[ALL] Tomb Raider

[Handleit_44]

 

[Swarley]

First Tomb Raider Review:
Embargo not officially over until 2/25.

Tomb Raider has received its first review, courtesy of this month’s issue of GamesMaster.

Crystal Dynamics’ latest earned a 90% score. The magazine had high praise for Tomb Raider’s visuals – the title was given a 95% rating in the category.

Players can look forward to 10-15 hours for the main story, though GamesMaster notes that it’ll take 20 to fully explore the island.

The magazine also enjoyed the “vivid” hubs and final third of the game “with its spectacular bombast”. GamesMaster wished Tomb Raider included more side tombs, but the ones present in the game are a joy to discover. For those wondering: there aren’t many quick time events.

GamesMaster sums up:

“Sitting back exhausted we were left with just one question dribbling forth from our gaping jaws. How on earth are they going to top this in the sequel? Because of one thing there can be no doubt. Lara is back.”

Look out for a whole slew of Tomb Raider reviews early next week. Square Enix will be ending the game’s embargo on Monday – over a week before the game launches.

http://gamingeverything.com/41144/tomb-raider-gets-first-review/

 

[Handleit_44]

 

[Handleit_44]

Games Master (Print) – 90/100
IGN – 9.1
GTTV – 8.5
Destructoid – 8.5/10
Eurogamer – 8/10
GamesRadar - 4.5/5
Shacknews – No Score
OPM – 8/10
Kotaku – ‘Yes’
OXM – 8/10
CVG – 9/10
Telegraph – 5/5
Polygon – 9/10
Gamespot – 8.5/10
Penny Arcade – No Score
Digital Spy – 5/5
Gametrailers – 8.5/10
HardGame2 (Spain) – 9.5/10
VaDeJuegos (Spain) – 5/5
Videogamer – declined to review due to NDA issues

 

[Swarley]

Game Informer - 9.25
Tomb Raider Review – Old Name, Remarkable New Series

The gaming world has much to say on the idea of reboots and relaunches. They’re the best way to keep a series relevant. Or they’re the death of all things new and creative. Opinions abound, but when a fresh start to an old series is as engaging and exciting as Tomb Raider, it’s best to just sit back and enjoy a brilliant new release on its own merits.

Tomb Raider begins with a focus on narrative and atmosphere, and in a rare feat, maintains that focus for the many subsequent hours. Lara Croft is a young but uncertain adventurer out with a documentary crew searching for a lost island off the coast of Japan. When her ship mysteriously tears itself apart in a storm, she and a small band of survivors are cast away on a dangerous island filled with ritualistic cultists and inexplicable weather events. Whether it’s the opening cave sequence, outrunning a crashing airplane, or tumbling down a whitewater river, the cinematic flair excels at engaging players without taking control away. The story takes a few predictable turns, but it’s easy to forgive as the tale weaves through exotic locales, fun character interactions, and amazing set-piece moments.

Lara is a great lead. Emotional, nuanced voice acting and stellar animation for the character help make her believable, even if that focus on authenticity is at odds with Lara’s seemingly inhuman ability to suffer wounds, falls, stabs, and burns and still marshal on. Even so, few games have managed such a likeable and relatable protagonist, scaling up from vulnerable ingénue to hardened survivalist.

Tomb Raider strikes a near-perfect balance between traversal, exploration, and combat, and it does so by letting players set that balance themselves. While the critical path is mostly linear, stages are large and have plenty of options for shaping gameplay. Like stealth? The game does an admirable job supporting quiet melee kills, enemy distraction, and distant bow shots that send opponents silently tumbling from cliffsides. Want more action? The gunplay is precise, headshots are appropriately rewarded, and mobility is encouraged as you dodge and leap between cover points. Looking for puzzles? Most of Tomb Raider’s best puzzles are set aside in optional tombs, available whenever you want a break from the fighting.

Tomb Raider distinguishes itself from similar third-person action games in two ways. First, a deep system of gear and character upgrades encourages players to go after high XP kills, hunt down salvage, and choose early upgrades wisely. Second, the game allows players to take breaks from the forward momentum of the story and fast travel back into previous locations. Almost all areas include several gear-gated nooks, secrets you might have missed, or hidden treasures and journals that offer insight into the island. In big and little ways, Tomb Raider embraces the joy of discovery, and the player can’t help but be pulled along for the ride.

A big part of me wishes that the game started and stopped with the single-player offering, but that’s not the case. The multi-player isn’t awful, but it feels like a whole different game in everything from the muddy textures of environments to the sloppy feel of the action. Asymmetric matches demand separate objectives for the competing survivors and their island cultist opponents, which are implemented and balanced well. However, the combat feels loose and frantic, and character animation is choppy. Explosions are hard or impossible to detect, and often result in cheap deaths. The interesting idea of platforming during a multiplayer session is hamstrung because it just exposes you to attack. I enjoyed upgrading weapons and unlocking characters, but these systems don’t deviate much from expected standards. Other dedicated multiplayer experiences are more worth your time.

