New game releases on the PC don’t generally ask too much of your hardware. That’s usually because developers have had to create a game that runs on the ageing Xbox 360 and PS3, which modern PC components easily out perform. The only company that has really forced upgrades on users in order to play more recent PC games is Microsoft, and that’s only because of a lack of DirectX support in Windows XP beyond DX9.

Developer Nixxes, which is handling development of the new Tomb Raider game for PC alongside Crystal Dynamics, has decided older systems and their owners still matter. If you want to play the latest Lara Croft adventure next month, you don’t need a performance rig sitting under you desk. In fact, you don’t even need Windows 7 or a DX10/11 graphics card.

In order to play Tomb Raider you only need to have the following core components:

• Dual core Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86GHz or AMD Athlon62 X2 2.1GHz
• 1GB RAM
• AMD Radeon HD 2600 XT or Nvidia 8600 DX9 graphics card
• Windows XP with Service Pack 3

That means if you have a system built back in 2007/8 there’s still a good chance the game will run. But don’t assume that means Tomb Raider won’t take advantage of what the latest hardware has to offer.

At the high end, the recommended specs for playing the game include:

• Quad core Intel Core i5-750 or AMD Phenom II X2 565
• 4GB RAM
• AMD Radeon HD 4870 or Nvidia GTX 480 DX11 graphics card
• Windows 7 or Windows 8

It’s certainly going to be a very different game in terms of visuals depending on where your PC lies between minimum and recommended specs. But it’s nice to have such a wide range of hardware supported, and hopefully that helps with sales in the long run.

If you plan on picking up Tomb Raider, it arrives on March 5 on PC as well as for PS3 and Xbox 360.

That might be a bit harsh, but it was over two months ago. And after all the jumping-running-shooting enemies in the head with flaming arrows, I simply could not bring myself to write a “final” review. Until today, that is.

I clearly suffered from a case of Writer’s Block. Sure, that might have been encouraged by other factors, such as Finding A Job IRL (mission accomplished, by the way). And yet, I couldn’t help but wondering why, after all the excitement of my first few hours of Tomb Raider, and after finishing the game, I still seemed to not want to review it.

There was only one solution: I had to figure out why I didn’t want to write about it, and then write about that.
After long and deep consideration (read: mind-numbing and yet illuminating hours of Italian trash TV), I came up with an answer: disappointment.

I know, I know. A bad review?! That’s so not me! After all, you love me because of my sunny disposition and my ability to see the positive side in everything and everyone.

To that I reply that this is not a bad review. I still think Tomb Raider is a great game: get in there if you haven’t done so already.

It’s just that its best part is also the first.

As soon as Lara turns into the Kickass Survivor, the narrative drive of the game plummets, and you’re left with a thoroughly clichéd experience: dodge the bullets, shoot the baddies, climb the mountains, save the girl (alas, we’ll get back to that), kill the final monster.

Now, I might be biased because A) I was always utterly shite at the whole Archery business – and this Lara just loooooooves her bow & arrow, and B) I’m thoroughly lost when it comes to the triggers on the XBox controller. Be as it may, the bottom line is that I found the whole second part of the game simply boring.

I am one of those people who need a good story to keep trying: when the story sinks, so does my interest. So when the new badass Lara is faced with a gazillion pseudo-samurai zombies who are incredibly stupid but take ages to die, I get bored. When the final battle with the Chief Samurai Zombie plays out exactly the same as Jin v. True Ogre circa 1998, I get bored.

And when the focus shifts away from Lara’s bildungsroman and onto her mission to Save Her Friends, I am made aware of how ridiculously formulaic everyone else in the game is. It’s as if the writers (or the producers) figured that if they made Lara more believable and less of a sex toy, surely they could get away with keeping all the other characters in the story safely stereotyped.

Sorry to break this to you, but it doesn’t work like that.

Honestly. The sassy black woman (obviously a single parent), the spiritual Hawaiian giant, the crazy Scotsman, the socially inept but ultimately heroic geek, the rough but loving Northerner/Father Figure, the German baddy. Last but not least in my Hall of Bad Writing Shame is Samantha “Sam” Nishimura, i.e. the ditzy and infantilised asian girl who ultimately takes on the role of Damsel in Distress. Yes, because while Lara is occasionally busy trying to save her male friends, the real narrative drive of the second part is her quest to save Sam from the evil hands of Mathias, the deranged priest who wants to sacrifice her to the island’s goddess.

I mean, really? Was that the best to make the game progress? I wouldn’t think so.

Yeah, it’s this bad.

Besides the bad characterisation, much has been said about how different this game is from the olden days of Tomb Raider: not enough puzzles in the main storyline, too much shooting, too little playing and too much of those big cinematic sequences with little interaction or skill required from the player.

Personally, I would have preferred more riddles and less shooting, but at the same time I loved the thrilling “movie-moments”: they engaged me and moved me in a way that big blockbuster movies don’t anymore.

At the cinema, I’ve seen it many times. No surprises, no empathy. In a game (or at least in the best parts of this game) I experienced them through I character I cared about and identified with. So I screamed, I jumped from my seat, I turned my head and closed my eyes when it all got too much to bear. The last time that happened to me in a theatre was probably for Jurassic Park, and I was nine.

OMG That’s still terrifying!

And so, for all the tropes and lazy shooting bits, I still enjoyed playing Tomb Raider.

In one sentence (or two): the best thing about Lara’s latest adventure is that it shows that games can be different; the worst thing is that, at some point, it just decides not to be.

[Angelina Jolie took tomb-raiding to a whole new level in her op-ed piece in yesterday's NY Times. In the article, the actress/humanitarian/wife/mother/and not-just-in-the-movies-an-ass-kicking-superhero-of-a-woman, shared her own absolute reality of confronting the shit out of  breast cancer—before cancer could even think of drawing its pistol out of its holster. She revealed she has the breast cancer gene and has taken decisive action against the BRCA1 mutation she inherited, by way of a recent prophylactic bilateral mastectomy. Reducing her risk of getting breast cancer from 87% to under 5% seems like a no-brainer. It also seems a little barbaric that in this day and age the best we have to offer in the way of a cure/prevention is amputation. Bravo, Namaste, Cheers to Jolie's health, and props to her, not only for the extreme courage in making such a difficult choice, but also in sharing her story with the world. Her willingness to use her superstar status to increase awareness will save lives. Literally, raid tombs. Collaterally, Jolie's article, which has gone viral, is bringing much-needed attention to some of the struggles carriers of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene face. In today's guest post, SCAR Girl Sara "Bartowski" Hamilton, who has written HERE about her own struggles as a Pre-vivor, weighs in on the discussion.]

Guest Post by SCAR Girl Sara “Bartowski” Hamilton

I am incredibly thankful to Angelina Jolie. It has been six years since my own prophylactic mastectomy and every time I am sure we have finally made it over the hurdle, I become aware we still have so far to go. And every time someone famous uses their platform to raise awareness and educate the masses, they help us make progress. Because Angelina chose to share her story, more families will hear about the possibility of a genetic component behind family members dying of cancer. They may choose to seek out genetic counseling. They may start communicating about a topic that is very painful. Angelina Jolie talks about her beloved mother and the pain she has that some of her children will never know their grandmother. My mom carries the same pain – my sisters and I only know our Nona through photos and stories. Talking about what is tearing families apart can be difficult but maybe Angelina’s story will help people find courage to talk about the possibility of a genetic component. And having the knowledge of a genetic mutation will help people be able to make choices fully armed with the current research and knowledge we have available.

