Tomb Raider Review - An Icon Reborn

[Dahemo]

When you think of Lara Croft, you probably think about her trekking through the jungle, cartwheeling her way through trap-riddled tombs and gleefully picking off bad guys, twin pistols ablaze.

Yep, and I'm perfectly fine with that. I'm 95% sure before I play this that it will be focused on giving us an origins story of Lara instead of good puzzles, and this will be purely a self-conscious reaction against the criticism of Lara's plastic image.

Who cares about the characters and the story? I don't. TR is about the platforming and the puzzles. Why change?

You don't, so nobody else could? Intriguing.

Nothing wrong with reinvigorating a character, especially one who has been so one dimensional for so long before this! If the idea doesn't appeal, borrow my N64 and my copy of Super Mario, amazing platforming, some puzzles and only the barest of plots. Your idea of heaven.

Also, and sorry to twist the knife here, but you're 95% sure there won't be good puzzles because of the character focus? Did you read the review? Or did you just wade in here to spout off? Someone call the Heavy Rain dev team! They're doing it wrong!

Rant over. Susan, you Cadillac of reviewers you, how would you want them to handle the combat/character problem? A stellar review as always...

 

[TsunamiWombat]

I suggest waiting for more reviews to come in, particularly user reviews, before making your decision.

User reviews. Urgh.

I laugh at the notion of basing actual purchasing decisions on those manic, poorly written displays of blatant agendas.

The difference between user reviews and professional reviews is punctuation.

I suggest waiting for more reviews to come in, particularly user reviews, before making your decision.

User reviews. Urgh.

I laugh at the notion of basing actual purchasing decisions on those manic, poorly written displays of blatant agendas.

Dont be ridicules Zhukov.

What you need to do is find reviews that confirms your predetermined decisions of a product in an effort to justify your opinion.

Sure is a lot of STRAWMAN in here. Is that how it is, Professional Review Good User Review Bad? I didn't say the review here was fallacy, I stated my disagreement based on my admittedly more limited exposure to the material, but suggested "wait and see" based on that experience. If you don't think the past year of gaming, from A:CM back to Mass Effect 3, isn't definite proof that early reviews don't come with a buyer beware caveat, i'm not sure what media you're following or what experiences you've had to shape your perceptions in such a way.

 

[Fappy]

Wait, so you're telling me there's no giant octopus boss battle? Hmm... I might have to skip this one.

Yeah... that's a real let down

OT: This actually looks MUCH better than I thought it'd be. I may have to give this one a shot... though, it may need to wait a bit. Still doing a NG+ playthrough of Persona 4!

 

[Combustion Kevin]

Hmm so can this be safely stamped as a game with a solid female protagonist? Would love to add it to the growing pile of games that can be thrown at feminists/politically-correct-twats to make them shut up

keep fueling that fire, buddy.

 

[Lex Darko]

So does mean that finally Lara Croft can't simply be palette switched with Larry Croft anymore?

 

[Erttheking]

Wait, so you're telling me there's no giant octopus boss battle? Hmm... I might have to skip this one.

Yeah... that's a real let down

OT: This actually looks MUCH better than I thought it'd be. I may have to give this one a shot... though, it may need to wait a bit. Still doing a NG+ playthrough of Persona 4!

So you can actually ask for Chie's phone number without being told that you're a pussy?

 

[Susan Arendt]

When you think of Lara Croft, you probably think about her trekking through the jungle, cartwheeling her way through trap-riddled tombs and gleefully picking off bad guys, twin pistols ablaze.

Yep, and I'm perfectly fine with that. I'm 95% sure before I play this that it will be focused on giving us an origins story of Lara instead of good puzzles, and this will be purely a self-conscious reaction against the criticism of Lara's plastic image.

Who cares about the characters and the story? I don't. TR is about the platforming and the puzzles. Why change?

Rant over. Susan, you Cadillac of reviewers you, how would you want them to handle the combat/character problem? A stellar review as always...

You know, I don't have a good answer to that. If her gameplay development mirrored her character development, the game would have to play much differently, and while it might still be quite fun, it wouldn't be the adventure romp that we want it to be. And don't get me wrong, the combat is a lot of fun. I loooooooved pulling off headshots with my bow, and setting guys ablaze with napalm arrows. (Shooting guys off zip lines? The best.) So I'm not sure what the best solution would be. I love both halves of the game, and it's easy enough to mentally put aside the fact that there's really no reason for Lara to be such a good shot. As much as we want games to deliver good characterization and strong stories, we can't ignore the fact that they also have roles to play as games.

 

[Fappy]

Wait, so you're telling me there's no giant octopus boss battle? Hmm... I might have to skip this one.

Yeah... that's a real let down

OT: This actually looks MUCH better than I thought it'd be. I may have to give this one a shot... though, it may need to wait a bit. Still doing a NG+ playthrough of Persona 4!

So you can actually ask for Chie's phone number without being told that you're a pussy?

Hahaha, that and so I can 100% the compendium/S. Links and beat the secret boss.

Around level 50 now. I'm coming for you Izanagi-no-Okami (just 41 more levels to go)!

