tomb raider games s&d

Both the swearing and the gore are totally gratuitous and add nothing beyond some kind of juvenile flattery of the player that they're an "adult"

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Monday, March 18, 2013 10:12 AM (8 minutes ago)

^this, without sounding too snobby, is kinda why i'm not interested in this game

― i petted a bodega cat today. (forksclovetofu), Monday, March 18, 2013 10:13 AM (6 minutes ago)

You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge...

there is a recent/recurrent line of inquiry (let's say) in games of "what is it, to be violent?" and as far as that goes i think this game is the best one yet. there is something naggingly hypocritical about framing a game around that question, since enjoying the action of shooting and getting shot is a strong part of the uh cathexis of a game in the first place

xp haha yes

and again i'd bring up the craig bonds and the nolan batmen as context (w/ all their flaws) -- maybe "gritty realistic reboot" is kind of a dimwit idea in a possible final analysis, but it shouldn't put you off this game imo, it's excellently done

Well there's not a LOT of swearing or gore, which almost makes it worse. It's not necessary, not integral. Out of nowhere a character will go "FUCK!!" or something, or suddenly you'll find a room full of body parts and it's just like... uh why.

Also, maybe it's cause I'm a parent now, but it just seems like a pointless barrier to entry for kids whose parents aren't crazy about them playing a game with eviscerated corpses in it.

A related point is how the first TR game contained no people IIRC - there was lots of shooting but only of animals and weird netherworld monsters, which made it much more kid-friendly and even for adults gave it a kind of pure vibe.

haha wait, why on earth would Lara Croft stumble across a room full of body parts

Cause it's SPOOKY

"gritty realistic reboot" is kind of a dimwit idea in a possible final analysis, but it shouldn't put you off this game imo, it's excellently done

I'd agree with this.

It is kind of hilarious how totally beat up she gets, like immediately. It's an iron rule for action movies, at least as far back as Die Hard, that at the end of them the hero must be battered, bruised, probably bleeding, and have six different kinds of schmutz ground into their skin. In the new TR Lara achieves this state basically before you've even started playing!

Also, maybe it's cause I'm a parent now, but it just seems like a pointless barrier to entry for kids whose parents aren't crazy about them playing a game with eviscerated corpses in it.

Uhh Tracer dude it's an 18 rating.

Lara shoots a bunch of people in the OG Tomb Raider

well, two off the top of my head

agree that "adult" versions of fundamentally child/teen friendly stories is the worst bullshit tho

well there are like only two other people in the entirety of OG TR so percentage-wise you are OTM

Ms Natla whatever she's called has a few human goons iirc

Uhh Tracer dude it's an 18 rating.

As well it should be! I imagine TR1 was a lot lower.

my PC comp of the first 4 is rated PEGI 12

and i used to play the original with our Joel watching. he got really into it, kept asking me to play "Bang-a-bang"

that's fucked up

lol gun noise

You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge...
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Monday, March 18, 2013

maybe i'm being dense (or forgot about dre), but what's the zing here?

also i know video game webcomics are the most disgusting savages but
http://www.virtualshackles.com/img/tombRaider.jpg

nah it's ok that one's still horseshit

yeah terrible

yeah, i am ashamed for posting it
point that this is a MATURE EPIC GROWN UP SAGA since lara is no longer all bouncy bouncy and is pulling shards of shrapnel out of her thigh in QTE is one that I'd have to see to believe

I just reread the plot synopsis for TR1, which I haven't played since... 1997? and man I don't remember like even a lick of the plot

...There was a plot?

involving Atlantis!

I remember swimming a couple of times.

basically my memory of TR1 is "OH SHIT A DINOSAUR"

i remember being amazed at the size of some of those cave environments. i was still used to doom, p much

the only tomb raider i've ever played was the demo that came on a disc with some magazine, all i remember is that it was really hard to control.

First game had some human characters that you shoot at, they are just insane 90s genx cartoons instead of insane 00s pirates.

Don't let the talk of gore turn you off this game. There is far more time spent jumping, shimmying across ledges, figuring out how to get from _here_ to _there, making dramatic escapes, using grappling hook, exploring the island, etc. I haven't finished the game yet but it follows the Indy paradigm where the archeologist really gets the ancient mystical stuff, and believes it, and knows how to use it against the bad guys.

There is nothing problematic in the setting either. What is a tomb? Well it's a place where you put a corpse, or multiple corpses, where you write stuff on the wall, put up a bunch of candles, do some rituals, etc. etc. I don't think you can go 10 mins in this game without being in a tomb of one kind or another.

