As I look back to last year when I talked about this new Tomb Raider game, I thought it'd be appropriate to quote a post I made in anticipation of this game.
After downloading and playing the game for a good three hours last night, I can rest assured knowing that my predictions were right on the money. Tomb Raider is indeed the RE4 of the franchise, and it's AWESOME.
Gone are those nightmarish controls that always turned me away from most the Tomb Raider games, and now we have a very responsive third person perspective that controls like a dream. To add more diverse fun into the mix, Lara is now an skill based character who earns skills through experience. And even though you can spent your points to master a skill, you have to unlock an entire tier of skills in order to unlock abilities. For instance, I was disappointed when I found out you couldn't use your mountain pick axe as a weapon, but once I had tier 1 of survival down pat, the ability to use my pick axe as a melee weapon was unlocked. Nice touch.
And the enemy AI is one of the most fulfilling experiences I haven't seen in a long time. These bad guys not only take cover really well, they are a lot more aware of the environment they're in. For example, there's this one enemy unit who is decked from head to toe in flares and carries a gasoline tank on his back. He throws flaming cocktails at Lara in order to drive her out of cover. If you can get a good shot the moment he's holding the cocktail, he will drop it, catch on fire, burn alive and his comrades will actually notice and steer clear of him.
The game is also beautiful to behold. The weather effects, the distant locations, the foliage, the animal behavior and even the fire effects look natural and impressive.
If there's one downside that will hinders this game any is that the camera work is shakier than a cup full of Mexican Jumping Beans. I almost had a hard time registering what was going on and where the characters were in proximity to each other. AND IT NEVER STOPS. Scenes where characters are not moving and simply talking to each other, scenes with Lara climbing a long ladder, and even Lara sitting down. I hope someone creates a Mod that either tones the camera movement down or gets rid of it entirely, because the visuals are way too pretty to have to struggle to see what it actually looks like. There are cutscenes that are shown from the viewpoint of a camera being held that are less shaky than what we see in-game.
And do you remember the M Rating? This game delivers that in spades.
And before I go, I would just like to say that Lara is Bad Luck incarnate. Everything she touches seems to make her situation worse. Crawling through a tunnel? Move quickly before a cave in! Climbing a rope? It's about to break loose! Walking on the wing of a plane? It's about to rip apart and fall off the cliff! Just lit a torch? There's a violent gust of wind that blows it out! Need to walk across a tree? It's loosing grip with the other side of the cliff! You found your friends? Well....
After downloading and playing the game for a good three hours last night, I can rest assured knowing that my predictions were right on the money. Tomb Raider is indeed the RE4 of the franchise, and it's AWESOME.
Gone are those nightmarish controls that always turned me away from most the Tomb Raider games, and now we have a very responsive third person perspective that controls like a dream. To add more diverse fun into the mix, Lara is now an skill based character who earns skills through experience. And even though you can spent your points to master a skill, you have to unlock an entire tier of skills in order to unlock abilities. For instance, I was disappointed when I found out you couldn't use your mountain pick axe as a weapon, but once I had tier 1 of survival down pat, the ability to use my pick axe as a melee weapon was unlocked. Nice touch.
And the enemy AI is one of the most fulfilling experiences I haven't seen in a long time. These bad guys not only take cover really well, they are a lot more aware of the environment they're in. For example, there's this one enemy unit who is decked from head to toe in flares and carries a gasoline tank on his back. He throws flaming cocktails at Lara in order to drive her out of cover. If you can get a good shot the moment he's holding the cocktail, he will drop it, catch on fire, burn alive and his comrades will actually notice and steer clear of him.
The game is also beautiful to behold. The weather effects, the distant locations, the foliage, the animal behavior and even the fire effects look natural and impressive.
If there's one downside that will hinders this game any is that the camera work is shakier than a cup full of Mexican Jumping Beans. I almost had a hard time registering what was going on and where the characters were in proximity to each other. AND IT NEVER STOPS. Scenes where characters are not moving and simply talking to each other, scenes with Lara climbing a long ladder, and even Lara sitting down. I hope someone creates a Mod that either tones the camera movement down or gets rid of it entirely, because the visuals are way too pretty to have to struggle to see what it actually looks like. There are cutscenes that are shown from the viewpoint of a camera being held that are less shaky than what we see in-game.
And do you remember the M Rating? This game delivers that in spades.
There's a moment where Lara is knocked out and taken by some super natural Guardian giant and is left hanging with a bunch of naked, disemboweled bodies. The sight of their guts glistening out with both bright and dark blood is a sight I haven't winced at since finding all those stacked up naked corpses in Amnesia. It's really, really gruesome.
And before I go, I would just like to say that Lara is Bad Luck incarnate. Everything she touches seems to make her situation worse. Crawling through a tunnel? Move quickly before a cave in! Climbing a rope? It's about to break loose! Walking on the wing of a plane? It's about to rip apart and fall off the cliff! Just lit a torch? There's a violent gust of wind that blows it out! Need to walk across a tree? It's loosing grip with the other side of the cliff! You found your friends? Well....