True to her humanitarian nature, Angelina openly discussed the costs of genetic testing. Let’s be real, for Angelina, this is a drop in her bucket but she understands those costs are going to be prohibitive to others. Immediately my mind went to the case before the Supreme Court and their upcoming ruling on whether or not Myriad will be able to hold a patent on our genes. The reason our testing is so expensive and, therefore, often not possible for those who don’t have thousands sitting in their bank account is because Myriad currently holds a patent. This patent has allowed them to keep the price high when, in fact, the testing should at most cost a couple hundred dollars.

Not surprisingly, I also immediately saw comments from those who show up to judge the choices Angelina has made. Having dealt with harsh judgment throughout my own journey from prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with construction to my recent “deconstruction”, the critics struck a sensitive chord that I feel I’m particularly qualified to address. I wish the critics recognize these choices are not entered into lightly and without heavy consideration. Understandably, this upsets some of my BRCA sisters. It is difficult to make such a life altering decision and then have a mob of cruel critics tell you that you were being drastic or rash. I encourage my BRCA sisters to take these judgments as evidence of the work we still have to do; we obviously have many people who still need to be educated. But don’t take it personally. Stand strong in the reasons you made the choices you made and let your story continue to be told to help those who come behind. Let it also continue driving us to actively embrace that we all have choices and we must reach out our hands to support each other in these choices. The choice to be tested, the choice of surveillance, the choice of prophylactic surgeries, the choice of reconstruction, the choice of being flat*. And every choice is valid. None of our choices are easy but we all make the choices that we feel are best for us in that moment. And I am a perfect example that sometimes our choices will change…and that is okay too.

Later this morning, Brad Pitt showed up for some mad love. He publicly commented on Angelina’s choices and said:

Having witnessed this decision firsthand, I find Angie’s choice, as well as so many others like her, absolutely heroic…All I want for is for her to have a long and healthy life, with myself and our children. This is a happy day for our family. 

Maybe for some people it would seem strange that we applaud Brad for making this statement. However, I have talked to the women who decide not to go forward with a prophylactic mastectomy because their partner is not supportive. I have talked to women who are single who and terrified their decision will impact their ability to find a partner. In my own journey, I remember the very real fear and wondering if my husband would find me less than…and again when I was facing extraction I thought surely my hubby would never be able to look at me, touch me again. I love that Brad has spoken because he has given a voice to the men I know – my hubby, the husbands of some of my SCAR sisters – he has shown there are men who find the worth and beauty of a woman in more than her breast tissue. He embraces and admires Angelina’s choices and that is what should be and yet is often overlooked in our stories. I am incredibly proud of the men I know who embrace the choices of their partner and support them any way they can and I am thankful their story has a small piece of the spotlight today as well.

The fact remains, there is NO cure for breast cancer. It kills thousands every year. Genetic cancer, we are told, comes earlier and more aggressively. We also are told that we are at higher risk for recurrence. I pray every day a cure will be found…for my children, for my friends. We can all help get a little closer by not buying into the pink washing of our society – spend time reading about The SCAR Project, Bright Pink, FORCE. Do some hard research about where your donations are going and make educated choices on where you want your money spent. And start raising your voice with us as we scream for a cure.

Much love  to you, Angelina Jolie. I wish you did not have to join our sisterhood but I applaud you, one of our newest sisters, for raising your voice and telling the world your story.

*Sara and fellow SCAR girl Barbie Ritzco have founded a Flat AND Fabulous awareness group on Facebook, and a Flat AND Fabulous support group page as well, for those living the Flat AND Fabulous lifestyle.

Via No Game No Talk.

I wrote down some short and simple thoughts about the Tomb Raider reboot over at NGNT. Hopefully this will help clear a bit of my gaming writer’s block.

There’s an emphasis on the word ‘shipped’ because like many other videogame publishers, they say ‘shipped’ because this makes it sound more impressive, when in actual fact, the game hasn’t sold 3.7 million copies, as a lot of copies are either still in stores or are indeed still on a ship.

Take-Two are really rubbing salt in the wounds of Sqaure-Enix with their showboating today, as just last month Square revealed Tomb Raider, Hitman and WatchDog all failed to hit their expected number of sales. Shockingly Tomb Raider only sold 3.6 million copies. Hitman and WatchDog sold significantly less, though they still sold significantly more than most other games that many other developers/publishers could only dream of.

Ever since Bioshock Infinite launched there’s been a silence in the camps of developer 2K Games and publisher Take-Two, as many fans have demanded an explanation for the game’s ending which made absolutely no sense whatsoever. It’s only a matter of time before the inevitable Ending 2 DLC pack will be released it seems, because gamers always get what they want.

Aslo under scrutiny was the shooting aspect of Bioshock Infinite. Considering it is a first person shooter, there was a hell of a lot of shooting. Although the game disappointed a lot of hardcore Bioshock fans, critics seemingly loved it and couldn’t see any faults with it. It’s like they had written their review without playing it first. strange. Alas, though, it will still win game of the year.

Tomb Raider adalah video game action-adventure. Diterbitkan oleh Square Enix, Tomb Raider adalah gelar kelima yang dikembangkan oleh Crystal Dynamics dalam franchise Tomb Raider. Sebagai entri pertama dalam Tomb Raider kontinuitas baru, permainan ini adalah reboot yang menekankan asal-usul rekonstruksi memimpin budaya berpengaruh karakter Lara Croft. Tomb Raider dirilis pada 5 Maret 2013 untuk PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 dan Microsoft WindowsSetelah merilis Tomb Raider: Underworld pada tahun 2008, Crystal Dynamics memulai pengembangan Tomb Raider. Daripada sekuel, tim memutuskan untuk benar-benar me-reboot seri, menetapkan asal-usul Lara Croft untuk kedua kalinya, setelah Tomb Raider: Legend. Tomb Raider diatur pada Yamatai, sebuah pulau yang Lara Croft harus menyelamatkan teman-temannya dan melarikan diri, saat sedang diburu oleh kultus jahat. Elemen gameplay lebih berfokus pada kelangsungan hidup, meskipun eksplorasi yang digunakan dalam permainan ketika Anda menjelajahi pulau dan berbagai makam opsional. Itu juga merupakan permainan pertama dalam seri untuk memiliki multiplayer dan game pertama yang akan diterbitkan oleh Square Enix, setelah akuisisi yang terakhir dari Eidos Interactive pada tahun 2009. Camilla Luddington diumumkan untuk menyuarakan dan tampil sebagai Lara Croft pada tahun 2010, menggantikan Keeley Hawes.

Photos by Andrey Zhigachev

Back in the distant 20th Century in the year 1996 a game came out that changed video gaming as we knew it. Not only was graphically and environmentally ground breaking but it put the character at the heart of the story, not just the action. Of course it helped that she also had enormous, pointy, boobs.

