What are you playing?

[StrayKAT]

Well yes, but none of the art reflects that. It's like the art department completely forgot who they were modelling. Even the writing is overtly emotional and not cold-hearted badass. They surround the pile of corpses in Lara's wake with flower wreaths. The disconnect between everything in the reboots is so...striking. They want to reimagine the character as something else entirely and the characters actions betray that goal.

Well, I for one, think they should have stuck with a more lighthearted tone. Not necessarily cold badass.. but posh badass.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I edited more details...

...Tomb Raider II did show "posh badass" by way of letting the player visit the mansion. Fundamentally, it doesn't matter why she does what she does. It was all about the puzzles and the prizes. Her personality and what she does in her spare time matters not. It didn't matter until the reboot.

Might as well call it what it is: the reboot is a retcon. They want to paint Lara/Tomb Raider with 21st century brush strokes to create broad market appeal. The real/original Lara Croft died long ago.

 

[StrayKAT]

I edited more details...

...Tomb Raider II did show "posh badass" by way of letting the player visit the mansion. Fundamentally, it doesn't matter why she does what she does. It was all about the puzzles and the prizes. Her personality and what she does in her spare time matters not. It didn't matter until the reboot.

Might as well call it what it is: the reboot is a retcon. They want to paint Lara/Tomb Raider with 21st century brush strokes to create broad market appeal. The real/original Lara Croft died long ago.

That broad market didn't pay off then. She isn't more popular and the original sold twice as much.

But I still like them for what they are. It won't last forever anyways.

Actually, I think gaming in general sort of takes itself too seriously. You could track this trend by looking at, say, Prince of Persia.. and it's slow evolution to edginess.. then complete disappearance and replacement by Assassin's Creed.

 

[Durvelle27]

BF4 because my Athlon can’t seem to keep up in BF1 or CoD WWII

 

[FordGT90Concept]

That broad market didn't pay off then. She isn't more popular and the original sold twice as much.

Good. They don't deserve it. That said, it has to be doing well for them to be making a third title. If it truly flopped, Rise of the Tomb Raider never would have happened.

Prince of Persia

Another series I never liked. Come to think of it, the Tomb Raider reboot is like an asset swap Prince of Persia clone. Maybe that's why I'm not a fan.

Assassin's Creed doesn't make a lot of the mistakes that I loathe the Tomb Raider reboot for (and by extension, Prince of Persia). Remember how I said that Tomb Raider is basically a lot of hidden QTEs? Prince of Persia was the exact same in that regard (before QTEs were popular). Assassin's Creed does away with that by letting players choose their own path. I also don't ever recall excessive cutscenes and stealing control away from players like Tomb Raider is guilty of. The only thing I really have against Assassin's Creed is its staleness. Tomb Raider reboot is like death by a thousand cuts: none are individually fatal but there's so many and such variety that they build up into a snowball of disgust.

 

[StrayKAT]

BF4 because my Athlon can’t seem to keep up in BF1 or CoD WWII

Still find a lot online for that?

Good. They don't deserve it. That said, it has to be doing well for them to be making a third title. If it truly flopped, Rise of the Tomb Raider never would have happened.


Another series I never liked. Come to think of it, the Tomb Raider reboot is like an asset swap Prince of Persia clone. Maybe that's why I'm not a fan.

Not a flop.. it's a solid game. I just mean the originals are pretty iconic and sold twice as much. If their directive was to expand the market, they did not do that.

edit: Wait, I may be wrong. I read two sources for the reboot. One being 4.5 million sales and another 11 million (which is actually twice more than the original). Original TR sold 7 million.

 

[Durvelle27]

Still find a lot online for that?



Not a flop.. it's a solid game. I just mean the originals are pretty iconic and sold twice as much. If their directive was to expand the market, they did not do that.

edit: Wait, I may be wrong. I read two sources for the reboot. One being 4.5 million sales and another 11 million (which is actually twice more than the original). Original TR sold 7 million.

Yes the player base is still very good for it. I haven't had any trouble finding servers in it with great ping.

 

[Canon]

Just tried out Dirty Bomb, the free game on Steam. Hadn't read anything about it before now so went into it fresh, 15 minutes is all I could take. They've made a massive fuss about how the game is NOT pay to win with all of the microtransactions that are present, however I will tell you without a shade of uncertainty right now that this game is indeed pay to win, they've tried very hard to disguise it, that's all.

Great idea for a balanced multiplayer shooter, almost Team Fortress-esque but just another colourful shooter for teens to dump their parents cash.

Here's an example, lots of the perks available are there for everyone, with a simple leveling system. A level 1 player that has all the crap he or she has bought can walk into an area and quite literally cast lightening bolts that kill all the players in its area. Meanwhile, me, the free player, is stood with nothing but a weapon and sidearm trying to shoot these guys runing around destroying everything.

