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Shadow of the Tomb Raider

AKuz said:
You say after the reaction to Last of Us 2, where a vocal part of the internet think that THE SJWS HAVE GONE TOO FAR, and also she isn't and wasn't gay, they're just gals being pals.
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I don't think publishers take people like that into account, to be honest. That's a vocal but ultimately pretty minor part of the audience that big video games sell to.
 
Has anyone here played both older Tomb Raider games and the reboots?

I've been playing the 2013 reboot back-to-back with Anniversary and Legend, and the contrast is staggering. I mean, old Lara and new Lara are not even the same person, beyond some superficial similarities (name, background in archeology, some physical features). They look different, they dress differently, their signature weapon is different (duel pistols versus bow-and-arrow), the face shape is different, and their personalities/demanours are worlds apart and worlds away.

Honestly, I prefer the Lara Croft of Legend and Anniversary to the new one. I mean...the Lara of the reboot works given what they were going for. It's about a frightened young woman being thrown into a hellscape, and how the experience reshapes her from a humble up-and-coming archeologist into motherfucking Rambo. And yet, the Lara Croft of CD's earlier games has emotional range to her. She displays cocksure arrogance in the face of threats, regret over remniscence of a long dead friend, anger towards rivals attempting to snatch the precious relics away before she can do the same, fear-yet-determination in the face of a Tyrannosaurus, etc.

The Reboot Lara Croft, by contrast, feels much more one-note. I think the character is something of a victim of the game's SERIOUS BUSINESS ALL DAY EVERY DAY tone. There are brief snippets of emotional range in there - wonder and excitement at historical artifacts, triumph after climbing the radio tower, murderous rage towards the cultists - but it's constantly overshadowed by the dourness of the game's tone and of Lara herself, and the fact that the cutscenes and QTE events seem overly fond of using her as a punching bag.

I'm not opposed to a "darker 'n edgier" tone. But every now and then, I'd like to see her joke. I'd like to see her smile. I'd like to see her impressed by her own prowess at scaling cliffs that would give Batman pause. I'd like to see a cocky eyebrow tilt. I'd like to see a Legend/Anniversary/style pull-up-handstand and some cartwheels.


(As an aside, I really do not care for the supporting cast in Tomb Raider 2013. The script expects me to care about them, but does not give me reason to do so. It does not help matters that the game invites me to take my time and explore, digging up every last historical artifact and so on, but the script is constantly shouting at me to run run run and rescue the next rando side character.)


So my impression of Tomb Raider 2013 is that...it's not terrible? It's got quite a few things going for it, but also quite a few things going against it. And, despite never having touched a Tomb Raider title up until a month ago, I find myself overall preferring Crystal Dynamics' older titles (even if they were not really perfect themselves).
 
Mechasaurian said:
Has anyone here played both older Tomb Raider games and the reboots?

I've been playing the 2013 reboot back-to-back with Anniversary and Legend, and the contrast is staggering. I mean, old Lara and new Lara are not even the same person, beyond some superficial similarities (name, background in archeology, some physical features). They look different, they dress differently, their signature weapon is different (duel pistols versus bow-and-arrow), the face shape is different, and their personalities/demanours are worlds apart and worlds away.

Honestly, I prefer the Lara Croft of Legend and Anniversary to the new one. I mean...the Lara of the reboot works given what they were going for. It's about a frightened young woman being thrown into a hellscape, and how the experience reshapes her from a humble up-and-coming archeologist into motherfucking Rambo. And yet, the Lara Croft of CD's earlier games has emotional range to her. She displays cocksure arrogance in the face of threats, regret over remniscence of a long dead friend, anger towards rivals attempting to snatch the precious relics away before she can do the same, fear-yet-determination in the face of a Tyrannosaurus, etc.

The Reboot Lara Croft, by contrast, feels much more one-note. I think the character is something of a victim of the game's SERIOUS BUSINESS ALL DAY EVERY DAY tone. There are brief snippets of emotional range in there - wonder and excitement at historical artifacts, triumph after climbing the radio tower, murderous rage towards the cultists - but it's constantly overshadowed by the dourness of the game's tone and of Lara herself, and the fact that the cutscenes and QTE events seem overly fond of using her as a punching bag.

I'm not opposed to a "darker 'n edgier" tone. But every now and then, I'd like to see her joke. I'd like to see her smile. I'd like to see her impressed by her own prowess at scaling cliffs that would give Batman pause. I'd like to see a cocky eyebrow tilt. I'd like to see a Legend/Anniversary/style pull-up-handstand and some cartwheels.


(As an aside, I really do not care for the supporting cast in Tomb Raider 2013. The script expects me to care about them, but does not give me reason to do so. It does not help matters that the game invites me to take my time and explore, digging up every last historical artifact and so on, but the script is constantly shouting at me to run run run and rescue the next rando side character.)