I loved the Tomb Raider games growing up. I enjoyed the puzzles – as frustrating as they often were – and the action could be genuinely hairy. Sadly, like so many franchises of its day, it became the victim of its own success and soon Lara Croft was surrounded by bastard children each uglier than the last. I hung in there with the series until the Angel of Darkness that looked so bad I resigned myself to the notion that Tomb Raider would become nothing more than a cash camel for the publishers until sales dropped enough that they could close the studio and move the developers on to something else.

I played Anniversary for nostalgia’s sake in 2007/2008. And it was fine but all it was was a veneer over old levels. I know the clue was in the name but it pushed ‘homage’ to its absolute limits. I even bought Underworld. But didn’t get past the first level, the novelty of ‘realistic environmental impact’ – she got dirty basically – wearing off incredibly quickly along with the overly fussy targeting system.

And there things would have ended had not some bright spark decided to jump on the reboot band wagon and hit the reset button. At first I met the news with indifference, then mild disdain when I heard the story was going to be an origins piece. I rolled my eyes and I may have uttered an obscenity or two – not like me at all – and moaned about how video game developers were getting as bad as studios for resetting a clock rather than just drawing a line under the shite and moving stories along.

Then I saw visuals. The grim, gritty and visceral realism appealed to me hugely. Because I’m mental presumably. The focus was the story, which is where it should be but driven by a beautiful looking graphics engine and impressive game play. At least, that’s how it seemed.

And you know what? It kinda delivered.

So the premise isn’t a complicated one. A young Lara – she’s 18 so it’s okay to still stare at her tits – is on a merry quest to prove herself to her long lost/dead (delete as appropriate). It all goes tits up when the ship – typically called the Endurance – hits a storm and gets ship wrecked. And, obviously, much mentalness ensues surrounding a sun goddess with natives and weather patterns that would be right at home in Lost. And seeing as there’s ship and plane wrecks from just about every era in history you’d be forgiven, on occasion, for getting the two confused.

It’s not a complaint per se, it just highlights the devil is in the details, and some of the details aren’t very original. But then again Tomb Raider is basically Indiana Jones with boobs so what the hell.

Although the previous incarnations never worried about mentally scarring its audience with crypts, animal slaying and being dismembered by dinosaurs, the new Tomb Raider gets so grim and dark it comes dangerously close to getting a cease and desist letter from the Games Workshop. At times the physical and mental abuse that Lara experiences is tough to watch at times, realised as it is with some truly stunning cut sequences. I swear at one point she’s drenched head to foot in human blood. This shit ain’t for kids. 14 year old me probably would have had nightmares. Some of the death scenes even for my jaded and cynical eyes are a tad too much to bare too with, depending on which quick time event you fuck up, sees Lara getting her face impaled on a metal spike or bodily impaled on a tree branch with all the properties of a metal spike.

Sadly the quick time events are back. I’ve never been a fan of quick time events because it’s just a way of punishing you for wanting to sit back and watch the action. Anniversary handled quick time events quite well giving you reasonably time to respond. Tomb Raider 2013 is rather brutalwith the speed it expects you to press buttons. Needless to say the story isn’t flexible enough that a bodged quick time event could lead to the same end point but along a more unpleasant path, instead it usually results in a grim and unpleasant death.

Equally some sections feel very formulaic to the point you’d mistake them for a series of Steven Segal movies. But instead of his buddy getting shot in the arm or the bag guy punching the car window where Segal’s face use to be it goes something like this: action sequence, exploration sequence, action sequence, wander about like a twat, break something plummet down a slope or fast flowing water whilst avoiding inplausibly positioned barriers and other unpleasant obstacles. It wouldn’t be so bad weren’t those ‘sliding’ sequences so intensely unforgiving and take a couple of stabs to complete. And seeing as they’re an inconvenience and purely a mechanism to move Lara a significant distance without making the player grind their way through pointless set changes, you’d think they would make them a little easier to navigate.

Not that the game is hard to navigate. Long gone is the aimless wandering around environments. Instead everything is conveniently laid out on a map so you can find relics, note books – which give you a very cool insight into the shenanigans that have gone on prior to Lara’s arrival – with relative ease. In fact, because the controls are so intuitive, including instinct sight which highlights key objects and terrain features in yellow for a moment or two, a lot of the challenge has gone from the game. It’s not entirely bad. Lara will no longer allow you to walk her off a cliff edge. She will also crouch for you rather than having to hold a sodding button. Because of this fluid movement she finally feels like a person rather than a statue that weebles around just to face a different direction. But the important thing is that it feels like a Tomb Raider game. Puzzles still need to be solved, ledges climbed and rock faces to be scaled.

The challenge comes from the beautifully realised environment which can turn on you at the drop of a hat, and bad guys which range from shooty mental to run at you with bloody great machetes mental. And the AI is good too. On normal they will attempt to suppress and out flank you whilst all the while attempting to burn you out of your cove with Molotov cocktails and explosives. They keep you under pressure so God knows what hard is like. And your cover breaks apart too. The game does give you plenty of objects to help you blow up or set fire to your assailants though so it’s not all bad but even with that Brucey bonus I still felt hard pressed at times to deal with enemies.

The combat is the slickest it’s ever been although some times the camera does struggle to keep up. The weapons feel balanced and their existence justified, but there are times when the game tries to push you into playing a particular way and when you don’t enemies are defeated with surprising ease. The key is usually long range manging of faces.

Where it gets a bit daft is the endless foraging for scrap that allows you to turn, for example, a World War 2 Japanese Type 100 SMG into an AK-47 and a simple recurve bow into a compound bow. I don’t claim to understand the mechanics of firearms but I did use to do archery and that’s a staggering amount of bullshit. However, it’s a reasonably clever way of improving weapons to compete with the ever increasing stakes. And to be fair a lot of the upgrades are extremely cool, it’s just nonsense that a person with no formal training in such ‘bush engineering’ (fnar fnar) could turn a pistol into a commando pistol. There’s also a range of natty skills that you can develop along the way including some brutal finishing moves which look fantastic.

Tomb Raider, despite its slightly formulaic campaign progression, irritating quick times and nonsensical equipment development, is a superb game. The story is nicely paced, the stakes getting amped up with Lara being pushed further and further, gradually becoming the wall climbing, gun toting adventurer we all were captivated by 17 years ago. And this time her boobs won’t impale you if you get too close. The difficulty curve is pretty much perfect too, with shit getting real…um…er at a rate that won’t make you throw down the controller in frustration. Tomb Raider is just fun. Huge piles of it. It doesn’t get bogged down with the weight of expectation, it just massively entertains. It’s a worthy start to a new saga and I’m looking forward to what happens next.

Square Enix said today it lost $134 million on revenues of $1.455 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31. When the Japanese video game maker announced that it expect the loss last month, its longtime chief executive Yoichi Wada resigned from the top job.

The company’s problem is that sales of traditional console and PC games are dropping, but digital sales aren’t rising fast enough to offset those losses. And the games that Square Enix was counting on to be hits — from Tomb Raider to Sleeping Dogs — haven’t sold as many copies as the company expected. In that respect, the Japanese company is in the same situation as many other publishers — facing disruption from mobile and social games. And Square Enix and others are having a tough time adapting to the transition to digital distribution.

