Tomb Raider 2013 seems very bipolar in its design

[josemlopes]

So I have been playing Tomb Raider recently and last time I checked I was 8 hours into it at about 60%, and so far the only times I had fun with it (and quite a lot) were in the shantytown and the beach with the boat wreckage, basicly the areas where the game out of nothing becomes a collect-a-thon platformer.

Apart from those segments the game really tries hard to be everything that is wrong with modern gaming, most of it consists of walking forward (a lot of really just moving the character forward) while a bunch of meaningless shit happen around Lara with the ocasional "Press X to Jason" moment. The combat is most of the times poor as the AI doesnt really do anything until the moment it decides to shoot a conga line of bullets with no recoil whatsoever. And a lot of the combat scenarios are very simple with very little room for flanking, its more of an arena type of combat mixed with whack-a-mole since all you have to do is hold ground untill the enemies stop respawning.


You can almost cut it with a knife the moment the game becomes something different. Its not that the game should have been entirely a collect-a-thon but I would have liked more if the level design was more consistent and let the linear parts have a bit more room to breathe. A bit what the level design of Splinter Cell Blacklist was to the level design of Conviction.

I dont know, I was expecting more of it to be honest, or at least a more focused game.


EDIT: Well, I think this is a particular issue I am having with the game, no one has seem to have the same opinion so I guess I probably started playing the game with the wrong mindset and now cant get out of it (already too annoyed at it to simply get into it), will still finish the game but shit... I wanted to like it.

 

[latiasracer]

Pretty much what the poster above said. How dare they put some variation in their game! Why oh why isn't it all the same?!


Also, on my play through, i had no issues with the AI - the only problems i had was later in the game where they spam fire bombs, in a flammable area, and it's a bit of a pain trying to kill them in time and progress to the next segment before everything's burning.

 

[BrotherRool]

You can make a very good argument that Tomb Raider 2013 is schizophrenic

Because it basically is. The designers were throwing a lot of ideas at the wall in terms of plot, genre and even mechanics before they started making the game and you can still see some of those elements within it. For example, there's some very clear horror inspired level design in places and those death animations feel like a hangover from a more brutal version of the game. The game has 3 mini-climaxes which then reset the status quo and build up to the next. The game feels like it could end at the radio tower, it feels like it could end at the first confrontation with the villain and then there's a whole segment of the game after that

Even more than that, the entire game is struggling with whether it should be a reboot or a prequel. At times it wants a new Lara Croft, not a Hero but a heroic person, and other times it wants the old Lara Croft, a mercenary gunning down mooks without a care. And the game struggles with this idea and is always better when it's trying the former.


I don't think I agree with what you've been saying though. The switching between the big open areas and the more tight ones feels fairly natural, one area flows into another which flows back into an area you've been. It's pacing, moments of intense combat breaking out into quieter times when you can sit back and explore an area.

I also think the combat is excellent, the AI normally flanks you, it doesn't allow much time to go outside of cover but it also drives you away from cover. It's frantic and brutal and forces you to mix up desperate close range moves with more planned long range snipings.


There aren't even many segments with real enemy spawns. It's mostly what you see on the screen or what comes onto the screen at the first attack and that's it. There are a couple of segments with more waves of enemies, but they're meant to be the equivalent of boss battles.

 

[lacktheknack]

I also disagree. If I stay in one spot "Whack-A-Moling", I die really quick. I keep having to relocate (dangerously) and enjoy my twenty seconds of high ground before I get sent on the run again.

Also, "Press X to Jason" refers to useless QTEs that do little of importance. Tomb Raider QTEs are... more important. Oh so very much more. It did QTEs really well - they're all about sudden reaction to unexpected events, which fits the game's theme perfectly.

"Everything wrong with gaming", huh? That's odd, I thought it was a really refreshing change of pace when I played it. I finally felt desperate and gloomy while playing a shooter seeded with excellent platforming sections, that's not particularly common.