It's important to remember that when the very first one came out, the only other game like it was Mario 64, and it was seen as the more adult version of the 3rd person 3d experience. You shoot wolves, you watch Lara take horrific tumbles and get impaled and get swallowed whole by a T-Rex. Mario just jumps on a guy's head, that's it. Tomb Raider has always had a violent streak to it. You can imagine it as part of an adventure lineage starting maybe with the original Prince of Persia, and who can forget the horrific sight of being chomped in two by those razor blades in that game.

haha wait, why on earth would Lara Croft stumble across a room full of body parts

― Darth Icky (DJP), Monday, March 18, 2013 1:37 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tomb
/to͞om/
Noun

A large vault, typically an underground one, for burying the dead.
An enclosure for a corpse cut in the earth or in rock.

Synonyms
grave - sepulchre - sepulcher - shrine - vault

yeah thanks

real answer is that in this story you go up against not the supernatural evil directly but a crazy cult of earlier castaways who worship it

...who kill a lot of people

there is something gendered going on here w/r/t a young woman in dire circumstances. certainly the whole enterprise of making the iconic lara croft a """real woman""" needs a vigorous unpacking

― goole, Monday, 18 March 2013 17:16 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you're aware this was a whole thing, right ... ? i don't think any of the criticisms amounted to 'a vigorous unpacking' because lol games journalists but the iffyness of all of it has been commented on many times

oh and the island was also fought over in ww2 so there's a sub-strata of death from that. and then the ancient shit! bones galore.

xp yeah i figured as much but i avoid most media on this subj.

understandable!

i'm kind of surprised by how much i find myself wanting to play this, despite i. all of that ii. it also sounds kind of like L O S T

My favorite part of the game early on is the hand to hand combat stuff. Throwing dirt in the eyes, and then clocking someone with a bottle. It feels kinda desperate. Agree with the comment upthread about wolves being genuinely terrifying and chaotic. But also ninja shit like shooting an arrow at a wall, and having people move to check out the noise and then picking them off with arrows, or shooting out the lights, or whatev.

My biggest complaint is that there should have been a slower buildup but that's probably my fault, my impatience. You come upon a new area and there are a couple bad guys and nowadays i just start taking them out immediately, where you can usually just wait it out, some of them will walk away and leave one by himself, planning out the attack, etc.

The whole set with the shipwreck and where you are ziplining from one piece to the next is effing GORGEOUS. This game is just totally beautiful. Except the shantytown ;-p

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCe8-1dbXZc

"you have an organic reason to follow right behind her and very close"

Wow youtube to the rescue.

Hi everybody. When you shot the guy and the skull appears. Go towards the guy and press F, then you have to repeatedly press E, untill the symbol changes into the exclamation mark, then press F... Took me a while to figure this out... :S

Conan pretty otm. I think as the game goes on she tones up quite a bit but maybe that's my imagination.

can you translate that into playstationese?

I dont understand the 'characters are poorly done other than Lara' critique. I mean, you don't spend nearly as much time w them but they do have individual personalities. Some of them look up to her, they think she's a hero and they want to help in any way that they can, and they give their lives to help Lara. They only existed for a few scenes and I don't even remember their names but by having Lara's heroism develop through the eyes of her friends and fellow captives, it makes for a character arc with depth.

I like the scene when you go back to the Endurance, which mirrors a shot from the cutscene that opens the game. The first time through Lara looks in the mirror she looks like she does in that Conan clip; idealized mannequin-esque cgi with sex appeal, which triggers a reaction like we see Conan have hear, which is sort of normal bro gamer behavior, especially for someone raised on exploitative b-movies. Later in the game she sees herself in the same mirror, face and skin all caked in mud, covered in bruises, and armed to the teeth. Her reaction is steady then sort of surprised at what she sees. The acting is good enough that this comes across rather subtly. She realizes she has changed. In the 1st cutscene, which mirrors this, she kind of looks shocked at seeing herself in the mirror.

Anyways I think they did a fine job w story.

She has some kind of Old West 1000 yard stare or something the 2nd time. It's pretty cool.

the other characters are useless, they either abandon lara or break their legs or some shit.

Well Reyes learns to trust her after being skeptical for most of the game. And Roth helps out by killing a ton of people before he gets axed.

That one guy kinda looks like Manti Teo, amirite?