The lackluster multiplayer is absolutely no reason to avoid what is otherwise one of the best action adventures I’ve ever played. Crystal Dynamics has nailed a pitch-perfect new vision for one of gaming’s most recognizable characters, and revitalizes her for what I hope will be many more installments. Whether or not you’ve embraced the previous games that went by this moniker, this is the time to take another look at Lara Croft.

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/tomb_raider/b/xbox360/archive/2013/02/25/tomb-raider-review.aspx

 

[Swarley]

GameSpot - 8.5
Tomb Raider is an exhilarating action adventure that serves as a terrific origin story for the iconic Lara Croft.

When adventurer extraordinaire Lara Croft raided her first tomb back in 1996, she brought with her an exhilarating feeling of isolation and discovery. Over the years, Lara has continued to venture into parts unknown, taking dark turns and frequently tangling with the supernatural as the series evolved alongside the burgeoning third-person action adventure genre. The gameplay of this series reboot takes a few cues from a current titan of the genre--Nathan Drake and the Uncharted series--but don't let that familiarity put you off. This origin story is a terrific adventure that balances moments of quiet exploration with plenty of rip-roaring action to keep you enthralled from start to finish.

As Tomb Raider begins, Lara is more an academic than an adventurer. But when she's shipwrecked on an island full of ancient secrets and deadly cultists, she has little choice but to learn how to survive. Lara endures a great deal of punishment early in the game, and though no small amount of that anguish is physical, it's an unpleasant moment in which a man tries to force himself on her that's most harrowing. But as unpleasant as it is, it marks an important turning point in Lara's understanding of just how hard she has to fight to survive. Rather than crumbling under the weight of her physical and emotional struggles, she emerges from them a stronger person.

It's empowering to witness Lara's journey from the understandably fearful individual she is when she first arrives on the island to the justifiably confident survivor she becomes. Later in the game, when she has proven to the resident cultists that she's not the easily cowed person they mistook her for, she turns the psychological tables on them, letting loose battle cries to strike fear into their hearts. Aspects of the story that fall outside of Lara's character arc aren't as strong; there's a twist of sorts that occurs late in the game that you see coming hours ahead of time, for instance, and the central villain offers little in the way of nuance. But as an introduction to the legendary Lara Croft, Tomb Raider's tale is a success; she emerges as a strong, charismatic and human figure, and you're left eager to see what the future holds for her.

Lara's origin story deserves an extraordinary setting, and the island where Tomb Raider takes place does not disappoint. Centuries ago, it was home to a kingdom called Yamatai. Many shrines, temples, statues and other remnants of that history remain, and often, you just want to take in these places, slowly advancing through the darkness, eager to discover what's just outside the light of your torch. The island is a beautiful place, but not every discovery is a pleasant one; Yamatai's dark history is vividly communicated in piles of bones and far more grisly things.

The ancient structures of Yamatai now coexist alongside bunkers built during World War II, the wreckage of planes brought down by the storms that surround the island, and the shantytowns and makeshift machinery of the island's current inhabitants. It's a fascinating hodgepodge of the beautiful and the utilitarian; the buildings are believably nestled in their rough natural surroundings, and appear appropriately weathered, damaged, and rusty. The island really feels like a place where people have lived and where great and terrible things have happened. It's a place with many facets; it has claustrophobic caverns and breathtaking vistas, and phenomena like gentle snowfalls, torrential downpours, and fierce, howling winds make it alternately seem like a tranquil place, and a brutal one.

It's immediately clear that one thing the island is not is safe, so it's a good thing that Lara soon gets her hands on a bow. You acquaint yourself with using it by hunting animals; Lara doesn't have hunger levels you need to manage or any such thing, but the deer, rabbits, crabs and other creatures that call the island home make it feel much more alive. For reasons of their own, the cult that currently occupies the island doesn't exactly welcome you with open arms, so it's not long before you need to turn that bow (and, soon, a pistol, rifle, and shotgun) on humans. Combat is varied and suspenseful; some situations give you the opportunity to take a stealthy approach, sneaking up behind enemies to perform silent kills, or firing arrows into walls to distract them and picking them off from a distance with well-aimed arrows while their comrades aren't looking. During one particularly tense battle in a fog-shrouded forest, patrolling foes hunt you with flashlights; if you can manage to stay unseen, you can shift from prey to predator, using their cones of light to pinpoint their positions and eliminating them one by one.

