Tomb raider is a very interesting series, one that has lived a long life costing on puzzles and the busty female lead Lara Croft. An alledged archeologist, which spend most of her time trashing temples, tombs and whatever else she happens to visit. Tomb Raider 2013 rebooted the franchise with a more down to earth looking Lara. However instead of unrealistic body anatomy and big boobs, they cranked up the sadism level to over 9000. However designed the every elegaorate and lavish action pieces kept comming up with new ways to hurt the her badly. Honestly I am not impressed with these action pieces at all. They're more tedious than anything and the amount of punishment I have to endure is just uncomfortable. The game suffer from a serious case of trying to be a Hollywood blockbuster. One that outstayed its welcome.
Tomb Raider is a contrived slog to play through and I can't suspend my disbelief, because of the silly action set pieces. There are only so many times I can be impressed by running through a burning building that is collapsing around me. Just like Uncharted, they go on for way too long. When comparing this to Romb Raider 3, or 4, something is clearly missing from the later instalments. Originally the series has some action and a lot of odd enemies to kill, but they were far and few between. The main challenge and enjoyment came from exploring the map and finding the way through elaborate puzzles and devilish platforming. However Tomb Raider 2013 just threw most of that out the window andmade the story more coherent. Somehow it is just as stupid as ever and absolutely bonkers. Filled to the brim with all manner of plot contrivances and cutscene incompetence. I also find pretty much the whole game forgettable.
However the game looks gorgeous and a lot of care went into the design. Marred by the very remarkable music and a bit boring setting. One would assume that an ancient kingdom full of ruins from various ages would be more interesting, yet it is not. The obsessive use of quicktime events does not help me to enjoy it one bit. You see, I decided to play through it on stream over at my twitch channel, to compare it to the playstation titles. So far I find the playstation games better, despite how tough and rough they are. In this case it is not due to nostalgia, since I never owned any of the titles and have only seen bits and pieces of them. So the designers has this obsessive need to have me mash a button to operate a crank, or to pull something and that is just a pain since I can't toggle on an autofire function.
All of these big publisher titles are starting to become too similar to each other. Uncharted, Shadow of Mordor, Assassins Creed and many other sandbox series where I can climb like a monkey on color coded surfaces. Automatically latching on to the surface when close enough is a treat, compared to the very rigid and precise Tomb Raider 4 system, even if it look very clumsy and extremely floaty. When lara sort of flails and floats onto an edge it gets a bit weird when she is magnetically attached to the surface. They sure put a lot of effort into the numerous brutal ways Lara can and will die. A bit too well animated. It is a bit gruesome to see her impaled through the skull, struggling to pull herself free, then expire a second later
I know at least one thing though, the world of Tomb Raider is an insane one filled with crazy people, people that can survive almost anything, and somehow can climb everywhere. Not to mention the elaborate deathtrap that somehow shows up all over the place. No matter where in their world I go, there is a man made murder contraption left by an ancient civilization. Which does not exist in our world. However this did not deter me from designing a workable rolling boulder trap which is triggered by opening a door. Anyhow, It's not at all clear how some of the bad guys get around. Many probably climb and crawl the same way Lara does, but it's not clear, and some seem to appear in places that would be impossible. The biggest offender is the scavenger at the very start of the game. He doesn't seem to be taking the same path through the caverns as Lara at all, yet spawns behind me as I crawl through a small space. Yeah, this game is very mediocre and a disappointment.
Njål signing #Zaceron