I'd say this one will dry up very quickly indeed.

I'm honestly finding it very hard to see gaming itself heading in a good direction in the future, I remember when a game like Counter Strike would just be refined over time to make it a better playing experience, nothing else (forget CS:GO). A game like Morrowind would come out that you could sink hours and hours into without an INTERNET CONNECTION!

I just can't get on board with this attitude of thinking about where you can squeeze more money out of players before you bin the game, I don't care so much about developers needing to recoup costs, I'd rather pay double the price for the game in the first place instead of these games that are essentially bloody fruit machines running on a swanky engine with a 50GB download to boot.

 

[Keullo-e]

Just finished the first disc from Legend of Dragoon, took 10h 15min. Didn't remember that even the first disc takes so long, now when thinking, first disc of Final Fantasy VII/VIII/IX feels pretty short.

 

[Ahhzz]

Just tried out Dirty Bomb, the free game on Steam. Hadn't read anything about it before now so went into it fresh, 15 minutes is all I could take. They've made a massive fuss about how the game is NOT pay to win with all of the microtransactions that are present, however I will tell you without a shade of uncertainty right now that this game is indeed pay to win, they've tried very hard to disguise it, that's all.

Great idea for a balanced multiplayer shooter, almost Team Fortress-esque but just another colourful shooter for teens to dump their parents cash.

Here's an example, lots of the perks available are there for everyone, with a simple leveling system. A level 1 player that has all the crap he or she has bought can walk into an area and quite literally cast lightening bolts that kill all the players in its area. Meanwhile, me, the free player, is stood with nothing but a weapon and sidearm trying to shoot these guys runing around destroying everything.

I'd say this one will dry up very quickly indeed.

I'm honestly finding it very hard to see gaming itself heading in a good direction in the future, I remember when a game like Counter Strike would just be refined over time to make it a better playing experience, nothing else (forget CS:GO). A game like Morrowind would come out that you could sink hours and hours into without an INTERNET CONNECTION!

I just can't get on board with this attitude of thinking about where you can squeeze more money out of players before you bin the game, I don't care so much about developers needing to recoup costs, I'd rather pay double the price for the game in the first place instead of these games that are essentially bloody fruit machines running on a swanky engine with a 50GB download to boot.

I beta'd that. They really didn't seem to take a lot of input from the player group about balance, and mainly just wanted to spot bugs. Many of us expected it to be completely a P2W very quickly, nice to be right on occasion.

 

[MatGrow]

If this tread still alive I would say I don't play. And in my opinion it's more popular nowadays to play mining than any other things.

 

[rtwjunkie]

If this tread still alive

With 10-20 posts per day, it’s definitely still alive. PC gaming is stronger than its ever been, too.

 

[EntropyZ]

With 10-20 posts per day, it’s definitely still alive. PC gaming is stronger than its ever been, too.

Something to do with us playing similar games and sharing our experience with them. Old or new. It's really nice to hear your opinions on how you felt when trying something out or just replayed a rare game that deserves a love letter.

Speaking of which... I'm starting to miss my Malkavian, a certain two-faced woman and a scholar.

 

[f22a4bandit]

I've been obsessed with RimWorld lately. That "one more task" aspect always gets me.

 

[Keullo-e]

With 10-20 posts per day, it’s definitely still alive. PC gaming is stronger than its ever been, too.

I have to admit that from time to time I'll fire up my PS2, PS3 or Xbox 360..

 

[cucker tarlson]

With 10-20 posts per day, it’s definitely still alive. PC gaming is stronger than its ever been, too.

The thread has been on fire lately. I fell off big time.

 

[EntropyZ]

The thread has been on fire lately. I fell off big time.

I... Oh my, what a daring profile picture... I LIKE IT. Keep doing this, please.

What was the previous one about? It looked like GeForce FineWine or something.

I'm gathering my in-game screenshots from stuff, while listening to 80's hits. And trying to decide what I'm going to play this weekend. The urge to start TES: IV Oblivion is like this scratching feeling at the back of my head. It's getting worse. Maybe I should try that Nehrim TC mod I never got around to.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Did you notice the physical size of women in Rise of the Tomb Raider compared to their male counterparts? It's like they used 6'4" for male models and 5'0" for female.

Ran into this review (which pretty much mirrors what I said) and they provide a picture which illustrates my point (althought the author didn't comment on it like I did):

TL;DR: if they got rid of everything that sucks about the game (the story, the cutscenes, the forced focus events, the bugs, the crashes, the lootboxes, the exaggerated climatic theater crap, the on-rails parts of the game, and the Tomb Raider branding that doesn't fit the game), it would be a 7 or 8 because when you're free to explore those open areas of the world (Soviet Installation, Geothermal Valley, and the Lost City), it's pretty good.