Then, there are the all-out firefights. When your presence is known, enemies are smart and aggressive about flushing you out from cover with grenades and Molotovs, which forces you to keep moving and act boldly. Many enemies attack from a distance while others get in close, so you need to be constantly on your toes, switching between your weapons on the fly and evading foes who attack with melee weapons. Dodging and countering melee attacks is easy, but the savage animations of Lara's counters make eliminating those foes who make the mistake of getting too close to you consistently satisfying.

http://www.gamespot.com/tomb-raider...tag=Topslot;TombRaiderReview;TombRaiderReview

 

[JayDizzle]

Looks like this is the new Flavor of the Month to get if you have the funds and aren't putting your time into The Show/catching up on your backlog this part of the year.

I'm happy that the QTE stuff goes to the wayside after a little while (an hour though? ADD brains may not handle that well) and that the game's more centralized towards the Single Player Campaign (I didn't hear the words "tacked on" for the Multiplayer but I won't judge it until I play the game).

The fact that you can go back and fully explore the island you're on post-game is a HUGE plus as well, although I wonder how significant the Tomb that you can only get (to my knowledge) through a GS preorder will be.

Trophy/Cheevo whores are going to be upset that a good portion of them are locked behind playing the MP though... :tiptoe:

Other than that, I'm doubly happy that they took time and care for the license and came out with a good game instead of outsourcing to 50 million studios and just slapping the Crystal Dynamics name on it at the end.

 

[JayDizzle]

 

[Twigg4075]

I still can't get over the fact that they put so much emphasis on the mp with the trophies/cheevos. When are companies going to realize that unless your game is Cod or Bf no one is going to be playing your shit after a week?

 

[JayDizzle]

I still can't get over the fact that they put so much emphasis on the mp with the trophies/cheevos. When are companies going to realize that unless your game is Cod or Bf no one is going to be playing your shit after a week?

I'd assume it's because there's less emphasis on the advertising when it comes to telling your future customers that your game HAS multiplayer.

Also, word of mouth has to key into it and if you get the "right type of people" to either poo-poo or give your game the thumbs-up, it can go either way.

Then again, that same word-of-mouth dictates that everyone and their grandmother is tell everyone else and their grandmother to play COD or Battlefield.

 

[Buzzman]

CANNOT FUCKING WAIT!!!!

 

[jms493]

Really look forward to this game. I love tomb raider.

Multiplayer achievements are smart for a publisher. Slight chance u play online and possible buy some dlc to dress up your character. I have no problem with them as it might get me to at least try the multiplayer.

 

[IamMedellin]

Really look forward to this game. I love tomb raider.

Multiplayer achievements are smart for a publisher. Slight chance u play online and possible buy some dlc to dress up your character. I have no problem with them as it might get me to at least try the multiplayer.

Abso-Fukin-lutely...In Fact, MORE MULTIPLAYER ACHIEVEMENTS/TROPHIES!

:freshdance:

 

[DoubleDeuce]

I doubt I'm gonna play multiplayer, but I don't really care about achievements either. Game looks fucking sick, I love just exploring in games, and if that aspect is great, this could be one of my favorite games ever

 

[IamMedellin]

exessive QTE suck, but Thankfully it's only for the 1st part of the game, Def RedBoxing this Nxt week

 

[Twigg4075]

Really look forward to this game. I love tomb raider.

Multiplayer achievements are smart for a publisher. Slight chance u play online and possible buy some dlc to dress up your character. I have no problem with them as it might get me to at least try the multiplayer.

Having a few or even a handful of them would accomplish the same thing. You don't need half of the fucking list devoted to a multiplayer mode that in all probability no one will give two fucks about mere weeks after release.

If anything it could be counterintuitive. Instead of someone holding on to the game a bit longer to play through it again or go for some of those tougher accomplishments, or just to explore more than they probably would have, they'll just say fuck it and trade the game in, which is the antithesis of what a publisher wants.

Abso-Fukin-lutely...In Fact, MORE MULTIPLAYER ACHIEVEMENTS/TROPHIES!

:freshdance:

Boo that shit.

Just look at the history of some other games, especially new IPs, that tried that practice and failed miserably.

 

[Swarley]

Achievement/trophy arguments...

 

[Handleit_44]

Abso-Fukin-lutely...In Fact, MORE MULTIPLAYER ACHIEVEMENTS/TROPHIES!

:freshdance:

 

[Twigg4075]

Achievement/trophy arguments...

You can disregard them all you want but they are a huge part of gaming this generation and probably next. Millions of gamers love to unlock them. There are myriad sites, walkthroughs, podcasts, etc devoted to them. :dealwithit:

 

[Swarley]

You can disregard them all you want but they are a huge part of gaming this generation and probably next. Millions of gamers love to unlock them. There are myriad sites, walkthroughs, podcasts, etc devoted to them. :dealwithit:

I wont lie, I like when an achievement or trophy pops up on my screen, but I still think it's a waste of time scouring the earth for them.

Multiplayer achievements... :dealwithit:

Also, lol at achievement podcasts. That's just sad (if there really are any).