 

[josemlopes]

Pretty much what the poster above said. How dare they put some variation in their game! Why oh why isn't it all the same?!

But thats my point, the way the linear segments are made are all the same, you just move the character forward, they are still all the same as those first 30 minutes in the caves with the sliding and quick time events (the only thing added is the combat sections but those are just numb as they dont really let you do anything other then letting you take your sweet time to do headshots).

What I wanted to see would be those segments a bit more open, not exactly the same as those hub levels but at least something that didnt resemble a rollercoaster ride. The thing with the bipolar design is that the jumps between linear as fuck and open areas are way too jarring.

Basicly whenever the game goes back to being linear all I can think of is:

Spoiler

I want to get off this ride

 

[Maximum Bert]

Felt pretty focused to me I didnt mind the more open areas or the linear sections I enjoyed pretty much all of the game and had no problems with the combat I found it quite fun actually I also have no problem with QTEs when used well, which they usually arent however while Tomb Raiders were hardly amazing they werent that bad imo and they thankfully lessened off quite a lot after the first few hours.

I tend to like linear games more than open world games however as I feel so many open world games lack any kind of focus you just wander around and hope to find the next gameplay section which is likely linear anyway not all are like this but most seem to be.

I actually went in expecting not to like the game as I despised Tomb Raider and Lara Croft in all her previous games (that I attempted to play) and only got this game because I wanted to see if it was different thankfully I was not dissapointed although the MP aspect was as terrible as I thought it would be.

To me it was a good example of refreshing an old IP that had quite frankly lost relevance.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I don't know what was wrong with the A.I. in your game, but in mine I could never stay in one spot for more then a few seconds before someone chucked a grenade at me, forcing me to come out of hiding. And the soft cover mechanic made moving from cover to cover a joy. Something I'm glad The Last of Us opted for as well. I had no problem with the linearity either since the levels were rather well designed.

The only problem with Tomb Raider is that it lacks personality despite going for that story driven cinematic experience.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

Is this the tomb raider that is basically a shooter with some trivial puzzles? If so then i was totally disappointed with yet another good game becoming a generic and simple excuse of what it once was. The AI is predictable and easy to counter, the only thing that determines difficulty is quantity of enemies at once and the puzzles were...not puzzles at all.

I went into this game anticipating another puzzle/explorer style game and it is basically Lara Croft does Gears of war for the modern casual gamer. To say i was disappointed is an understatement...i was disgusted. A game that i used to find difficult has become a cakewalk...everything that could be considered difficult was removed and replaced with more tedious shooting. The climbing sections were short and obvious, the tombs were a fucking joke...i agree with your sentiment of 'everything thats wrong with modern games'. Despite all that though i could have enjoyed it...if they hadn't called it Tomb Raider

 

[Smooth Operator]

I see this has become a thread of pointing fingers and proclaiming ignorance already.

Well if you ever get on topic I'll throw some words in of my own.
Yes the game felt very two faced, as if two teams were on the jobs completely unaware of one another. One team doing ye olde Rambo Lara with very questionable actions as poaching, grave robbing, general thievery and slaughter. While the other team did a cinematic survival story, with all the QTE and slow crawling scripted nonsense that comes with the modern attempt at that.

So the story team had Lara crawl up in a foetal position all frightened huddling next to a fire, while the gameplay team gave her full industrial weapons shop capabilities when she is there, and she whimpers with apologies when she needs to kill an animal for food then goes on to kill hundreds of people without a second thought, story has her completely consumed with fear for her survival and that of the crew when suddenly she switches into puzzle solving tomb raiding mode... it's just so damn silly.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The only problem with Tomb Raider is that it lacks personality despite going for that story driven cinematic experience.

Pretty much this. The game played beautifully and looked gorgeous, but the story was pretty tediously generic and my GOD the characters were SO bad. Lara was alright, but that supporting cast...ughhhhhh...it was like an exercise in annoying stock characters 101.