Current Events > How are the new Tomb Raider games?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Saw the first one for pretty cheap earlier today
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They're pretty good.
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The first and second ones are great. I've heard newest one is kinda meh
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They're alright.
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i like em better than the uncharted games cuz theyre more gamey and less cinematic. but theyre basically in the same vein
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I stopped playing the first one, just felt like story and gameplay were so off from eachother
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the stories and characters are weak tho
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I haven't played the new new one. Shadow.

But the other 2 are good.

They are VERY typical. So they bring nothing new to the table, bland characters, medicore plot. But combat/stealth and jumping around is fun.

They lack puzzles tho. There's only a handful and most of the game is "Climb thing, kill guy, thing collaspes, repeat."

I reccomend them but they will not wow you.
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I think the problem is, while the gameplay continues to improve, the story revolving around Trinity just isn't very good. Like, it's not written that well and is even less memorable than threadbare plots in earlier TRs. It's especially stupid in Shadow of the Tomb Raider where the Trinity high council shows up in the last dungeon. This is announced only over the radio and then they're all off-screened as you work through some linear climbing puzzle shenanigans. It's all quite depressing that the trilogy ended on such a pathetic note.
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Shotgunnova posted...

Like, it's not written that well and is even less memorable than threadbare plots in earlier TRs

I pity you if you don't remember the asscrazy plots from the early games.

A nuclear tests wakes up the Queen of Atlantis who fell out with the other Altantis Gods because they lacked juices and now wants to "Evolve" everyone into giant fleshy things.

Or the Italian Mafia boss who wants to go the islands floating in the sky to stab himself in the heart with a dagger because that will turn him into an easily killable dragon.

Or the guy who was researching Charles Darwin and discovered that he could "Evolve" into a giant spider...thing... which will in someway help him take over the world

They were glorious
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Most of the old TR's puzzles were level pulling and block pushing.
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Amazing. Holy shit did Lara need this reboot.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F7xKshpImQ" data-time="
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The 2013 game was pretty good. Rise of the Tomb Raider was basically literally the same thing except with a stupid plot and a Siberian setting.

The puzzles aren't really very exciting since they're all completable within like a minute and a half and there's only eight or so of them per game from what I remember.

I liked the story in the 2013 one, but mostly just because it was mostly about Lara's development and how she became the adventurer that she is. Rise didn't have any character development at all, and it was mostly Michael Bay-esque action scenes set to the gameplay of Temple Runner.
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EbonTitanium posted...

Most of the old TR's puzzles were level pulling and block pushing.

True.

But

1. I liked them

2. There's no reason why you couldn't modernize the puzzles.

The new second Reboot's idea of puzzles is to have 1 or 2 optional ones on the side and I feel like they could have done a lot more.

I mean Legend already did that the first time they rebooted it
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i HATE repeating myself. r u LISTENING???
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runow

run now

now

won

nowon

wonow
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2013 was the best one. The others are completely forgettable.
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won now

wonnow

wow

WOW

XD

O_O
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Also I miss Doppelgnger.

The new reboot should throw that in there.
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I hated the 2013 game. There's almost no gameplay, just cinematics of Lara falling from all kinds of places.

Id raid Laras tomb if you know what I mean
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Painfully mediocre imo, basically every modern game trope thrown together into one package. The challenge tombs in Rise were cool though
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EzeDoesIt posted...

Id raid Laras tomb if you know what I mean

Get in line, buddy.
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Of course I remember 'em -- their plots are just often through cutscenes, hence the 'threadbare' comment. Yet, that sparseness fits because the games because, while collectathons on certain levels, they know the value of a player's time. The dialogue (which, on its own, can be very casual or simple) is more memorable because it's used sparingly.

Compare that to a modern TR game. The open-world busywork can dilute the experience by making tombs mere pitstops in the adventure; the passable dialogue seems worse from overuse (a.k.a. Lara constantly reminding players with hand-holdy objective info). They don't know the value of time, nor do they know the value of silence.

In the end, the games are playable, but can feel like tepid journeys, where nothing really stands out besides murdering and set pieces. You may think, "But Shotgun, that sounds just like earlier games!" Eh, not really. They had heavy puzzle element where the exploration and progress revolved around that, plus you felt good 'cause they were done using precision controls. Now, those things ride in the backseat, alone and unloved.

But just so you don't think I'm bashing newer TRs too much, they did some things okay. I'd say TR 2013 had the most coherent story of the lot, often because it had a heavy "find the friends!" aspect and wasn't just "follow Trinity yet again" stuff. I've seen people praise Rise's story, but to me, it was the trilogy's nadir -- boring dialogue, boring villains, underutilized characters. (In fact, that last part is a running theme in the trilogy: showing up for one game, leaving/dying/getting forgotten, then starting fresh in the next game. Jonah has especially been annoying -- not because he's bad, but because he's great, and they squander his potential by having him benched 24/7. Since he's one of the only likeable characters, it gets tiresome, almost to the point of "why bring him along in the first place?".) Shadow has the best exploration of the lot, with nice kit improvements like overhang climbing and rappelling from pitted cliffs...though its gameplay seems worse than Rise's somehow.

Since the trilogy is over now, hopefully this frees Squeenix to make a truly great, modern TR. Some aspects I don't expect to leave (like the normal movements shown in the reboots, as opposed to old-school precision controls), but getting more puzzles that aren't all dependent on rope arrows would be nice. Shadow had a few okay ones overall, but nothing too imaginative.

BTW, remember how TR Legend (I think it was?) had some kind of protgs or something constantly talking with Lara? It'd be kinda cool to get some teammates on-site to help, rather than just manning radios. I know it'd break with a lot of tradition, but it could add a fresher, newer facet to puzzle-solving if they did it right. They'd have to make sure it wasn't boring-ass TLOU type puzzling, though. :P
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shinobipride posted...

Stop posting.
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pretty hecking fun
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