So I've finally gotten around to playing Tomb Raider...

[BloatedGuppy]

Only two hours or so in. It's fine so far. Bit heavy on the QTEs. Seriously one fight had four QTEs, that is like five QTEs too many. But I digress...

Okay so this one thing is really bothering me, and it's going to seem very fussy and petty, but it's driving me nuts. You know in the very beginning, when she falls down, and that iron rod goes RIGHT through her side, right? That major puncture wound. And she's staggering around and bleeding and moaning.

And then right after that she's leaping around and jumping and rolling and taking headers off 10 foot high cliffs and running about and scrambling along the ground and SERIOUSLY could they not have taken 30 seconds to show her at least doing some cursory video-game level first aid? I mean she's sloshing through torso deep filthy water at one point and she STILL hasn't attended to this very serious wound, which is no doubt now violently infected. That's assuming she's not still back on the beach, bleeding out, and this is all a fever dream.

Seriously it bothers me SO MUCH just patch up your fucking wound!

 

[aguspal]

Only two hours or so in. It's fine so far. Bit heavy on the QTEs. Seriously one fight had four QTEs, that is like five QTEs too many. But I digress...

Okay so this one thing is really bothering me, and it's going to seem very fussy and petty, but it's driving me nuts. You know in the very beginning, when she falls down, and that iron rod goes RIGHT through her side, right? That major puncture wound. And she's staggering around and bleeding and moaning.

And then right after that she's leaping around and jumping and rolling and taking headers off 10 foot high cliffs and running about and scrambling along the ground and SERIOUSLY could they not have taken 30 seconds to show her at least doing some cursory video-game level first aid? I mean she's sloshing through torso deep filthy water at one point and she STILL hasn't attended to this very serious wound, which is no doubt now violently infected. That's assuming she's not still back on the beach, bleeding out, and this is all a fever dream.

Seriously it bothers me SO MUCH just patch up your fucking wound!

O_O

How do you people keep noticing thos litte details...

Seriously. Not flaming. More like praising. I dont get it...

 

[BloatedGuppy]

O_O

How do you people keep noticing thos litte details...

Seriously. Not flaming. More like praising. I dont get it...

It's not even a little detail. They make a big show of her getting impaled, and then quickly ignore the fact it ever happened beyond the small circle of blood on her shirt that should be rapidly growing unless she has Wolverine level healing abilities.

And I'm not taking the piss either, I know this is a video game and we can't be attending to reality all the time, but they could've shown her do a half-assed bandage or just...ANYTHING. It's all I can think about now. She made fire! She found food! Big deal, she's dying from that goddam sucking chest wound!

Sure, in Far Cry 3 Jason Brody got shot like three times while running away in the beginning and I was like "pfft, realism schmealism" but they didn't do a brief cut scene of a bullet punching through his side and leaving a big gaping wound, it was just standard FPS "Herp a derp I'm getting shot, better hide behind a rock for a minute" style damage. By making a big deal of the rod through the side, they made it a big deal in my head, and then proceeded to never address it again.

Boo! Hiss!

 

[XMark]

It's even worse later on when, covered in open cuts and scrapes, she takes a swim in a big pool of blood and guts. At that point I was thinking, even if she survives the island, she's gonna have every infection known to man afterwards.

 

[Smertnik]

It gets even more ridiculous later on. Every time Croft gets a injury, no matter how major, she just stumbles for a minute moaning and then she's completely fine again, apart from one instance in the last third of the game (and even then you're only very mildly disabled). I would have liked some kind of repercussions for all those injuries as well, otherwise it's just funny.
But then again, she knows how to handle pretty much every kind of weaponry and kills hundreds of people, so maybe she is indeed a superhero in disguise. Or maybe the developers just thought "We're going to make an Uncharted clone and it's just an action game anyway so who cares?".

