Tomb Raider Review Thread!
- Thread starter Tricky I Shadow
- Start date
what's the deal?
What?
Including the reflection of the cases at the bottom?
Nah, the reflections aren't really necessary
The perfect Dark
Banned
Where's the OT? 
I'm hyped!
I'm hyped!
ViewtifulJC
Banned
Fracas falling behind, AS USUAL
Monsty pls
Monsty pls
Outside of that transparency, everything's done. Waiting on my graphics guy to send me banners.
PS don't expect anything crazy, it's my first OT, haha. I like it though
Excited!
Nobody knows why is OT late.
DO I HAVE PERMISSION TO CREATE TOMB RAIDER OT THAT ONLY HAS DOZENS UPON DOZENS OF PICTURES OF CAMILLA?
Nope. Its supported by all DX11 cards, but Radeon 7000 line has best Direct Compute performance, so it will work best with them.
DO I HAVE PERMISSION TO CREATE TOMB RAIDER OT THAT ONLY HAS DOZENS UPON DOZENS OF PICTURES OF CAMILLA?
Nope. Its supported by all DX11 cards, but Radeon 7000 line has best Direct Compute performance, so it will work best with them.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
As long as there are no Oprah gifs in the actual OP, I'm sure it'll be great
Will sub but I don't think I'm going to contribute until I play through the thing so I can go in fresh. Thanks for the effort.
Nobody knows why is OT late.
DO I HAVE PERMISSION TO CREATE TOMB RAIDER OT THAT ONLY HAS DOZENS UPON DOZENS OF PICTURES OF CAMILLA?
You have my sword.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
Nobody knows why is OT late.
DO I HAVE PERMISSION TO CREATE TOMB RAIDER OT THAT ONLY HAS DOZENS UPON DOZENS OF PICTURES OF CAMILLA?
#1ReasonWhy
Mods needs to approve my request, I dont want to step on the toes of monsterfracas who applied to create OT @ http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=450653
tiny raptor
Member
His score didn't seem to mesh with his actual review though
Yeah, I believe you were the one talking about how most reviewers these days just don't think critically?
I mean we've been getting all these reviews about how the narrative clashes with the gameplay, or the combat is just so good like omg, but the multiplayer is tacked on.
I don't care about all that, that was what I was expecting anyway. How's the freaking gameplay? How are the mechanics? Is it a cohesive, consistent vision? How's the level design? Puzzles, challenge, replayability (do cutscenes and QTEs bog the game down)? Do the tools work with the vision to provide players fun ways to manipulate the game to win in a way that feels creative to them?
I worked a ton on my OT, Diamond (banners) too.
Well OK then, just post it when you are ready.
That's awesome, thank you!Does this work?
Should be up within the next few hours. Soon as I get banners from my graphics guy, I'll post it.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
I guess I get to labeled more negative than Derrick, because other than her eyes, she just doesn't do a thing for me.
So, what's the score Conan?
I see.
This needs to be added to the OP
And I was responding to your implication that game reviewers are a bunch of idiots who are easily entertained, by showing that your opinion does not negate their experience/review score. It's a two-way street.
And by calling out journalists for not thinking critically and then citing Arthur Gies as an example, yes, you did take it into subjective vs. objective analysis territory.
"If a game I don't like gets a high score, the reviewer must not be thinking critically enough."
This is the same argument that comes up every. fucking. time. the debate about games reviews comes up, and all it really boils down to is that people just want their biases confirmed.
So far, all the reviews I've watched and read have been very well thought out and balanced, with equal parts praise of Tomb Raider's strengths and criticism leveled against it's weaknesses, and yet the overwhelming majority of the scores are 8s and above.
Theres something strange happening on gaf over this game i dont get it. Its reviewing good to well across the board thats normally a good sign but thats some how being brought up as a negative.
Id understand if this was a backlash to some old franchise people hold dear but the old tomb raider games were pretty shitty. Its a reboot of a average game series where the idea of the main character was always better than the execution of the gameplay. Very strange.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
Let me know when you need adverbs and adjectives. I love those things.
Honestly, I can give a shit if any one person likes a game or not. I don't really care if the GAF hive mind approves or disapproves of a game, if there even is a GAF hive mind. It' just this common practice of trying to push one's opinion as fact, and the unwillingness to allow other people to enjoy something that you don't that usually accompanies that practice.
People really must have the memory of an ant or something.
There is no 'new' trend to this. One, many people don't hold ANY game reviews in high regard - I know I don't, whether it was for a game I anticipated or not. And then the simple question is: why? Why don't many people hold reviews in high regard?
The reason is simple: Years of endless journalistic controversies/scandals directly cutting at the heart of games journalisms credibility. It could be for a game I anticipate more than life itself, could be for fuckin' Mother 4, and I would not for a second blink as if a review is telling me anything one way or the other about how the game quality actually is.