Finished Lara's Nightmare and Cold Darkness. Lara's Nightmare was meh. Cold Darkness was pretty fun but also easy on Survivor difficulty. Going to try Endurance now and unless I can pester a friend into doing Endurance Co-Op, that'll be the end of Rise of the Tomb Raider for me.

Edit: Did the Endurance tutorial and this might actually be the best thing about the game (open world looting with player directed progression). Still trying to get a friend to join me...

 

[EntropyZ]

Ran into this review (which pretty much mirrors what I said) and they provide a picture which illustrates my point (althought the author didn't comment on it like I did)

MFW, I see something and start with "What the hell developers!? What is happening? <Proceeding to slowly facepalm>"

Then I remember that meme "What is going on heeeere!? Bekfest!" It sums up some moments in games.

 

[cucker tarlson]

I... Oh my, what a daring profile picture... I LIKE IT. Keep doing this, please.

What was the previous one about? It looked like GeForce FineWine or something.

GreenWine

referring to the performance improvement they achieved in vulkan and dx12

 

[StrayKAT]

I... Oh my, what a daring profile picture... I LIKE IT. Keep doing this, please.

What was the previous one about? It looked like GeForce FineWine or something.

I'm gathering my in-game screenshots from stuff, while listening to 80's hits. And trying to decide what I'm going to play this weekend. The urge to start TES: IV Oblivion is like this scratching feeling at the back of my head. It's getting worse. Maybe I should try that Nehrim TC mod I never got around to.

Nice... was listening to 80s stuff earlier too.

Funnily, as much as I mod Skyrim, I leave everything else mostly alone. Just unofficial patches on Oblivion for me. And to hell with trying to fix the potato head graphics. It's unredeemable... I've learned to live with it :\

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Better picture of the size difference between male and female characters in Rise of the Tomb Raider:

A frequently recurring bug (especially in Soviet Installation) I forgot to mention before: T-posing guards when they should be in combat:

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a lot buggier than Tomb Raider.

 

[StrayKAT]

That's basically me vs 99% of women.

And some men

Even tall women look a little small, I find.. when looking in pictures (not from my perspective).

That said, it'd be less lazy if there were variation in sizes.. At least for voiced/unique characters.

It's just as silly though when sexes are rendered exactly the same.. like DAI, for example (especially when it's presenting warrior cultures and such).

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Lara isn't known for being diminutive in stature. It would make sense if all the males/females of the Remnants were because of malnutrition, isolation, and hard labor. Joseph especially should be a *lot* shorter than Lara (he's same size as the guy in the pic) because 300 years ago, males and females around the world were doing good to top 5'. 1000 years ago? About 4'8".

It's just as silly though when sexes are rendered exactly the same.. like DAI, for example (especially when it's presenting warrior cultures and such).

It makes sense from an animation perspective (only have to mocap stuff once instead of once for each sex). Ironically, the reason why Lara can only melee/execute men is probably because of animations as well. The size difference is likely a result in the size difference between the mocap actor and actress they used. People complain about melee in TES games not feeling real. A lot of that has to do with the fact that the game scales models/animations and hits are based on proximity rather than collision. It's a corner they cut to give a plethora of content that is passable.

 

[StrayKAT]

Lara isn't known for being diminutive in stature. It would make sense if all the males/females of the Remnants were because of malnutrition, isolation, and hard labor. Joseph especially should be a *lot* shorter than Lara (he's same size as the guy in the pic) because 300 years ago, males and females around the world were doing good to top 5'. 1000 years ago? About 4'6".

Not necessarily. 300 years ago George Washington was 6'4". And the reason I'm tall (although my mom is a 5'2" Asian woman) is my Dad's family is Danish. He was 6'7". Those genes (and old descriptions of Vikings) came from somewhere. Norsemen weren't just terrifying over time. They were terrifying even back then.

I also think a lot depends on diet. I can't remember where I heard this, but I think they've measured skeletons of poor peasant class kids versus rich ones in medieval times, and there's a notable difference. I wish I could dig it up for my own curiosity now. There is this study though: They found that the average man was more like 5'7" in the medieval era. Which isn't too much shorter from now (definitely not 4'6" at least).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ieval-ancestors-just-tall-says-new-study.html


Lastly.. An odd curiosity - and it may make you roll your eyes - but I find it interesting that the figure in the Shroud of Turin is depicted to be about 5'11 or 6'0. Forget if it was from 1st century Palestine. That's not my point. It's just as interesting if it was a hoax from the late medieval age.

edit: That was a huge derail, sorry.

I still don't disagree that Lara should be taller.

Bah.. got Washington's height wrong. He was 6'2". Lincoln a hundred years later was 6'4".