yeah, i would love for those optional tombs to have been much bigger, and not optional. for the fleeting seconds i was asked to puzzle, it was glorious. but it was all over too quickly.

Kow wrote:

There's an interesting article on Eurogamer (well it's a developer interview), not specifically about Tomb Raider, addressing this whole jarring kill an army of enemies thing. I'd love to have seen the game with no combat at all.

I'd rather each single opponent was an ordeal, nearly and that there were less people in total.

The bit where they are torching the village near the start is great, and there should have been more of that and less merry snapping of multiple necks in a row.

Mechanics aside (as I enjoy them in both games), I can get behind a floating metropolis having a hefty wad of zealous militia, but an island that survives on shipwrecked bounty supporting a rude contingent of armed goons seems less likely in the displayed context.

Fiction eh.

these 'vidoegames'

I had much higher expectations for BioShock though, the fact that Tomb Raider isn't utter shit is a bonus. I suppose its not fair to compare a game which I anticipated for years to something that I picked up with vouchers because reg was going mad.

But you're right, those WWII weapons really hold up.

TheDJR wrote:

I had much higher expectations for BioShock though, the fact that Tomb Raider isn't utter shit is a bonus. I suppose its not fair to compare a game which I anticipated for years to something that I picked up with vouchers because reg was going mad.

But you're right, those WWII weapons really hold up.

Mechanics and stuff are arguable to a point, but you're right about Infinite. Mechanically it isn't amazing: the variety is there but it isn't encouraged. I had a blast with mucking about with stuff, my girlfriend just shocked everyone and had the same end result. Vigors are guns with different animations.

Tomb Raider appears to have decent depth to its mechanics too, with advantages to the bow vs the gun, but gain there isn't that much incentive to be inventive.

Howevet, that is besides the point to me, and expectation doesn't come into it for me either, as I bought both on a whim when they were cheap.

The main issue for me is believability, I can understand that a floating citadel designed to purge the Sodom of America would hae a big standing army of goons to drop on ther foes heads, but I've killed about 50 guys so far, and in struggling to convince myself that many more of them could feasibly exist on the island.

That an snapping the necks of 5 guys whilst their buddies stand their dumbfounded makes them a bit 'comedy henchman' instead of 'savage islander disparate for flesh to sacrifice.'

Obviously 'vidoegames' but as we continue to do games that direct themselves like film and television, and attempt to frame human struggle and philosophy and such like, so do the 'gamey' bits and mechanics jar even more.

It's what the wanky types call 'ludonarrarive dissonance'

I prefer that to men.

A fantastical setting gives you liberties, trying to make it 'the real' pays dividends for the times when it's Lara vs The Island, but makes waves of men appear ridiculous.

Smang wrote:

i do hope whatever sequels there are concentrate on the optional tomb side of things.

That would be the ideal, I guess. Back to mainly raiding big huge tombs, and nice platform-puzzling.

I'm a good few hours in thanks to the generosity of Rev () and I'm really enjoying it. Yes, the whole set up is slightly ridiculous with the sheer number of people on the island, not to mention the size of it, and is it supposed to be undiscovered or what? There's a hell of a lot of modern hardware lying around for no one to know about it, but whatever, it's good fun and I'm looking forward to discovering all of its secrets.

I presume that once the story is dealt with you can go back and clear up everything else at your own pace.

My mates wife played it at Eurogamer last year and bought it for herself when it came out. He said he watched her play it and it was the only game she has ever got on with. Is this new TR the Ford KA of games?

I was getting at the fact quite a few people have had their ladies play this and everyone I know who owns a KA is female. Didn't really get that across well, bad funnies.

I now have this on the computer thanks to Rev. By the sounds of it i'll probably enjoy this more than I did Bioshock Infinite.

But more than Revengeance I wonder? Ahaaaa we'l see.

Has Rev got this for everyone apart from me? What a cunt.

And DJ, Rev just passed on his copy to me as he was done with it and I'd expressed an interest.

I'm really enjoying it. Coming from a massive re-binge on Snake Eater I was a little dissapointed I couldn't stealth kill my way through every encounter and feast on crows I shoot down, but into the swing of it and it's great. The bow is particulary satisfying to use and the amount of nooks and crannies in the environment are tickling my OCD exploration nads.

Fuck ton better than Uncharted 3 if i'm going to compare them.