So, I almost never buy a game on release day, and I certainly never preorder, unless I have a LOT of faith in a title. I preordered the new Tombraider. My wife commented on the fact that I never do that, and then proceeded with, "It better be of the charts." Her words, not mine. I simply nodded, and agreed, seeing as how I'd just dropped $60 for the game, and another $60 for the controller that allowed for a $10 discount, and a downloadable character on xbox live.
I didn't actually play it until this weekend, because my wife wanted to watch while I played. She used to do this regularly while I played the old TR games, and I played damn near all of them.
I will do my best not to spoil anything should anyone want to play this game clean.
1 - Less raiding than I expected, and a lot more combat than I remembered. There's not much to expand on - I'm literally aware of one tomb that I have successfully 'raided' (because the game notified me that I had successfully 'raided the tomb') and that was and optional thing. Yeah, as in, not forwarding the story. That bothers me, though not so much that I don't like the game as a whole.
2 - Puzzles that don't seem to make sense, on the scale that I remember. - Does anyone remember the first TR where you had to bring bricks of lead to Midas' hand so they would turn to gold? I do. I also remember a Sword of Damocles trap, and various other things that had some basis in various myths and theologies. Himiko (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himiko) is apparently real, but the fact is even her wiki page says that she's obscure. So obscure that I've never heard of her, and I happen to be fairly (not immensely) knowledgeable about such things.
3 - My wife doesn't care for it, but I still like playing - she's not enjoying watching and helping me like she used to because frankly there's not much help you can give when I'm mowing down enemies by the hundreds. The puzzles are there, but not nearly as many and nothing as complex as they used to be. That's all. Nothing else to say about it.
Summary - I don't hate the game, but I'm not in love with it either. I don't feel like I wasted my $60 ($110 total) so that's a positive. I knew it wasn't going to be the same TR, but maybe I didn't realize just HOW different it would be. I'll report more when I've finished it. Right now I'm about 12 hours in, and the ending doesn't seem too close yet. I'm still having fun, but it's kind of strange to not be doing so much tomb raiding in a game that is still called Tombraider.
See, I was waiting for a thread to pop up for this game, which I bought on release day, and thoroughly enjoyed!
I won't pour over it too much, but I liked the fact that the tomb raiding was a side aspect of the game. To be fair, even in the early games you didn't exactly spend the entire game raiding tombs...most of the story was just building toward one final push into a tomb.
I really enjoyed the story, I felt like there were twists and turns and at several points I thought I was almost at the end of the story then a new element would be revealed, but I never felt like it dragged. The environments were detailed and clever enough, especially the more open ones, and contained a fair bit of peril especially Shipwreck Beach, when you're heading out to the wreck of the Portugese or heading towards the endurance
I enjoyed the combat far more than any previous game, I liked that they kept the range of weapons small but with enough mods and upgrades to keep them interesting.
Lastly, I really felt like I wanted to get all the collectables, which I very rarely do in games. I think again this is a testament to the environments. I wanted to get the GPS caches because it meant more exploring, which was really fun.
Looks like I enjoyed it far more than most of you guys!
Sorry, lets try this again.
I considered the new Tomb Raider a huge achievement.
I always envied the PS3 crowd for, what I felt was a better Tomb Raider, the Uncharted series. The levels were beautifully designed, the story lines compelling and well-written and the gameplay was fun, various and had a surprising amount of depth to it (I consider the second as the best of the Uncharted series).
Tomb Raider gave me all of the above, and so much more.
I really enjoyed the fact that this game really emphasizes exploration in the sense that it encourages you to find all the things (even allowing you to backtrack to previously visited areas). In my opinion, this adds well to the survivor/archaeologist image of Lara. It also adds quite a bit of play time to an already quite long game (of course, incomparable with the TR games of yore).
The combat in Tomb Raider is different, but it's where the franchise needed to go. The first Tomb Raider revolutionized 3rd person gaming... but then failed to improve on that achievement. If you consider other 3rd-person-action games, they all have some sort of free-aim shooting mechanic (Max Payne, Uncharted, etc), it makes sense for Tomb Raider to have the same. And the shooting in Tomb Raider is top-notch. The salvage mechanic means that you grow to really love your weapons, and adding a little bit of stealth means that outsmarting goons is incredibly satisfying. This is not a dumb shooter. In fact the AI scripting felt incredibly atmospheric, especially when enemies react to your actions ("she's hiding behind that pillar, flush her out!" - "damn she's a good shot!" - "where did she get that grenade launcher?"). Seeing the enemy react to the growth of your character is also immensely gratifying.
