Shadow of the Tomb Raider [XO, PS4, PC]

This man clearly does not shop at the North Face and you get what you pay for. I'm with SB, this looks fine to me.

 

900p on XB1 and dynamic 4K on XBX.

As far i'm concerned, it's one of the best looking multiplatform game.

 

Really looking forward to this. As much as I prefer the fun, busty and sociopathic Lara of old - the one who's really just in it for the thrill of it all- , the new games are just too mechanically sound for me to pass up. And apparently the new game pushes the relation between combat and good old tomb raiding further into the explory and puzzly direction, and that is a-okay with me. Looking forward to involuntary drowning the poor gal. I also really hope we get to dual-wield pistols this time. A Croft who holds a pistol with both hands just feels wrong.

 

Some 6s and 7s don't really affect me much but gonna have to prioritize a few other games before jumping into this one, wish it was released sooner. By the time I'm done with Spiderman and RDR 2 it'll be just in time for a $30 pick up.

 

Same. I'll pick this up after Christmas which will give me time to finish Rise, which I didn't finish. I am looking forward to it but I'm in no hurry to play it. I need to be in the right mood for Tomb Raider simply because there has been so much Tomb Raider in the last few years.

 

I think the problem is this game has no multi-layer material support, so the material wetness is simulated by making the whole material less rough, rather than by having a second water layer on top of the base surface, which would create a mix of a more diffuse look of the cloth with the wet sheen on top of it.

 

Why are the PS4 critics scores much lower? Is Drake and company more revered for their adventures than Lara? Half joking of course...

 

4 possible explanations :

- Pure coincidence
- Xbox websites give higher scores because the console lacks exclusive titles
- Sony websites intentionally gave lower scores because the game has to compete with Spiderman
- The game is less optimized on Sony consoles

 

We it is easy to find out, just go to the metacritic scores for both.

Two things that stuck out. The XB1 scores have two 100% that are not in the PS4 list, despite the PS4 having more reviews. Also three 90%+ scores are from websites that have Xbox in the name, also not on the PS4 list. On the low end the Ps4 has more sub-70% scores, but they don't seem to have any obvious slant, maybe more non-gaming sites like Guardian and Washington Post?

Probably just safe to not break it down by platform and use an aggregate score like Opencritic which is at 81% (lowest for the trilogy).

 

You better start some time because Rise is a *lot* bigger than the first one, especially if you go for all secrets.

 

I've never been a completionist. I'm just happy to see the end of the story in single player games. I've already sunk about 8-10 hours into it.

 

I think you're right. The PS4 version seems to have more reviews since it's the most popular console by a large margin.

I think it's as simple as that. More reviews means a higher probability to get both a higher score or a lower score.

 

Plus sites that exclusively review Xbox games may be more receptive to Shadow of the Tomb Raider genre having not played Uncharted games (U4 and LL) in the last two years.

 

So I made a bunch of guides for folks who might get stuck and need some assistance. Some of the larger environmental puzzles can be challenging. I try to make my video guides quick and to the point, triming the fat whenever possible.

Hope this helps! Had a blast making them.




PLAYLIST: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUeP4wqAXXLAZ7A3cLrzVGdr0hBmv79lb

 

So what does the game say?

 

That archeology sucks, and brutalising your enemy rules!

 

The game suffers from raised blacks playing in HDR on ps4 pro. Also, lots of posterisation artifacts. The ingame brightness slider does not resolve the issue. Really disappointing.
On the plus side, the game is more of the good from rise of the tomb raider, with an injection of the environment artistry from uncharted 4.

 

I'm quite enjoying the game. Pushed the exploration and puzzle difficulty to hard - feels quite old-school in a good way. Still suffers from the fact that traversal is largely devoid of any real skill, though. It's not quite as automated as in Uncharted, but it's not far off. Sometimes it's also rather hard to decipher which surface is climbable and which isn't. I'm not done with it yet, but I'm already liking this a lot more than Rise, which for me was mostly lacking in focus; it was violent, but it wasn't that violent. It brought some of the puzzles back, but still wasn't really willing to put them on the critical path. At times I'm missing the drive and momentum from the 2013 reboot, though. It's a surprisingly slow-paced affair with shockingly little combat. So little combat in fact that I'm wondering why they even bothered with an elaborate combat-focused skill tree. During the first 15 hours I probably killed no more than 20 dudes.

 

I don't get the HDR adjustment menu in this game, by the way. Is the lower rectangle supposed to get all white? If that's so, then I guess my tv isn't up to the task. Still looks great, though.