Square Enix said its loss for the fiscal year compared to a profit of $59 million and sales of $1.255 billion a year earlier. In a statement, the company blamed the decline in operating income due to the “underperformance of major titles for consumer game consoles in North America and Europe.”

But the company touted its efforts in social, browser, and mobile games. During the year, it launched Sengoku Ixa, a browser game, Final Fantasy Brigade on the Mobage mobile social network, and Kaku-San-Sei Million Arthur. Meanwhile, Dragon Quest X, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, has been showing “steady performance” in Japan (it’s not in the U.S. yet). The company said that smartphone and tablet gaming is spreading rapidly, while the console game markets in North America and Europe are “increasingly competitive and oligopolistic.” As a result, the company is amid a reorganization aimed at establishing a new base of revenues.

The company said, “The group anticipates major transformation in the structure of the digital entertainment industry.” That means digital entertainment will be network-connnected and consumers will access a diverse range of content on multi-function devices.

She surprised me a lot. Especially with the dry tone.
Probably a very good poker player.

I’ve been thinking about it for some time but I guess it’s time to tackle the stuff: In my next post I want to look into the “Tomb Raider” reboot a little. (Is that correct English? I should get some sleep…)

Some probably didn’t expect game content on this blog. I actually didn’t intend to, but it’s just part of my life; leaving it out would mean to neglect all the opportunities for cool stories.
(I’m pretty shy about being myself.
If you don’t know what I mean: Congrats, I guess your normal.
If you understand me: … Welcome. *eerie grin*)

As always, cheers!

Envoltos em um mar maldito

Sabia que do outro lado do globo, próximo ao Japão, encontra-se um lugar tão misterioso quanto o Triângulo das Bermudas conhecido como Mar do Diabo, ou ainda Triângulo do Dragão? Pois é justamente para este lugar que a inexperiente Lara e um grupo de pesquisa arqueológica resolve ir para poder procurar por algum vestígio ou pista de Yamatai, um antigo império que teria uma poderosa rainha capaz de criar tempestades e controlar o Sol, a Rainha Himiko. Como é de praxe em histórias de aventura, algo dará tremendamente errado e um grande problema será criado. No caso, uma intensa tempestade faz o navio no qual eles estão partir-se ao meio (sim, um navio chamado RESISTÊNCIA se parte ao meio com uma chuva) e todos que nele estavam são arremessados a própria sorte no mar revolto do Triângulo do Dragão. Assim Lara acaba por chegar a uma ilha, um tanto bizarra por sinal, que é habitada por fanáticos cultistas, ter destroços dos mais variados tipos de navio e aviões e sem esquecer dos vestígios de Yamatai. Tudo que você adoraria ver em uma ilha envolta por um mar caótico e com diversas tempestades, após seu navio partir-se ao meio. É válido comentar a intensa humanização da personagem, prometida tantas vezes pelas desenvolvedoras e que foi utilizada de uma maneira triunfal no título. Você não verá uma exploradora fraca ou medrosa, não, a mesma Lara que você conhece está lá. Forte e corajosa, tal qual
nos seus primeiros games, aqui o grande ponto abordado é a inexperiência e a insegurança da recém-formada. Ou seja, uma Lara mais humana, mas sem abandonar o espírito aventureiro que a guia desde os seus primeiros jogos e torná-la uma jovem frágil.

A Ilha e seus encantos

A ilha é quase que um segundo personagem no jogo, sendo misteriosa e ao mesmo tempo encantadora, afinal não serão poucas as vezes que vai se pegar olhando boquiaberto para algum ambiente, que parece ter sido projetado com grande empenho pelas desenvolvedoras. Desenvolvedora aliás, que parece querer realmente fazer você olhara para a ilha, afinal temos tantos penhascos, montanhas e cordas de escalada que nos dão diversas chances para ver a bela ilha da Crystal Dynamics. E a cada progresso seu, a cada novo item, uma nova camada do local se abrirá, permitindo atingir outros locais, antes impossíveis de ser explorados. Tornando cada item ou arma, não só algo para se colecionar, mas algo para poder se aproveitar melhor da ilha e melhorar os desempenhos em combates. Mas o que lhe fará entrar de vez na trama de Lara será a câmera, sempre no melhor ângulo para te fazer imergir nas sensações da personagem. Frio, dor, ódio e insegurança conseguirão ser passados a você por inteligentes jogadas de câmera e o desempenho excepcional de Camilla Luddington no papel da exploradora, dignas de um Oscar. Assim não se assuste ao entender o que se passa na cabeça de Lara só observando o personagem andar por aí. Mas você já deve estar cansado de ouvir o quão sensacional foi a humanização da exploradora, né? Pois então falemos do principal foco do game, a exploração. A exploração está fluída e bem amigável, ainda mais com os novos recursos, como o Survival Instinct, que faz Lara analisar o mundo ao redor e notar coisas não descobertas (coletáveis e outros), e o progresso é salvo a cada conquista. Como todos sabem, o combate nunca foi um dos maiores pontos altos dos games da série, mas esse acaba por ter uma boa execução. Basicamente você tem duas formas de atuar em um combate, saindo feito um louco atirando ao redor ou ser mais estrategista, armar emboscadas e armadilhas para um ataque silencioso e furtivo. As armas presentes no jogo servem perfeitamente bem o jogador para qualquer uma das maneiras que ele quiser adotar e a sua personalização aprimora ainda mais o sistema. Vale notar que por esta ser a primeira aventura na cronologia da exploradora, é também aqui que ela fará sua primeira morte e terá que se adaptar a matar, pois ou ela irá matar, ou ela irá morrer. E posso dizer que a sensação dela não será das melhores por ter de fazer isso.

Uncharted sem o Drake?

Este era o medo dos fãs da franquia, pois na geração em que Lara ficou de ressaca fora de seu trono de rainha da exploração, Nathan Drake praticamente o tomou para si em 3 jogos, mais spinoffs, em grande estilo. Logo os fãs estavam temerosos que o jogo acabasse com sua identidade própria e se tornasse um amontoado de clichês vindos diretamente de Uncharted. Felizmente não foi isso que ocorreu. Não digo que o novo Tomb Raider não abuse vez ou outra de clichês presentes na franquia da Naughty Dog e em tantas outras do gênero, mas não podemos nos esquecer que muitos foram criados pela própria franquia há muitos anos atrás. E mesmo estes acabam por se perder e não tiram o brilho do game, a tensão presente na aventura e o grande impacto emocional da protagonista nos faz pouco perceber a presença desses clichês, fazendo-os soar como o rumo natural da história e sem ficar parecendo algo forçado, como em outros títulos por aí que conseguem criar no mo- mento X a história rumar de tal maneira que faz um Deus ex machina parecer algo natural. Lara Croft não voltou para ficar a sombra de Drake, mas para compartilhar o trono que já lhe pertenceu, e quem sabe, futuramente, conquistá-lo de vez. Seguindo uma das atuais modinhas entre as análises deste jogo, eu parafrasearei a IGN e afirmarei com certeza que este foi: “Um novo amanhecer para Lara”.
OBS: O modo multyplayer não foi citado ao longo da análise, pois é simplesmente risível perto da campanha single player do título. Logo era melhor gastar linhas com a boa parte do game, a campanha, que o faz brilhar.

