PCG:On screen, Lara Croft is inching her way up a rock face. She’s wedged in a narrow vertical gap, chimneying her way up. It’s complicated, gruelling work. She grunts as she works her way past outcrops, exerting herself totally with the effort of remaining suspended some 40 feet above the jagged ground below. She slips, losing her footing for a second, before she jams her boot against the wall, steadies herself, and heaves a lungful of air. She climbs on.
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"Sometimes, Lara slips and tumbles as I’m pressing the thumbstick forward: collapsing into a heap after diving past a falling rock, missing a handhold halfway up a radio mast. It’s meant to feel thrilling, moments of near-death to keep the pulse racing. It succeeds instead in frustrating me. I can see the obvious coming, but I can’t avoid it. I can’t do anything but press the thumbstick forward as control is wrested away from me, keeping the scene rolling as Lara finds out about her own survival instincts on her own.
The closest parallel is the PlayStation 3’s Uncharted series. But where the linear leaping of those games was leavened by Indiana-Jones-style humour and silliness, Tomb Raider is pitch black in tone."
This is where gaming needs to evolve. The player needs to have more control but it's limited because games are scripted. How many times have you died in a game only to go back a bit and the same scene plays out? That's why I hope The Last Of Us really does break free of that mold that the Uncharted series does. Playing games like Call of Duty are the same thing. It's all scripted and you're being forced to follow the same path.
The original Tomb Raider games gave me so many memories. I loved the puzzles and the exploring. I don't want the series to turn into what the Resident Evil series has where action is the main importance. It also seems like the graphics are key and because of that the more linear it gets.
I will miss doing backwards flippys with dual pistols.
The whole time I was reading the preview I was thinking Uncharted even before I read the part where he himself mentioned it. How it's predictable, how you just KNOW that a ledge is going to crumble when you jump to it, how you just KNOW that Drake is going to fall and then at the very last mili second grab on to a root/hand/rock sticking out of the side of a cliff.
Uncharted is saved (according to the writer) by its humour.)
Personally I'm looking forward to Tomb Raider even after reading the preview.
These type of games walk a tightrope between storytelling and gameplay and Naughty Dog is one of the few developers that doesn't fall off, all 3 games are complete adventures from A to Z and imo they never get boring, uninteractive, predictable or too easy.
Most people play Uncharted games with a big smile on their face from start to end, after reading this preview I do not expect this to be the case for Tomb Raider, unfortunately. They just lack a talent like Amy Hennig that can keep a story driven game from falling off the rope.
And with The Last of Us, they will probably do an even better job.
Why so negative. Tomb Raider defined Action Adventure in PS1 days now Uncharted does and its only natural that Tomb Raider takes some of that and builds on it.
OT: I'm still picking up this game! Yeah, the recent previews of it have been less than stellar, but as a Tomb Raider veteran, this hasn't pushed me away.
Despite judging a game before it's released (poor journalism at it's finest) I'll be anxiously awaiting the arrival of this game.