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Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Mr Do 71

By Mr Do 71,
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  • 1 month later...
Joystick Chevron

Joystick Chevron

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I spent a few days playing this last week, after having spent a wonderful, thrilling time over Christmas playing AC Odyssey, getting my Xena on pootling about Ancient Greece and hanging with my homies So Crates and Brosidas. Having done that, I was looking forward to hooking up with Lara again, despite prefering the older games and having a few misgivings about the series since the reboot.

 

..oh gosh, this was easily the most disappointing shitshow I've played in a long, long time. Even though I did like the idea of another Peru adventure, and a more puzzle/tomb exploration heavy outing compared to the last couple, it was just. So. Boring. I hated the story, hated the characters (apart from the cool death goddess shaman lady), especially Jonah - oh lord, why won't you let me kill Jonah, worthless lump that he is - and the whole thing felt really cheap. The voice acting sounded like every line was recorded in a bedroom covered in egg cartons, especially when Lara 'engages' the Peruvians in conversation. It's all so stilted and awful sounding. Literally the only thing the current Lara VA nails is saying "shit!", otherwise she's comfortably the worst VA to date. They were always onto a hiding to nothing following on from Keely's stint years previously but they lack even the assured confidence of the TR2/3 one, or the cheeky pluck of the very first Lara VA way back when (what can I say, her sass to Natla remains far more memorable to me than anything the current one has ever managed).

 

Additionally, the side missions were bad and felt really out of place, and everything just came over as terribly formulaic. Usually I tend to go mostly completionist in such things but was so bored I just advanced the main plot missions as fast as I could just to be done with it. It's sort of funny - mechanically it's a Metroidvania of a sort yet completely lacking in the wonderful, unsettling atmosphere and sense of loneliness and isolation that such games, or indeed the original TRs themselves, typically have. It's not totally without merit, the environments are gorgeous, and I liked little Lara's adventures around the manor, and the final act face turn and post boss cut scene between the two avatars of the twin goddesses but that really is about it.

 

Such a let down.

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  • 2 weeks later...
DarhkFox

DarhkFox

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I enjoyed it.. it certainly felt very different from the previous two games though. Shame it's got some wonky controls at times (especially when trying to jump on ledges and it keeps missing). My main issue is that the story plays back seat because it sounds very urgent but you spend ages looking around the area for tombs etc and collecting stuff and then when you do get back to the story you can't remember whats going on! 

 

I kinda felt they wanted to challenge Uncharted 4, but it doesn't quite work like that in the structure of the game they made. 

 

Personally i'd prefer no main story, apart from perhaps a Macguffin (be it some final treasure or something) and a big area where i can go explore at my own leisure.

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Mr Do 71

Mr Do 71

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2 minutes ago, Salsa Party Animal said:

playing it at the moment on XBOX One X and I am in the jungle in Peru facing a big boss Jaguar and I can't fecking kill the Jaguar with Bow and Arrow. Can anyone help. Just want a bloody shotgun to use. 

 

 

 

I hate those bits in the game.

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mdn2

mdn2

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It's...ok. Playable in a polished, but forgettable way. It did make me laugh at the very beginning when you have to button mash to free your trapped leg and then press up to dramatically climb and escape the cave. Considering the previous games were criticised for button mashing and pressing up constantly, you would have thought they would have come up with something slightly better at the beginning of the game. 

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Trumpets

Trumpets

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Bloody hell, the

 

Spoiler

hidden city is massive! Usually a game like this will give you a few buildings and a street to explore and leave the rest as background (like Uncharted 4), but here you get the whole thing. That's the second time after the playable flashback to her as a child I've been surprised by this game.

 

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mdn2

mdn2

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I'm losing interest in it now. I'm at 35% and just done 

Spoiler

The Underworld section

which was a real slog. I think I'm just going to run through the main story and get it finished. I've got Resi 2 waiting in the wings. 

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dreamylittledream

dreamylittledream

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On 11/02/2019 at 21:21, Trumpets said:

I'm a decent way in now and this is clearly better than the previous two games in every way. Not sure what the reviewers were on about.

 

It lacks the focus and narrative drive of the first reboot game and the writing is dreadful (although to be fair the writing was pretty dreadful in all 3)

 

But its undoubtedly the closest they have got to the earlier games feel.