Years of the predictable march of AAA modern dudebro nonsense games so predictably scoring their 9-10s, 85+ metacritic like a well greased engine of non-thinking zombie critiques (here's me predicting Tomb Raider's obvious outcome in reviews back in December) from people who don't know shit about games, or the series they're reviewing a game for, or hold wide ranging contempt for gamers in general.
Is it any surprise so many people don't hold game reviews in particular high regard?
The more shocking thing is that there are STILL people who think a metacritic at 85 for a game negates some criticism and automatically relegates the critics into some troll category or some shit - we know metacritic don't mean shit, and it's a piss poor mechanism for a defense of one's opinion even if it did. People need to think for themselves.
Edit: I won't even waste much time as to your idea of what the Tomb Raider series was; I can assure you the gameplay trappings were massively more appealing than the main character.
NullPointer
Member
The weirdness here is because even the positive reviews are negative towards the same aspects of the game as the detractors here - overemphasis on combat over environmental puzzles, QTEs, seemingly pointless collectibles, unrewarding XP system and unlocks, dissonance between narrative and action, shoehorned multiplayer, copying Uncharted and other games, etc. I'd think that part of the reason for the "modern gaming checklist" approach to features is to get higher review scores, so its easy to be cynical.
But at the end of the day this still looks a polished game with great pacing and some decent exploration to it regardless.
Couldn't have described it any better- hell, all those issues are things we've been repeating in every Tomb Raider thread.
But it should be good to play through and really evaluate when it comes out!
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
Well, my opinion is just mostly opposite that. Lara was the least important factor of the series for me. I don't fault anyone for getting bored with games based around methodical, slow paced exploration and experimentation and poor combat, nor, despite my affection for it, would I ever call it the best series ever. What I enjoyed about it I'm already planning on going into detail about in the OT.
It's a combination of holding the earliest entries dear and seeing this reboot as a waste of energy making a me-too cash grab AAA title. As already mentioned, taking the IP in a completely different direction worked great with Guardian of Light. If this ends up opening up and being relatively fun after an initial hand-held cinematic start, maybe I'll be able to enjoy it too.
If that does happen though, I'm never going to bother paying attention to PR releases from SE ever again. Then again, it's not just a matter of misrepresenting the game, or even of me clearly not being part of the demographic they were trying to attract with what they'd shown. They didn't really misrepresent the game, they just showed one part of a bipolar game which is totally different from the rest of it. It'd be like Brutal Legend all over again for me.
Harts316
Member
You criticize people for caring about a Metacritic score, but isn't the Metacritic score protecting against the whole reason why you hate reviews in the first place (lack of journalistic integrity)?
The Mango Sentinel
Member
Even though I am buying this, and positive reviews have helped reinforce my decision, I will NEVER buy a game based off of reviews alone again. LA Noire is one of the fucking worst purchases I've ever made.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
Well, logically, if you're operating under the opinion that the majority of all your sample data is coming from tainted sources, how would an average from that set represent anything of value to you at all?
sublimit
Banned
There lies the problem in your logic.The first 5 TR games are still being loved by the majority of long time fans and they want the core elements of the series to remain and be improved without being dumped down and dilluted like they have been in the past 3 Crystal games and from the look of things in the upcoming one as well.
It's mostly casuals and people who never really played the classics beyond a superficial level that think the old games were "shitty".Also people who have become way too comfortable with today's automation and handholding trends in gaming.For these people the upcoming TR seems to be a blessing but for oldschool TR fans (those who didn't give a shit about Lara in the first place) this direction is the final nail in the coffin.
So ... I'm packing up and moving to where?
Not even remotely. Or at least, it has not been the case to date... and so I don't know why it would start working that way.
Games Journalism is rampant with cronyism, an insular twitterverse where the reverb of industry-wide narratives spreads like wildfire, widespread horrific practices vis-a-vis publisher/developer relationships (regarding the way NDAs work; access to titles work; expectations of review scores if you want access in the future; pressure to keep your review within the sphere of other review scores).
And so there's simply no way at this point to tell who is sharing their legitimate perspective or who is falling victim to one of the near endless problems with game journalism.
Which is not to say many aren't legitimate perspectives by genuine gamers, it's just to say there's no way to tell one way or the other and thus by default there can be no value.
That's why I have neoGAF, because there are individuals on here I trust even when I disagree with them and I know will give me their honest assessment untainted by anything else.
Naturally, you may so feel inclined to trust all reviews or think the metacritic means something, but people need to stop acting surprised that there's so many people who hold no regard for it. There has been no end to the fucked up shit we've learned about game journalism these past few years.
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
Nobody knows why is OT late.
DO I HAVE PERMISSION TO CREATE TOMB RAIDER OT THAT ONLY HAS DOZENS UPON DOZENS OF PICTURES OF CAMILLA?
.
Do it. Dooooooo iiiit.
Far Cry 3. TR looks to be a similar situation.