Story-wise, this game is very different. Gone is Lady Croft, and in her place is a younger, not quite there yet Lara, put in a situation that would push most people beyond their edge. I must say I do not agree with what you said about the Tomb Raiding, most of the older Tomb Raiders were not set in literal tombs to begin with (the only true Tomb Raider in that regard is The Last Revelation) and Lara visits quite a few Tombs in this game (especially if you consider that the entire island is a tomb, what with all the corpses lying around). But the game is not about Tomb Raiding, I'll give you that, it is about Laras literal ascent from the darkness, which also reverbs in some of the gameplay mechanics (such as gradually leveling up and getting stronger). I loved how different the approach to the story was, whereas Uncharted is obviously influenced by flicks like Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider seems to take its inspiration from the survival horror genre (indeed, Tomb Raider especially appears to be channelling the Descent, many scenes in the game make explicit references to the series). I loved watching Lara get more and more confident about herself and her strengths. One of my favourite scenes: Picking up the grenade launcher ;)
Like I said, I was waiting a long time for a Tomb Raider that would match Uncharted 2. What I got in return was a much more personal experience that rocked Uncharted clear out the water. I loved playing this game so much, that it is the first game in which I collected 100 % of all the artifacts, challenges, maps, documents, etc... And I did all that twice! My only regret is not playing this game in hard difficulty first, not because it was particularly easy, but because I know my experience of the literal ascension would have been an even greater one. I love this game and will most definitely return.
edit: why the rants about missing puzzles? There are quite a few in this game (you obviously haven't been in the tombs) and imho they make a lot more sense than the old tr puzzles.
Yeah, that's a good video for the subject. Another big example would be GTA IV I think. Niko is written as a man looking for redemption, tired of the senseless violence of his lifestyle and his place within it, he regularly talks about how he is full of grief for the lives lost and how he will never do it again... and then you're forced to kill several dozen people, both innocents and enemies, so that you can finish the story mission.
Yet the story ends with Niko obviously failing to achieve his goal of escaping his violent past and considering if he is in fact still sane. I don't really think your example is justified, but I definitely see your point.
About the exploring thing that @blyss mentioned: I don't think it's possible to re-create the exploring aspect present in old Tomb Raiders in newer games because that exploring aspect was very much linked to the fact that Lara Croft simply did not control very well. An example I can think of is this: How did you cross a gap? Walk towards the edge, do one skip backwards, run towards the gap, jump, and grab the opposite ledge. Seeing as this whole process is extremely streamlined to the point of being an afterthought (nowadays you just jump in a general direction, and maybe press the pickaxe button), the whole navigation and exploration has a whole different aspect in this game.
It essentially comes down to level design, and what you want to achieve with it. I can distinguish two "types" of basic level pattern in this game, and a few more that combine those elements. But the two basic ones are the arena type level, where you're basically in a room fighting enemies, and there's the traversal type level, where you're trying to get from A to B. I consider the puzzle areas as arenas where your enemy is the environment. The areas where everything behind you breaks down and blows up is a traversal level with action. Examples for these kind of levels are in the spoiler.
Arena level: Himikos throne room in the burning stronghold.
Traversal level: Ascending the Ziggurat tower at the end.
My focus is drifting, so I'll get to the point I'm trying to make: The island of TR is in my humble opinion an environment that invites exploration. There's so many stuff packed everywhere, and it does take quite a while to get all of it. I'm not saying that exploration is the only vital part in the game, combat sure is a huge part of it, but I think these two are meshed together quite beautifully.
And also, do yourself a favour and watch some Uncharted walkthroughs. They are an example of being a completely linear affair.
Welu, when I said I didn't find it valid, I meant valid for me, I would never speak for someone else. So if you find it a valid reason to ignore a game, then that's fine. As for the "vulnerable" part, I didn't think they went over the top with it. She starts off an incredibly brilliant and enthusiastic archaeologist who gets in over her head when they all run into some truly terrible people on the island. They're all in over their head. I didn't see her being scared at first as me wanting to protect her, I saw it as me being drawn into the world and trying to overcome it. To accept the fact that it's kill or be killed and do something about it. Then again, the game does have a couple dudes outright dying to save her. But the fact that she saves several other people could just mean that she's better at it than they are, since it doesn't kill her. Also, she only has a problem after killing for the first time in her life, after that she gets really good at it.