]]> http://squallstories.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/tomb-raider-spoiled-games/ Sun, 12 May 2013 12:25:05 +0000 squallstories http://squallstories.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/tomb-raider-spoiled-games/

Great video discussing Tomb Raider <3 such a fantastic game :3

I could go on about how they both provided a complete experience for the money I paid. Neither of them required that I pay for DLC to complete a game that was clearly not finished but unfortunately shipped. I enjoyed the progression of my characters as they found new ways of navigating their world or overcoming enemies and obstacles that they encountered. All fantastic qualities in a game. But that isn’t what made these two games stand out for me.

What astounded me was that both these games told me a story like no other medium in human history has been able to until recently. That is the beauty of video games when they are done right, they are an aggregate of all of humanities innovations in story telling. 

The late Robert Ebert died convinced that video games could never be considered a form of art. I find this rather sad more than anything else. He passed judgement on a medium he was reluctant to understand. In the article above he basically uses the arguments put forward by Kellee Santiago and swiftly discredits them with two major counter arguments; One, no one person in the short history of video games has been compared to any of histories great poets, paints, writers of film makers. Two, no participants from professional sports or games such as chess or mah jong have argued that their beloved game is a form or art, so why should video games be any different.

Obviously I am not prepared to call every single video game a piece of art. Equally so, not all paintings or specimen of the written word are truly works of art in their respective forms. In my opinion, when something crafted by one or many human beings evokes emotion in you, touches you at your core, then it is worthy of being called art. But that is my opinion, an I am no authority on the subject. I am simply a human being who enjoyed two truly wonderful experiences crafted by people passionate in their individual fields and who came together to create memorable video games.

At the end of each game I felt that bit of sadness most of us feel when we read the last words of a great novel, my head filled with experiences and emotions that aren’t my own and a longing to know more about the characters I have come to know.  Games that leave me in such a state are few and far between. I am just grateful to be able to experience and appreciate them. I hope you will as well.

R.B.

If these Cambodian temples are enough to inspire an Angelina adoption spree, clearly they’re worth a visit!

At first, this only required that I ensure I had ample camera battery and space on my memory card remaining when I arrived. Now, although this is a staple task during virtually all of my travel outings, this time it was easier said than done. My camera began looming over the menacing 1/3 charge level dangerously early in the day and my card only holds 500 photos, the majority of which I had already used, and the remainder I needed to save for the rest of my excursions. Nonetheless, with (a lot of) self-control, I was able to curb my trigger-finger and maintain a reasonable photo-taking pace (comparatively, for being at the most opulent temples I have ever seen).

However, this little happening doesn’t involve any tomb raiding like the title mentions, so the plot only thickens from here. First, a little explanation about temple-viewing procedures: at the gates to each temple complex, you have to show your Angkor-pass to the Angkor-authorities. Although the whole circuit only has one entrance, and it would be significantly more convenient just to check passes once there, you nonetheless have to show it at each individual temple.  Not the most exciting bit of information, I know, so it was far from my mind as I ran-skipped towards the entrance to Ta Prohm in an excited fever (yes, a fever, it was mid day, sunny and over 30C). As I approached the gate, I reached in my bag to pull out my wallet, only to react in terror as I realized that neither my wallet nor my Angkor-pass was there.

Realizing the horror of not being able to see Ta Prohm, I dashed back to the Tuk Tuk I was touring in, and instructed the driver to return to the last temple I had visited, Ta Som. Time was of the essence and I stressed this urgency to the driver, but Cambodia is infamous for being full of slow drivers, and although there was a bit of notable change in speed, the ride back to Ta Som still felt like the longest one of my life (which is say a lot, as I has just taken a 12 hour ride from Saigon to Siem Reap). The Angkor-authorities at Ta Som fortunately recognised me and let me back in without my pass. Upon entering before, they had looked sceptically at my friend, claiming she and the girl on her Angkor-pass were “same-same but different”, as she had recently switched her glasses for contact lenses. Now, this “same-same but different” saying is a weakness for all tourists in Southeast Asia, (its just so hilarious to hear) and is often used to make them buy silly shirts, or to distract them while haggling at a market. This being said, my friend was able to prove her identity by showing the guard her glasses (she didn’t even need to put them on, just prove she owned a pair). I, on the other hand, had been disarmed, laughing distractedly as I put my wallet and Angkor-pass away.

Upon returning and scouring the entire temple multiple times over, I had to admit that someone had taken it.

Not the easiest place to search, to say the least!

While I had money and my student pass in my wallet, the main concern of the moment was the lack of ability to get into Ta Prohm. I begged the guard to explain my situation to the Angkor-authorities there, but he stubbornly refused to leave his post. Not willing to give up that easily, I nonetheless instructed the driver to return to Ta Prohm, claiming I wanted to search the area for my missing pass. After a quick scan of the area (namely the trash bin I had thrown my water bottle in – recycling isn’t a big thing in Cambodia), I “accidentally” veered off the main path, past a restoration site, along another trail and towards a back entrance to Ta Prohm, which, “strangely enough” wasn’t host to any Angkor-authorities.

Come in, come in! 

While the Ta Prohm I finally made it to was built as a school and monastery, not as the home of the Triangle of Light, and didn’t even have any Jasmine growing around it, as Lara Croft would have you believe, it was still an awe-inspiring fusion of nature and ancient architecture, definitely the highlight of the Angkor tour.

So maybe I’m a better explorer than raider..!

The concept of this series of blog posts is 3 fold:

1. Play 50 games that I’ve never played before over (roughly) 50 days.

2. Write reviews of the games.

3. Select games on the basis that they’re cheap and offer an alternative to the cost of going out.

I thought this would be pretty cool as I’ve built up kind of a backlog of games and I wanted to play them as well as build up my review base.

*In all honesty, work is going to get in the way of hitting 50 games in 50 days but hey, it’s something to aim for!

13 – Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider is available across Xbox, PC and PS3 for a very reasonable 20 quid.

Lara Croft is a hard bastard.

Seriously, this woman can take an insane amount of punishment before she gives up the ghost (I was going to write ‘goes down’ there but I don’t want this intro getting all smutty) and dies. Over the course of this game she is subjected to the kind of punishment we usually reserve for imaginative tortures we’d wish on our worst enemies. How many times is this girl going to get strung up in a charnel house anyway? I can pause here if you like whilst you go and look up ‘charnel house’. It’s fine, my spell-checker doesn’t recognise it either. She’s brutal too – Lara starts off a little perturbed by the act of killing another human being but once she cottons on to how easy it is – and it is remarkably easy in this game – she soon manages to leave her inhibitions at the cave entrance and get on with some conscience-free bloody murder and mayhem. This woman cauterizes her own leg wounds with arrowheads heated up with the lighter she looted from a corpse and seconds later she’s out bounding around like a satanic gazelle looking for her next victim. That Croft woman, she don’t give a fuck. She’ll shoot an arrow into your brain from 60 yards away or ram a climbing axe through your skull before you can say, “Wait, I’m not with these guys!” or whatever. Yeah, look out for Lara on the next season of Britain’s Hardest Gangsters because she’s a shoo-in to be there.