 

[go-10]

in game time how many days does she spend in the island? Maybe she got treated when she got back, for all we know the time lapse between the first and the second game was all spent making out with Sam in a hospital bed...

also isn't that type of wound an action hero trope? Joel from Last of Us, Nathan from Uncharted... I can't think of anything else but I'm sure it's in movies too, the whole falling on a sharp thing and getting out of it alive and well to prove how badass you are is a common trope in action stories, something that only The Last Of Us managed to pull off well, everybody else has healing factor

 

[BloatedGuppy]

in game time how many days does she spend in the island?

It's been at least 20-24 hours at this point. Enough time for blood loss to have killed her, given she never bound the wound or did anything to staunch the bleeding.

 

[NoMercy Rider]

My memory could be fuzzy, considering I haven't played the game in the few months, but I seem to recall...

Spoiler

That Lara sticks the head of an arrow into the campfire during the first night and cauterizes her wound, quite painfully I might add.

While not a perfect solution, it would enable her to keep going without bleeding out. Of course, I could be completely confusing this with a different game, if so, just carry on and ignore this post. But even if correct, there are countless other unrealistic aspects of the game.

 

[lacktheknack]

It's even worse later on when, covered in open cuts and scrapes, she takes a swim in a big pool of blood and guts. At that point I was thinking, even if she survives the island, she's gonna have every infection known to man afterwards.

This.

Earlier than the "Dive of Blood", she also goes wading through water with floating bodies in it while insanely injured. The water is so stagnant and so utterly vile that you can almost see it pulsing with bacteria. Soon after, you have to wade through what I'm 90% sure is a pool of urine and feces. While cut open.

And you know how she addresses the infinite infections she's acquired? Cauterization. Brilliant.

Eventually, you just stop thinking about it. It's a bit too silly for its own good, but holy crap, it made me cringe. A lot.

Also, the QTEs quiet down a lot after the "Night of the QTE" fight near the beginning.

 

[The Madman]

One of the reasons I dislike the new Tomb Raider is the almost sadistic level of glee the game takes in torturing Lara. Seriously, it's like a corny version of SAW sometimes with everything all bleak and grimy mixed with the grunts and moans of someone being injured. Even if they did even try to address the realism of those sorts of injuries it's still ridiculous.

Then Lara stabs a guy in the head with an ice climbing axe and suddenly old Lara with her penchant for murdering exotic species seems downright peaceful.

Good shooter mind you, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the more lighthearted Indiana Jones style theme of the original games, and seeing as the new game was a big success I don't think I'll be seeing that Tomb Raider with it's platforming and puzzle solving again any time soon.

 

[hazabaza1]

Yeah, it has a lot of that.
If the devs wanted to see how to do injuries that leave a proper impression they should've just look at The Last of Us.
In fact, if they wanted to see how to make the game they wanted to they should've just looked at TLoU. Although that might have been hard what with it being released a few months later.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I quite enjoyed it but then I did go in with a very pessimistic attitude especially as I hated the old tomb raider games so was pleasantly surprised when it was enjoyable to play. As for the story I just shut off my brain and enjoyed I knew it would be stupid every Tomb Raider game has a stupid story and realism has never bothered me unless its supposed to be a sim. Thats not to say I didnt find it ridiculous either but no more so than in other games like in The Walking Dead where Duck is covered in blood one shot and the next instant is perfectly clean again or at the start where suddenly every tree has a zombie behind.

 

[Belaam]

I felt it was implied that the torso wound was bound up when her arm wound was. I mean, she gets a big cut on her arm, has an open wound on it while going for a med kit, gets the kit, goes back to base, and passes out after bandaging her friend. Cutscene to her getting up in the morning and her arm wound has been bandaged. I can only assume that her torso wound was bandaged at the same time. I seem to recall seeing bandages near the end when she has more clothing damage, but it might just be the shirt and as I have lent the game to a friend, I can't check.

 

[5ilver]

Spoiler

Only two hours or so in. It's fine so far. Bit heavy on the QTEs. Seriously one fight had four QTEs, that is like five QTEs too many. But I digress...

Okay so this one thing is really bothering me, and it's going to seem very fussy and petty, but it's driving me nuts. You know in the very beginning, when she falls down, and that iron rod goes RIGHT through her side, right? That major puncture wound. And she's staggering around and bleeding and moaning.