 

[TsunamiWombat]

I feel like they could've stuck to the original narrative of the character (stranded in the Himilayas) and done this story, i'm not sure why they felt the need to shoe horn in a revamped background. I suppose so they could 'show' Laura going from incompitant to hyper compitant. But from what you're saying, that doesn't happen - she just jumps from scared to badass once the story arbitrarily throws a switch. So they may as well have done a timeskip from being 12 and scared to being a feral child with a spear made of icicles.

 

[CaptOfSerenity]

Why even call her Lara Croft? If they wanted to tell a new story in the Tomb Raider setting with a brand new character, then why didn't they just do it? She isn't anything like her except in her name: She doesn't act like her or sound like her and she barely resembles her.

While the new Lara might be good (some might like her better, which is fine), this seems like a slap in the face for everyone who liked Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider franchise before.

I'll pass on this one.

Why do fans have to take every change on their favorite well-trodden, overdone series as personal attacks? Do you really think the world revolves around you?

Seems like they wanted to add some depth. Seems like you could keep an open mind.

 

[scorptatious]

The difference between user reviews and professional reviews is punctuation.

So would Yahtzee's reviews be considered user reviews?

*ba dum tish*

OT: Interesting. I've never really played the original Tomb Raider games, but I was aware of them. Might keep an eye on this one.

 

[Phlakes]

Let's take a look at the Modern Game Release Checklist-

[X] - New installment in a big franchise
[X] - People calling it the worst thing ever after the first teaser
[X] - Pre-release controversy
[ ] - Petition
[X] - Universally high review scores
[X] - People still calling it the worst thing ever before even touching it
[X] - Conspiratorial speculation over scores and/or discussion of inadequacy of professional reviews

Thank you for joining us on this installment of the MGRC.

Stay predictable.

 

[Ldude893]

It's going to be a brilliant year for gaming this year, isn't it? What have we got, Bioshock Infinite? Sim City? Company of Heroes 2? Watch Dogs? Maybe Half Life 3? It'll be much better than last year, at least.

I can't wait to get my hands on this game once I come home from college.

 

[Frankster]

I guess a good sign that a AAA game is decent is that reviews are out more then a week before the game's release?

Well im sold, *goes to preorder on steam*.

Regarding the problem of ingame lara being a natural sharpshooter, i suppose one way they could have done it is make it rpgish with a stat system determining how accurate you were with certain weapons, so lara would be a terrible shot at the beginning of the game and an eagle eye shot by the end of it.
Granted most people seem to have hated in it in mass effect 1, but maybe here it would have been more fitting?

 

[major_chaos]

A:CM back to Mass Effect 3, isn't definite proof that early reviews don't come with a buyer beware caveat, i'm not sure what media you're following or what experiences you've had to shape your perceptions in such a way.

I'm not sure what you are trying to prove, A:CM has revived almost universal scorn and the disapproval for ME3 has largely been coming from a very loud minority, most people didn't let 5 terrible minutes at the end ruin an entire game.

OT: Sounds interesting, after A:CM turned out so bad I was worried I would end up two for two with games I'm looking forward to being awful . Sadly I wont be able to pick this up I need to get my hands on Fire Emblem and Pandora's tower before they become collectibles like Xenoblade.

 

[M0rp43vs]

I'll admit, even though I'm not much a fan, I was worried this game wouldn't actually be good. Especially since it's a reboot(Yea, yea I know, "not all reboots are yadda yadda").

Though am I the only one getting a slight farcry 3 through the review footage?
Inexperienced protagonist shoved out of his/her comfort zone, at first not at all happy with killing (but become efficient killers when the cutscenes are over)faffing about in Temples in jungles(Ok, farcry has less temples).

If this laura grows into the laura we're used to, you can then say both protagonists become psychotic remorseless killing machines.

Oh my god, now instead of Laura being compared to Nathan Drake, will we now have discussion on whether the new Laura Croft is a female version of Jason Brody.

Answer:No, I'm probably thinking too much into things again

 

[Susan Arendt]

I guess a good sign that a AAA game is decent is that reviews are out more then a week before the game's release?

Well im sold, *goes to preorder on steam*.

Regarding the problem of ingame lara being a natural sharpshooter, i suppose one way they could have done it is make it rpgish with a stat system determining how accurate you were with certain weapons, so lara would be a terrible shot at the beginning of the game and an eagle eye shot by the end of it.
Granted most people seem to have hated in it in mass effect 1, but maybe here it would have been more fitting?

Well, you do gain new skills, and can upgrade weapons to make them more accurate or powerful, but really, it all comes down to player ability. You could take the RPG approach, but I think that would be a mistake in this case. The Tomb Raider games aren't RPGs, they're not about stat development, they're about fast-paced action, and while I'm obviously in favor of breathing new life into the franchise, it shouldn't come at the expense of the spirit of the game. Puzzles, exploration, fast-paced combat, ancient civilizations - whatever else the game did, it had to have those elements in order to maintain the spirit of Tomb Raider, at least in my opinion. Making it an RPG would deviate from that just, and wouldn't make the game substantially more enjoyable.