I think if you have any familiarity with the Tomb Raider series before you approach this reboot, the thing that’s going to surprise you the most is the violence. Someone seems to really have enjoyed killing off Lara Croft, be it with metal work piercing her jaw, crushing death beneath boulders or impaling the poor girl on broken tree branches, the camera does like to linger. These moments are not an easy watch, especially for someone like me who has a shred of human decency still left and doesn’t necessarily enjoy watching people’s (even computer generated ones) last, twitching, frantic grasps at life. I guess it would sort of make sense if there was more of the ‘survival’ element to the game that it seems to suggest early on. If there was a real punishment for dying and that death didn’t come so often at the hands of yawnsome QTE* moments then perhaps that impact would be greater. As it is, the scenes are just a bit gross and then you’re straight back to the action.

Lara’s main weapon and tool in the game is the bow and arrow. I don’t understand why this has become de rigueur lately, with bows popping up in many action games (Far Cry 3 and Crysis 3 to name a couple) as the go-to means for the stealth kill. Surely it’s time for a blowpipe renaissance or something. Anyway, the bow is pretty fun and when you get the ability to shoot arrows and rope around the place the world opens up somewhat and there are some decent puzzles that use this skill. You also get to employ some higher calibre stuff  too, and the weapons you find are upgradeable through bits and pieces scavenged on the island.

Graphically, Tomb Raider is utterly stunning. It’s one of those games that can seriously take your breath away and if you can remember what Lara looked like 17 years ago you, like me, will probably be wondering where the hell graphics are going to be in 2030. Actually, hopefully by then we’ll just be plugging game experiences directly into our brains and there’ll be no need for ‘graphics’ as such. Oh man, the future is going to be awesome!

In many respects, Tomb Raider hasn’t changed much in 17 years. It’s still about exploration, jumping about the place, shooting people and animals and yes, raiding tombs (even though at one point she professes to hate tombs – LOL! IKR?!). The platforming is more forgiving than in the olden days, although perhaps that is due to the easier way in which we control Lara and the baddies are easier to dispatch. There is still that great sense of exploration however and the island that provides the setting for this new Tomb Raider game has varied enough locales to keep up with the globe hopping Lara of the earlier titles.

Tomb Raider is an ‘event game’ for this generation of consoles. I strongly suggest that you play it now whilst it still looks at its’ peak. It’s not going to be a game you go back to year after year but as a spectacle for today it’s worth the time and money investment. Think of it in terms of summer popcorn movie – spectacular and shallow at the same time. Fun while it lasts and it will certainly give you a few talking points after the credits have rolled.

Oh yeah, there’s multiplayer too but I couldn’t be arsed with it.

Jargon Buster

QTE – Quick Time Event – Involves pressing buttons when they flash up on screen, usually used in set-piece moments of gameplay in order for your character to achieve something they couldn’t normally with the regular controls. Failure often results in instant death.

The Survivor referenced in the title is none other than me, and what it means is that I completed Tomb Raider (it’s the name of an achievement by the way (not the poop bit though),  not just some corny line I made up in an attempt to make this post seem badass). So yes, Tomb Raider is done, and I must say that it is easily one of my favourite games of 2013. There was never a dull moment in Tomb Raider – I haven’t had so much fun with a game for a while actually. Also, as I’ve mentioned several times before, it is absolutely gorgeous. Here’s a picture to remind you:

and since that one was so pretty, let’s just take another…

So yes, Tomb Raider was great, BUT! One thing that struck me was that despite following Lara every step of the journey, from her hunting for food to eating and sleeping and feeling miserable, she never ever sees to her uglier needs. Lara does not take a single whizz or dump throughout the entire game. It’s not even implied that she sneaks away off camera to cleanse her system. Nope. Women don’t poop. It’s no big deal really, but it struck me as… odd. It’s not like it breaks the game or anything, so I’ll just leave it as a curious observation. To take your minds off that, here’s another pretty screen shot!

So, the ending hinted at enough for me to be extremely excited for the next entry in this reinterpretation of Lara Croft – one thing though, Crystal Dynamics – GIVE ME MOOOAARR TOMBS TO RAID!

I’ve been lucky enough to travel fairly extensively in my life so far, but there are still whole continents left for me to explore, so there are plenty of places on my list of destinations. It’s almost too much to write about really! Which is sort of ironic given the title of this blog! I suppose I still feel like I did last night… That in order to really do this subject justice I would take a good couple of days writing it! Anyway I will persevere with this post!

So… I’m not going to write about where I’ve been or where I would like to go. I’m going to write about why I love to travel, and why I dream of it still.

I love to travel for the awe of discovery. The feeling that there is nothing else quite like what you are seeing in the whole world. I suppose it’s a very childlike wonder, to be in the presence of something almost incomprehensibly large, old, beautiful or complex.

My first sense of what that would be like came at a young age when I played Tomb Raider for the first time. It may sound funny, but it was a groundbreaking game and back then we weren’t used to huge areas to explore in games. The sense of scale was truly impressive and the moment you first send Lara through that cave and suddenly you’re in the entrance of a chamber with a colossal old statue in the centre, that you knew no one had seen for hundreds if not thousands of years. It was really exciting! That’s what I like to imagine when I travel. I love to think about what it was like for those first western travellers, making their way through the jungles of Cambodia only to come across a sight like this:

Or what it was like to travel the deserts of Jordan, walking through valleys of stone and slowly realising the rocks and cliffs have begun to take on a more uniform shape:

Or basically to have been Captain Cook…

Imagine seeing these things in quiet solitary, without coach loads of tourists or peddlers of cheap souvenirs. Without a map. Without having any idea what to expect next. Imagine being part of the group who uncovers more and more of the sights in a new location. Imagine being part of the dig that discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun back in 1922.

For me it’s almost too incredible to comprehend, but that’s how I feel when I travel to these places, because they may now be tourist destinations, but they’re all new to me and truly, truly wondrous.

1. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien: Resurrection)

Simply one of the greatest cinematic characters of all time, regardless of gender. Given the considerable amount of screen time focused on her in her pants, Ripley still manages to show the freaky xenomorphs with the mini mouths who’s boss. So what if she has creepy sex with one of them in the fourth film and becomes the proud parent of what can only be described as the leftovers from a Sunday roast? She’s still the quintessential bad mamma jamma.

2. Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton: The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day)

Coming in a close second we have Sarah Connor, specifically the Sarah Connor portrayed by Linda Hamilton in the the first tow Terminator offerings. Arnie had the memorable lines but we all know Judgment Day was about Hamilton and her big guns. She makes the transition from victim to superbad heroine over the course of the films’ combined plots, and I love it.

3. The Bride (Uma Thurman: Kill Bill Vol. 1, Kill Bill Vol. 2)

In a series of films that on the whole were overly time consuming and ultimately unsatisfying, Uma Thurman’s performance as ‘The Bride’, real name Beatrix Kiddo, is Kill Bill‘s saving grace. Her stoic presence and incredibly impressive martial arts skills put Beatrix up there with the best of them and prove the saying that hell, truly, hath no fury like a woman scorned.

4. Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster: The Silence Of The Lambs)

This applies to Jodie Foster’s portrayal only. Julianne Moore did a perfectly fine job in Hannibal, but I maintain that the decision not to wait for Foster’s pregnancy to end and go ahead casting a new actress in the part is one of the worst in film history. Jodie Foster is Clarice Starling, no two ways about it, she’s got the Oscar to prove it.

5. Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle Of Life)

Lara Croft is one of the abiding memories of my childhood, both in computer game and motion picture form. All the girls wanted to be her and all the boys wanted to be with her. One of those cases where the casting is absolutely perfect, I can’t imagine anybody else but Angelina playing the part.

6. Thelma Dickinson and Louise Sawyer (Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon: Thelma & Louise)

It would have been unfair to separate this duo. Partners in crime in life and partners in death, Thelma and Louise will not tolerate your bullshit and there are about half a dozen men in the south of America who can attest to that, including a rapist with a bullet in his heart and creepy truck driver with an exploded oil truck. You go girls.

7. Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence: The Hunger Games)

A very contemporary inclusion in the list but thoroughly deserving of her place nonetheless. There’s nothing Katniss can’t do with a bow and arrow, and Jennifer Lawrence can do no wrong in my eyes.

8. Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer: Batman Returns)

Anne Hathaway just brought Catwoman to the attentions of the newer, younger generation, but for me it is all about Michelle Pfieffer in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns. Way more creepy and way more badass.

9. Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts: Erin Brockovich)

Erin Brockovich wasn’t a punchy, shooty, kicky kind of badass. She was the kind of badass that could win you millions of dollars in compensation with no qualifications whilst bringing up three kids and attempting to maintain a relationship with a Hell’s Angel. And the best part is that it’s based on a true story, possibly the most kick-ass of them all.

10. Mulan (Ming-Na Wen: Mulan)

Let’s just think about this. A young girl runs away from home, disguises herself as a man, joins the army, single handedly wins a war against the Huns, and then bags her man in the end. She can carry a tune too, what more do you need to do to get yourself on this list?

Story : 4.5/5

The story line is predictable yet very solid as an adventure game. Lara land an island as one of the survivors during the exploration. She found that she was not alone in the island as there is some Japanese culture on the island, the stormguard, Himako’s power that use lightning to strike all those trying to leave the island and all those violent survivors that try to kill her. She need to find the answer in the ruins of the Japanese and get the answer or else she and her friends will never leave the island again. 

Graphics : 5/5

This is awesome, period. It is different from crysis 3 style of graphics yet it is very advanced also. Crysis 3 is very high-tech setting but tomb raider has a very atmospheric and nice environment. Lara and other character models are made in high quality and all the animation of Lara look smooth and believable. The fighting scene also very nice in the way that all gun fight, explosion and bow shooting looks amazing.

Audio : 4/5

The soundtrack, the sound track and the voice acting is very nice. It has the nice adventure feel in it that make you know that this is tomb raider game.

Gameplay : 5/5

Gameplay is very fun. This is the first adventure game that i feel fun to play due to it mix puzzle, platform, shooting into one nice package. The story (cut scene), puzzle, platform and shooting always compliment with each other so that you will not feel bored. However i cannot play tomb raider in long dose, spreading it over a few week make me enjoy every time i played it in small doses. The puzzle is not extreme hard but not that easy either. It is quite rewarding to solve the puzzle and you will feel aha this is it. The platform is okie too since i have no problem jump here and there, pretty forgivable for beginners, and even if you miss the step, the game will load you back right not far from the place you are dead. Combat is fun as you are allowed to use bow, shotgun, machine gun, and handgun. You can melee too. I have great fun using bow to silent shoot everyone. But i blast away with shotgun and machine gun at the end portion since the enemy just swarm you endlessly haha. Everything puzzle or enemy give you reward so it is very nice to kill or find those hidden reward for me.

Last Impression : 9.5/10

What to say, i am amazing impressed by this game. The graphics, audio and story make this a really solid game that i will give 9.5 out of 10. It is a recommend to buy games if you can afford it. It successfully sell more than 5 million copy yet it “does not do great” for square enix. I think so much effort has put into this game as it is really polished. All and all, please enjoy the screenshot below. The screenshots are taken from one of the 10 chapters. The most polished parts i think is the beginning chapters but i didn’t take any screenshot from it.

Oh the sun shine

If i am her, my leg probably keep trembling right now

A lot of mountain climbing with the rope

The plane come to rescue always struck by lightning

They put a lot of effort to make Lara model

Monastery, a lot is to be found in this game

Oooo, gross.

A lot of epic moments like this that let you catch a breath with lara

Alright, i did land her into some trees and die. I retried 3 times i think.

See how good the in game cutscene rendered real time.

You look like a cannibal

Adventure continues

Status : Completed (10 ~ 12 hours) 79% I am not finding all those hidden stuff.

Spec suggestion : This game demand great resources if you have open the “Tressfx” option for the hair. Or else a GTX660 or HD7850 is enough for the game. This game also deserves a great graphic card to run with since it is very nice looking game. Processor choice does not matter much but still you need a intel I5 quad core at least.

Tomb Raider isn’t buggy, broken, or bad. It’s not unplayable or unenjoyable. There’s a solid game here, and the core mechanics are some of the better third-person shooting mechanics around. I really appreciate its fluid cover system, and Lara’s bow is an interesting and versatile weapon.

But Tomb Raider radiates wasted potential. There’s a spark here of something unrealized, a lack of foresight that makes the game fall flat. It’s a problem of authorship. Tomb Raider makes its central theme incredibly clear before bungling it in the worst way, creating an incredible disconnect between what the story’s saying and what’s happening in-game.

Ostensibly, Tomb Raider tells a story of survival, as Lara escapes a sinking expeditionary vessel before washing up onshore and being taken captive. The opening cutscene is extremely abrupt, but the first hour of gameplay takes it time to build up tension and drive home the brutality of the situation.

Lara wakes strung up in a cave of bodies, falling with a crunch as she escapes bondage. She finds a torch to light her way and squeezes through claustrophobic tunnels in search of an exit. Somebody is chasing her, and we sense that she’s pushing as hard as she can because every moment matters. The game employs great character gestures, such as the way Lara runs her hand along the ceiling as she works through an enclosed tunnel of chin-deep water.

The opening segments work well, even if they do lean a little too hard towards cinematic flair. For every likely moment, such as when Lara hesitates to walk across a log suspended over a ravine, there’s an incredibly harrowing moment that’s given little foresight. Lara is forced to climb up the face of a dilapidated airplane, an incredible escalation upon what’s come before, and she doesn’t stop to prepare for even a second.

But I can forgive that because, really, what else can Lara do? She can either climb that plane or she can stand there. As she says herself, she needs to keep moving. She doesn’t have a choice.

In the first moment that rattles the game’s established fiction, Lara has stepped in a beartrap. She lays down her recently acquired bow and scrabbles to pry the trap open, when she hears wolves howl in the distance. She stops and readies herself. They’re coming.

There’s a good moment of tension here, and I don’t mean to undermine it. The wolves don’t show up right away; there are howls, then a long pause before one actually jumps out from the underbrush. But when it does, something peculiar happens: the game slows down, and Lara is able to kill each wolf in succession with one carefully aimed shot apiece.

