more frightening noises too.

BTW; A side note; Press triangle to aim? Maybe my memory is clouded, but I seem to remember that the original game had auto-aiming by default. When an enemy was in sight, she would always lock on to it automatically? Doesn't matter anyway - I loved the emphasis on just firing away while jumping, doing back flips etc.

DSoup said:
I think they'll be plenty of quiet exploration moments in the final game but they're just not showing them because they want people to experience them for themselves.

Perhaps. Although from what I've seen so far, it seems a bit like the last Tomb Raider - which isn't bad, but as much as I liked the last one, I think it would have been a much better game without all the shooting. And I thought the exploration was far too dumbed down - or confined to just some caves. Weren't they all practically optional anyway - e.g. not part of the main story plot and only to find some trophy like artefact? Great. *rollseyes*

The best thing about the old Tomb Raiders was that the whole game was some giant exploration adventure. You never quite knew where you'd land, what you might see, what might be around the corner. And the best thing was - you actually progressed deeper and deeper into some underground cave-maze without knowing what might come up next, only to then suddenly find some underground palace, Colosseum or Tomb. I mean, that's what Tomb Raider is about right? For all the greatness of this last Tomb Raider, there wasn't really any Tomb you discovered, just some magical island. I just don't find that anywhere near as exciting as what we got to discover in the earlier games. And exploring one single island? I prefer to go underground, A to B traversing, not one big open world where you discover everything. (Same criticism of MGS:TPP when I'm honest btw - I'm still a skeptic. Wrong thread for this though!)

The last Tomb Raider - I recommended it to many people on the premise that if you liked Uncharted, you can't go wrong with it. Maybe that's its problem. It's a very good "Uncharted", but not really a Tomb Raider game anymore. I mean, even the "platforming" in that last Tomb Raider was soooo Uncharted. Completely dumbed down, very forgiving (unless for some frustrating press the button in the right moment parts that have nothing to do with skill) etc. I am one of those Tomb Raider fans that actually liked the old "awkward" controls. But maybe they were only not awkward for me because I was one of the few that grasped the simple concept of "progress to the edge by walking slow, do a "back-jump" then run and jump for the perfect timed jump. It really wasn't that hard to do...

Sure, these things don't work in modern games anymore, so the Uncharted forgiving controls are necessary. But why all the shooting? Bring back the wildlife and the atmosphere, and cave exploration. :(


PS: BTW; I had Tomb Raider on the PC first. Then I realized the PSOne version was better (also because my PC was crap) and wanted a PlayStation ever since. I finally got it when TR2 launched. Best gaming times ever (together with Resident Evil). Although I was young then, but yeah. Good times.
 
In reality the vast majority of the shooting in the TR reboot happened during the campaign which is only a small part of the content of the game.

In metroidvania/Arkham style, the largest part of the game was revisiting the map with new tools, accessing new areas and finding the collectables. This is where the environmental puzzle solving came into play, and there were much fewer enemies post-campaign.

I didn't find that part of the game lacking, and the devs have specifically stated that the tombs and environments will be larger and more complex in RotTR so I don't think there is any reason to think RotTR will be more shooty than TR reboot. Quite the opposite in fact.

Sizzle reels will contain the most bombastic parts of the game. When actually playing the game the exploration/puzzle solving parts of the game greatly outweigh the action set pieces.
 
BTW; A side note; Press triangle to aim? Maybe my memory is clouded, but I seem to remember that the original game had auto-aiming by default. When an enemy was in sight, she would always lock on to it automatically? Doesn't matter anyway - I loved the emphasis on just firing away while jumping, doing back flips etc.

Was that to change the locked on target, she always locked on but you could toggle between multiple foes?

Dont mess with a chick who can backflip whilst firing twin uzis. Some serious do not try this at home material there.
 
Tomb Raider 2013 is a great TPS game with decent exploration and modern gameplay mechanics in a really ambitious open world-ish package.

It's just that maybe the "Tomb Raider" name is not appropriate anymore, people want real meaningful characters in their videogames. Maybe they should just call it "Lara Croft" (like they did with the Diablo spin-off) as the series is really the story of Lara and her adventures and nothing else (which is totally fine).

What bothers me in this new TR is generally the small size of the levels compared to the first TR. I really did like the big areas that you could explore and find stuff in TR2013. Well, we'll see, maybe they didn't show us the bigger levels.

But ultimately: bring back the T-Rex with a more important role this time! For instance: Lara Croft - the quest of the legendary T-Rex :LOL:
 
According to an interview in Xbox Daily, there will be plenty of tombs to explore. They didn't want to preview them to avoid spoilers. The last game had less tombs than expected, but it looks like the devs have received that message----curious to see if this is PR or if they'll deliver.
 
The problem with the tombs in TR2013 is that it's a completely separate entity to the main quest. What I want is the exploration to be more integrated into the main quest. The tombs in TR2013 felt like just an addition to justify the Tomb Raider name.
 
The problem with the tombs in TR2013 is that it's a completely separate entity to the main quest. What I want is the exploration to be more integrated into the main quest. The tombs in TR2013 felt like just an addition to justify the Tomb Raider name.

Yes I totally agree and was about to say they same myself. I don't want to explore "tombs" as side quests, I want the main quest to be set in mysterious ruins or similarly interesting settings, some of which just might be tombs, but that certainly isn't a requirement. As good a game as TR was, the island setting didn't do it for me.
 

Much better than the rambo lara. Also, some nice camera work there :p

Oh and it also looks like 1080p for the X1 version. And it also looks like it cuts to a cinematic in the last scene (with the water), looks more blurry than the gameplay to me.
 
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Look definitively really good. Some parts look have some really amazing graphics.

Maybe the hairs need a bit more "mass" .. ( weight )... but even there, it look not bad at all.
 
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