So my impression of Tomb Raider 2013 is that...it's not terrible? It's got quite a few things going for it, but also quite a few things going against it. And, despite never having touched a Tomb Raider title up until a month ago, I find myself overall preferring Crystal Dynamics' older titles (even if they were not really perfect themselves).
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Entirely accurate.

For some reason I thought you bought Rise too but I doublechecked and I see you didn't, which is fair enough. Basically Rise tries to take some of the story criticisms to heart, so Lara is a lot less of a punching-bag - okay she gets her ass beat by an avalanche in the first ten minutes then her jeep gets gunshipped and turfs ass out on a cliff in the prologue but she never gets like, cripplingly injured nor does it ever get borderline-fetishistic like it did in '13 with her rebar-wound constantly being emphasised and reemphasised.

Conversely I think they made the crafting like three times worse :V
 
ZerbanDaGreat said:
Entirely accurate.

For some reason I thought you bought Rise too but I doublechecked and I see you didn't, which is fair enough. Basically Rise tries to take some of the story criticisms to heart, so Lara is a lot less of a punching-bag - okay she gets her ass beat by an avalanche in the first ten minutes then her jeep gets gunshipped and turfs ass out on a cliff in the prologue but she never gets like, cripplingly injured nor does it ever get borderline-fetishistic like it did in '13 with her rebar-wound constantly being emphasised and reemphasised.

Conversely I think they made the crafting like three times worse :V
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Have you played CD's older titles too?
 
ZerbanDaGreat said:
I think I got up to the Japan level of Legend where the Yaukzie dude with a bit of Excalibur on a stick tries to kick your ass but that's about it. I have Underworld and Anniversary in my library too so I should probably try those out.
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Well, I don't know if you'll like Anniversary, but I did. Had to use walkthroughs to figure out some of the puzzles, though.

Also, I just watched the stealth gameplay trailers for Shadow and wow. This game looks less about "becoming the tomb raider" than it is about "becoming the Predator."
 
A driving point is that Lara of the reboot is becoming the classic Lara, but not there yet. The first game even ends with her Dual Pistoling the main bad guy straigjt out of the classic series. She's not going to be exactly the same, but she is growing into that person... well not physically, but that does require a bit of silicon.

And I have a feeling the Angelina Jolie portrayal influenced the reboot Lara Croft quite a bit. That version was freaking crazy.
 
Xero Key said:
A driving point is that Lara of the reboot is becoming the classic Lara, but not there yet.
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But, like, OG Lara was a sassy action heroine who was maybe slightly amoral because she was usually motivated by wanting to raid tombs for it's own sake and not do gooding?

She wasn't a psychologically traumatized throat cutting murderlady. And the idea that the conga line of psychological trauma and desperation induced violence is the natural path to OG Lara kind of has shitty implications?
 
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Reveen said:
But, like, OG Lara was a sassy action heroine who was maybe slightly amoral because she was usually motivated by wanting to raid tombs for it's own sake and not do gooding?

She wasn't a psychologically traumatized throat cutting murderlady. And the idea that the conga line of psychological trauma and desperation induced violence is the natural path to OG Lara kind of has shitty implications?
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Lara was a thief that just so happened to stumble on plots to end the world and stopped them because "My stuff is there!". She now is a tramuatized lady using that trauma to be an effective archaeologist and actively go out to save the world.

Ironically, the murderhobo of the reboot has the moral high ground here.
 
The true travesty is that in order for the Tomb Raider '13 Money Shot to work properly you have to deliberately hold off on fully upgrading the pistol, whether via attachments or finding all three Desert Eagle pieces in the optional tombs. Frankly I hope someone was fired over that blunder.
 
Xero Key said:
Ironically, the murderhobo of the reboot has the moral high ground here.
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Yeah but moral high ground doesn't neccessarily make the character better or more interesting. In fact, I'd count OG Lara being basically a thief who stumbles into saving the world to be more interesting.

And that doesn't make the idea that a female characters badass herodom must be rooted in some deep trauma not kinda fucked.
 
Reveen said:
Yeah but moral high ground doesn't neccessarily make the character better or more interesting. In fact, I'd count OG Lara being basically a thief who stumbles into saving the world to be more interesting.

And that doesn't make the idea that a female characters badass herodom must be rooted in some deep trauma not kinda fucked.
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Eh, Batman Syndrome has been a thing for years.
 
TBH, I don't see where OG Lara intersects with Reboot Lara at all. And Reboot Lara is way more interesting than 'Oh I run around stealing shit because why not.', even if the focus in 2013 on Being Lara is Suffering was really disconcerting.
 