I’m not one to fault Lara’s survival instinct, and I’m willing to believe that the world goes bullet-time when you’re under incredible pressure. When these wolves drop dead, though, they drop stone dead. They don’t writhe in pain, they don’t howl, none of them survives long enough to even attempt to bite her. And you know, in itself that’s perfectly fine. Not every hardship needs to be doted over.

But, having played through the game, it seems like a sign of things to come. As the game progresses, you’re not shooting three wolves. You’re shooting hundreds of people, with bow and shotgun and rifle. You blow up barrels and things go boom. And it’s incredibly easy – at one point I headshotted five enemies in rapid succession, thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk. And then a little scoring indicator came up on the left, told me I’d scored some killer headshots, and awarded me a few hundred experience points.

Look, I’m not against games where you shoot things and they blow up. I love shooting things, and I love when they blow up. I hate it when my actions in-game don’t produce an incredible result.

But Tomb Raider constantly removes control from the player, and when it does so, it loves to emphasize that Lara is surviving. This is difficult, says the cutscene. Lara’s overcoming incredible odds.

In-game though, she’s an avatar of destruction. Half of the game’s scenery crumbles when she so much as stands on it. She guns and bows down everything in sight. It’s good that ammo is plentiful, because she kills everything. The game doesn’t feel structured toward its survival story, it feels structured toward gamers who want to blow stuff up. But then it removes control again and says no, Tomb Raider isn’t about having fun and shooting things, Tomb Raider is about survival.

I can’t help but feel like this is a holdover from classic game design. Players have spent so long playing games about saving the world that it’s hard to make a game about saving yourself, about survival in a hostile environment. Tomb Raider is a holdover of “space marines killing demons” design. It shouldn’t be.

Please don’t fall under the impression that I think Lara needs to be helpless, that somehow she shouldn’t be able to do these things because she’s a woman. The Lara Croft of older Tomb Raider games is incredibly capable, and she doesn’t feel out of place at all. She does anything she sets herself to, entering incredibly dangerous situations and succeeding in spite of whatever insane archeological constructs block her path.

But this Tomb Raider wants to be about survival, and it just doesn’t feel that way. I feel like I’m winning. Crushing. Destroying.

Tomb Raider isn’t a bad game. The combat systems are solid, and I enjoyed the first few hours. I think fans of third-person shooters will really dig it, because it does play better than most. The game does get a little boring as the main enemy is revealed to be some cult-leader psycho blah-blah, and I found myself uninterested more often than not. There’s too much shooting and not enough meaningful exploration of environment or theme. Whatever. Maybe it’s just me.

The really damning thing for me is not that the story is incredibly bland, though it is: There’s little to no character growth, the enemies are stupid caricatures, and every major plot twist is telegraphed from a mile away. No, the real problem is not only that the gameplay interferes with Tomb Raider’s storytelling, but that the storytelling interferes with compelling gameplay.

Tomb Raider tries incredibly hard to be taken seriously. Even if setpieces explode and crumble in the most extravagant way, there’s a sense that the developers don’t want to break loose with anything too crazy too soon. There’s no Tyrannosauruses, no minotaurs, no mummies, no yetis. That would just be silly, right? That’s so nineties. We need to empathize with Lara’s plight, and we can’t do that if we don’t believe it.

What this translates to, in gameplay terms, is that there’s very little diversity in enemy design. The shooting you engage in during the first two hours is the same you’ll face for the rest of the game.

Sure, players will shoot a few wolves and some wild game during their adventure, but every other enemy is a person, and you’ve killed them all before. There’s the token machinegun grunt, the machete wielder, the molotav cocktail thrower. There’s the fire arrow dude and the riot shield guy.

These are incredibly stale designs. I’m sick of them. Towards the end of the game, a new enemy faction is introduced but – surprise! – they’re tackled just like any other human opponent, just with more armor. Boring.

The puzzles also suffer from this more serious approach. Instead of mythology-inspired archeological puzzles, we’re typically stuck with lame environmental puzzles, which occupy some weird limbo between man-made and natural design.

I can believe that tombs are littered with booby-traps, but I can’t believe that these man-made buildings just happen to be scattered with problems that can only be solved one specific way. The first puzzle in the game revolves around a chute that Lara has to lift boxes into to light them on fire, so she can propel the boxes past a waterfall where they’ll light some rags and boards and she can progress. It feels incredibly contrived.

Obviously, nobody in Tomb Raider’s world specifically set these puzzles up, but there’s apparently only one way to get through. Lara can’t just remove boxes and boards from her path, but instead needs to manipulate the environment in precisely the right way, which usually involves burning something. It’s really weird and kind of dumb. And it wouldn’t be an issue if the game simply placed more of its focus on archeological finds, mythological puzzles, and ancient traps.

Tomb Raider arrives at a middle ground where it doesn’t excel at one thing or another. More emphasis on stealth and survival, perhaps in the form of restricting Lara’s abilities or access to ammo, could have really strengthened the storytelling. Toning down the story a bit would have allowed them to get really creative with their environmental and enemy design.

Tomb Raider’s problems might arise from the developers’ lack of faith that players are ready for a game with more than just perfect shooting mechanics. But we’d understand if the game started out some design conventions altered. She doesn’t need to be an action hero right away. Start her off a normal person.

Then slowly build her up, naturally. None of this investing experience points from kills business. Lara aims steadier because she’s been shooting, she runs faster because she’s been running. The feeling of triumph would be much stronger if Lara didn’t start off a god, if we as players had to struggle for our survival.

Videogames have been making players feel powerful for years, and that feeling of liberation is one thing I love about games. But don’t tell me I’m a survivor after I’ve decimated an encampment of thirty-five heavily armed enemies. Don’t tell me I’m a survivor when killing is completely effortless, when it’s the entire point.

That’s not surviving, it’s winning a game. Killer headshot. Plus fifty points.

The video game industry is curious in that its business model, despite gaming growing in popularity and crossing demographic lines, is to hoard their best games for most of the year.  Then come October through the second week of December, gamers are bombarded with AAA titles every week, causing many of us to work or speak to others to support our gaming habit.  It’s a tragedy no one addresses.  It’s our silent fiscal pain.  You’d think something other than Madden (insert year here) could be released between March and October.  It peeves us.  We are greatly peeved.

This year, pleasantly, has produced some really nice games in the first quarter and two solid Game-of-the-Year caliber outings in Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite.  Crystal Dynamics outdid themselves in making Lara Croft into a REALISTIC (take that how you will) icon deserving of her reputation with unbelievably responsive mechanics and addictive exploration.  Bioshock Infinite is still the best entertainment experience of 2013 period.  I’ve put more thought and more time in pondering the nuances of that game than I think any I’ve ever played.  It looks grim across the release calendar desert until the fall, but I still need to go back and make myself finish Assassin’s Creed III, Borderlands II, Dishonored and The Witcher II.  So I think I’ll be busy enough….plus I may have to play Bioshock again…
1. Bioshock Infinite
2. Tomb Raider
3. Gears of War: Judgment
4. Pinball FX – Star Wars Tables
5. Crysis 3