 

I'm midway through and enjoying it but I'm not hooked in like I was with the 2013 game but it is better than Rise.

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  • 1 month later...
amc

amc

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Been playing this for an hour or two tonight and it's pretty good. Definitely more of the same but that's ok with me, big fan of the reboot and rinsed the last two of every chalice etc. Graphically it's very tasty on the X, HDR seems pretty well done, the opening village was vibrant as fuck on my TV. I may be misremembering him from the last games but Jonah's model seems pretty different, almost to the point of him swapping race from Rise, of course Crystal Dynamics wouldn't be so stupid but he does look radically different from the last game. It's sonically that has impressed me most though, Atmos through a nice set of cans is fucking incredible, I hope a lot more games use the format going forward as it really, really enhances the experience. I'm so happy it appeared on Game Pass as I was going to give it a miss due to inadvertently finishing it when my sister asked for help with the game. She was in her flat playing on her PS4 when she messaged me that she was stuck. I blew her mind with the PS4 share play function. We were laughing our heads off whilst she watched and I played several miles away on another setup. That was until I realised the part I helped her beat was the actual end of the game. Oh well, I'd had a few bevvies so my memory is about as fuzzy as the game was across the network. I've read a bit of disappointment from people with it but it's good times with Lara for me at the moment. 

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Fry Crayola

Fry Crayola

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Picking up a Game Pass subscription for Crackdown 3 (oh, how lovely that was) gave me the chance to play this one too, and it's very much a mixed bag.

 

The combat, which was pretty good in Rise, is particularly poor. Enemies that relentlessly charge you, the woman with the long range weapons, don't work in a game with such poor, unsatisfying melee attacks. The scenarios don't play to the strengths of the combat system, occasionally resorting to respawning enemies. Yet when the game drops you into a series of small arenas to progress through via stealth or all out assault, it works well.

 

The story is absolute horse shit, managing to be worse than either of its predecessors, even before you consider the whole white saviour thing. The tombs, however, are mostly excellent and really are the best way to spend the game. The childhood sequence, together with the white queen puzzle to end it, is one of the highlights of the game. If only Lara could have retained that sense of fun she exhibited there. I dislike the structure, which fills a semi-open world with tat rather than sticking with the obviously linear storyline and occasional side tomb that would have been a better fit for what's actually in the game.

 

In the end, I think Rise was the best of the recent trilogy, because while it was pretty much a shooter with occasional platforming, it was better at what it did than this.

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Hewson

Hewson

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Yep. It’s a game lavished with real detail and effort in almost all the wrong places. It’s totally forgettable and someone seems to think that Tomb Raider games should be about wandering around, clicking on boring NPCs and carrying out idiotic tasks.

 

And the whole white saviour thing is rancid. Lara Croft comes off as a tedious, selfish psychopath.

 

It’s bizarre.

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Boozy The Clown

Boozy The Clown

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I'm playing this with Lara as a level 10 psycho overkilling anything that moves, 24 shots to the dome.  Also she's a complete arsehole during wandering around sections just being a dick squeezing between people having conversations and being as much of a pain as possible. It distracts from the yawnsome storyline and adds a bit of fun to the mundanity.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Thor

Thor

Posted
Posted
On 14/12/2018 at 23:04, PeteBrant said:

This a genuinely terrible video game @Thor don’t waste your money . I’ll post you my copy when I’m done 

Had a go today on Game Pass; I believe you're right. The gameplay is pants. Also, the characters remind of the first game back on the 360 - sometimes the characters look like they're talking with their eyes closed, but with eyes painted on their eyelids. 

 

However, I may persevere if I can be arsed to get past this second encounter with the jaguar. 

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JoeK

JoeK

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52 minutes ago, Flub said:

Did this ever get the RTX patch on the PC?

 

Apparently so, although it just does some...erm...stuff with the shadows as opposed to the reflections way that BF5 has used it.

 

Looked at a few vids of it, and I can't say it's what I paid silly amounts of money on the card for really :p . 

 

 

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Flub

Flub

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I don't know what this used to look like on PC but with RTX and DLSS turned on and everything cranked up this looks fucking amazing. I can really see how natural the lighting looks.

 

I think there must be a driver bug with RTX titles though. Neither this or Metro will record video properly now. I just get the audio and a black screen on this. A few seconds of video and then just audio on Metro.

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