The reboot version definitely plays off the idea that this is a 'young Lara Croft,' in the sense that you are simultaneously accepting of the fact that she is not as capable as a side-flipping dinosaur hunter with two guns, but also potentially that person. 2013 had some stuff intended to allude to the original games, but Rise didn't really bother with that. I imagine that Shadow will be the same way.

My impression is that Crystal Dynamics wanted to take the opportunity to do something new with the character, rather than just bring back an artifact of the 90s. It's hardly like the series had never been rebooted before, after all.
 
Ford Prefect said:
The reboot version definitely plays off the idea that this is a 'young Lara Croft,' in the sense that you are simultaneously accepting of the fact that she is not as capable as a side-flipping dinosaur hunter with two guns, but also potentially that person. 2013 had some stuff intended to allude to the original games, but Rise didn't really bother with that. I imagine that Shadow will be the same way.

My impression is that Crystal Dynamics wanted to take the opportunity to do something new with the character, rather than just bring back an artifact of the 90s. It's hardly like the series had never been rebooted before, after all.
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I've been playing Tomb Raider 2013 and Legend/Anniversary back-to-back and...I really, really don't get the impression that the flippant action girl of the earlier games could ever naturally evolve from the PTSD'd Rambo that is the reboot Lara Croft. Like I said earlier, they are effectively entirely different characters.
 
Mechasaurian said:
I've been playing Tomb Raider 2013 and Legend/Anniversary back-to-back and...I really, really don't get the impression that the flippant action girl of the earlier games could ever naturally evolve from the PTSD'd Rambo that is the reboot Lara Croft. Like I said earlier, they are effectively entirely different characters.
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A possible answer could be intense amounts of mental therapy. Possibly brought on by finally beating Trinity, bringing her father's name out of the mud, and finding time to actually relax instead of purposefully going out to save the word as is her current habit.
 
Some new in-game footage. . The environment looks pretty damn good.



More traversal skills, Lara walking in a game hub, and some tomb raiding.
 
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I really only have one question:

Will it have a Tyrannosaurus in it? Because the location (Peru) and the way the marketing is hammering on "becoming the Predator Tomb Raider," I'm wondering if we might see a Tyrannosaurus.

Also, the gameplay footage looks like there might be a lot less combat and a lot more actual tomb raiding. My willingness to buy this game depends on the ratio therein - if it's actually mostly puzzles and tomb raiding, as in Anniversary, then I'll probably get it at some point.
 
New TV spot, seems quite promising. I certainly like the overall style.



Also, there's a new game plus option :)

Mechasaurian said:
I really only have one question:

Will it have a Tyrannosaurus in it? Because the location (Peru) and the way the marketing is hammering on "becoming the Predator Tomb Raider," I'm wondering if we might see a Tyrannosaurus.

Also, the gameplay footage looks like there might be a lot less combat and a lot more actual tomb raiding. My willingness to buy this game depends on the ratio therein - if it's actually mostly puzzles and tomb raiding, as in Anniversary, then I'll probably get it at some point.
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The marketing certainly thinks there's a lot more of everything, bigger and more difficult tomb, more exploration and traversing... And you can adjust combat and exploration difficulty independently. For the latter, white paint on ledges and similar cues are removed on higher difficulties.
 
So, I fired up Shadow last night, and it reminds me that I really like the new Tomb Raider games.

Seriously, they're just incredibly fun. I stayed up far too late last night hunting capybaras and falling off rock ledges.

Jonah is getting more side-character focus this game, and he's solid.
Lara is good so far, and they're getting more into her backstory and general craziness.

She and Jonah have apparently made hunting down and murdering Trinity cells their hobby.

Possible that the world is about to end.
Controls seem a little less polished than the previous game; I keep finding objects that are hard to get in position to loot, but it's fairly trivial. Skill system is kind of opaque; not sure if I like the change, but it's not terrible. Just different. New options for making junk on the run to kill people or drug Lara up.
 
Liking it so far. The biggest problem I am seeing with looting is the lootable icon popping up before you're on top of the item. Skill points so far, I'm all over the place. Auto-loot for stealth kills, quieter when jumping, just not feeling anything in particular as a clear path yet.

I might have to turn up the difficulty though. So far, just kind of buzzsawing everyone.
 
chibipoe said:
I might have to turn up the difficulty though. So far, just kind of buzzsawing everyone.
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Huh. First game started with you pretty helpless, and ended with you being The Killdozer. Second game you were competent and deadly throughout, but it never felt like the momentum you got in the first game - it never felt as epic. Probably not helped by how she randomly jobbed in the second game.

Hows the third so far?
 
Lara killed more people in the first 20 minutes than Nathan Drake has in his entire run time.

Good job, Lara. :V
 
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