And then right after that she's leaping around and jumping and rolling and taking headers off 10 foot high cliffs and running about and scrambling along the ground and SERIOUSLY could they not have taken 30 seconds to show her at least doing some cursory video-game level first aid? I mean she's sloshing through torso deep filthy water at one point and she STILL hasn't attended to this very serious wound, which is no doubt now violently infected. That's assuming she's not still back on the beach, bleeding out, and this is all a fever dream.

Seriously it bothers me SO MUCH just patch up your fucking wound!

O_O

How do you people keep noticing thos litte details...

Seriously. Not flaming. More like praising. I dont get it...

That's not a little detail. Any real person would have died if he hadn't cleaned and bandaged that wound within minutes. You can't talk about realism one moment and then forget it 10minutes later when the protagonist has a massive wound that would take weeks to heal in the absolute *best case scenario*.

Spoiler

My memory could be fuzzy, considering I haven't played the game in the few months, but I seem to recall...

Spoiler

That Lara sticks the head of an arrow into the campfire during the first night and cauterizes her wound, quite painfully I might add.

While not a perfect solution, it would enable her to keep going without bleeding out. Of course, I could be completely confusing this with a different game, if so, just carry on and ignore this post. But even if correct, there are countless other unrealistic aspects of the game.

I think I saw her treat about 2 out of 50+ injuries.

 

[romxxii]

Only two hours or so in. It's fine so far. Bit heavy on the QTEs. Seriously one fight had four QTEs, that is like five QTEs too many. But I digress...

Okay so this one thing is really bothering me, and it's going to seem very fussy and petty, but it's driving me nuts. You know in the very beginning, when she falls down, and that iron rod goes RIGHT through her side, right? That major puncture wound. And she's staggering around and bleeding and moaning.

And then right after that she's leaping around and jumping and rolling and taking headers off 10 foot high cliffs and running about and scrambling along the ground and SERIOUSLY could they not have taken 30 seconds to show her at least doing some cursory video-game level first aid? I mean she's sloshing through torso deep filthy water at one point and she STILL hasn't attended to this very serious wound, which is no doubt now violently infected. That's assuming she's not still back on the beach, bleeding out, and this is all a fever dream.

Seriously it bothers me SO MUCH just patch up your fucking wound!

IIRC she supposedly patches it up during her first campsite stopover. You'll notice that after that is when she starts walking/running normally. Prior to that, she's hobbling around.

That said, I like the idea that the entire game is a fever dream.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

I got over this by assuming that she's Wonder Woman. xD That's why she has such great strength, can climb walls with her nails and get the ever loving crap beat out of her and walk it off.

 

[DementedSheep]

She sorted it out when she got to the first camp. That happens a lot btw, she gets beat up, stumbles around for a bit until she finds some medical supplies or something and then continues on fine. The games tone is dark and brutal but it is not particularity realistic.

The thing that bothers me a little bit is just how many people are on this fucking island? You kill well over a hundred (I got all weapons achievements and used bow 80% time). There is gore and bodies everywhere. She even has to swim thru blood at one point, it's that bad.

But it's more like an action move than a survival story. I was a bit disappointed by that tbh. I was hoping for more survival against the element, getting food, supplies, solving puzzles and avoiding confrontation rather than just straight up fighting but it's still fun. Were they even really going for realism?

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Clearly Lara Croft is able to survive all of the bacteria getting into her wounds because she now has Three Stooges Syndrome.

 

[Abomination]

The one thing I liked the most about Tomb Raider (not in a sadistic or misogynistic manner, I swear!) was just how much it made go "Ouch, damn!" at the punishment Lara was receiving.

Whoever did the animations and the "camera work" for the cutscenes and physical damage she took did a damn fine job. I don't think I've ever winced in empathetic pain as much as I did in Tomb Raider (2013).

But OP is right - how the fuck did she walk off a fucking lance wound to the kidney?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

This reminds me of Resident Evil 2, when Ada patches Leon up... by bandaging his body armor. Tee hee.