Tomb Raider reboot

trailer wrote:

In our darkest moments.... when life flashes before us... we find something.... something that keeps us going (cue her creepy old guy).... something that pushes us.

cyrax wrote:
Duoae wrote:

and the whole..... pervert old man being implied as her reason for pulling through (her father?).....

*whips out GI*

"Returning to camp in a cliffside village, Lara hovers over the body of her mentor, Conrad Roth, who has been gravely injured and rendered unconscious. Lara patches up Roth with supplies she's scavenged, hoping for the best, but painfully aware that the situation is out of her hands."

...

"Roth is an imperative character in Lara's growth and self-discovery, and makes a meaningful attempt at reassuring her, reminding her that she is, in fact, a Croft. Roth hands Lara a blood-red climbing axe, fiercely sharp on one end. 'I don't think I'm that kind of Croft,' counters Lara, accepting the tool and the burden with a look of defeat. 'Let's hope I'm a fast learner.'"

Maybe i just have a dirty mind.... :/

Interesting trailer, I'm curious to see the gameplay. But her voice! Damn, that was bad. she didn't have an accent at all half the time (although I'm no expert), and her "British" just sounded forced to me. I stopped listening to the actual dialog, so I can't really speak to the corny lines; all I could hear was, "Cup o' tea, God save the Queen, gov'nah," over and over again.

Sounds fine to me, besides the reciting from a script, I don't mind that the accent isn't stereotypical British, it sounds like a voice I'd expect to hear. It's one of the reasons I like Emily Blunt as an actress, as she's not 'obvious token Brit' in roles she plays.

WipEout wrote:

Interesting trailer, I'm curious to see the gameplay. But her voice! Damn, that was bad. she didn't have an accent at all half the time (although I'm no expert), and her "British" just sounded forced to me. I stopped listening to the actual dialog, so I can't really speak to the corny lines; all I could hear was, "Cup o' tea, God save the Queen, gov'nah," over and over again.

It was a flat reading. I though the accent was suspect the first time I watched the trailer but listening again it doesn't seem to be a 'Murder She Wrote' English accent it sounds genuine if a little bland. Hope they find someone better.

I'm not usually too big on CG only trailers, but I thought that one was pretty good. Keeping my eye on this one.

I really like the direction they're taking this...I've got a thing for grimy, disheveled ass-kicking ladies(that one scene in Kill Bill Vol. 2...*swoon*). In the same vein, I love how the trailer seems to portray Lara not as some cartoonish super-hero, or even particularly ambitious...just someone who'll do what they have to do to continue living. That said, are her boobs not bigger than they were in that first(awesome) promotional poster? I fear the business side is slowly polishing the edges on this.

EDIT: Of course, though, the grimy thing does fit in with current trends in game presentation anyway.

New E3 demo

I like a lot of what they're going but the gameplay seems very quick time event heavy with button prompts all over the place. I thought we were past that particular phase.

Higgledy wrote:

New E3 demo

I like a lot of what they're going but the gameplay seems very quick time event heavy with button prompts all over the place. I thought we were past that particular phase.

For some folks, the mid-2000's never ended.

I probably already said this but if the rest of the game plays anything like that I'm going to be super disappointed. I despise that kind of linear scripted QTE gameplay, if you can even call it gameplay. There's 30 seconds of puzzle solving in the presentation, but even that has glowing objects - a crutch for poor visual design. I like playing games, I don't like random senseless button mashing interruptions.

Of course they've said that it's going to be an open game with lots of exploration, but why is this CoD syndrome stuff even in the game?

kyrieee wrote:

I probably already said this but if the rest of the game plays anything like that I'm going to be super disappointed. I despise that kind of linear scripted QTE gameplay, if you can even call it gameplay. There's 30 seconds of puzzle solving in the presentation, but even that has glowing objects - a crutch for poor visual design. I like playing games, I don't like random senseless button mashing interruptions.

Of course they've said that it's going to be an open game with lots of exploration, but why is this CoD syndrome stuff even in the game?

Answered your own question.

CoD = $$$$$$ so do as CoD does. For better or worse.

If you want the less clinical answer, I thought it looked fine, I don't mind that kind of gameplay. Games can't appeal to everyone at once.

I'm hoping
that the QTEs were just for that section since open exploration and linear QTE script don't work.
(Might have qte's to start a fire or something, like a minigame).

One thing I was very impressed by was the, I don't know how to say this, "injury system"?
She sounded and moved like a very believable human being who's been injured to me.
All her reactions, the animations, and especially the sounds she made as she was running around.
I noticed a few repeat sound clips, but not too many. Of course if I have to hear the same ones the entire game I might change my mind.

Some poor voice actress may already have spent tens of hours in a studio making nothing but grunt noises. I don't imagine the engineers minded too much.

Like i said in IRC and in the MS conference thread.... I just don't associate with a character where every action you take leads them to be more hurt. It's like they're catering to the sadists who played tomb raider just to see how they could kill her over and over again in many different ways.

It's like that episode of Spaced where he's playing it and letting her drown again and again....

The one thing I'd like to know is whether the demo is representative of most of the game. TR has always been fairly linear so I'm not sure quite how different the gameplay is yet.

4xis.black wrote:

Some poor voice actress may already have spent tens of hours in a studio making nothing but grunt noises. I don't imagine the engineers minded too much.

I was going to comment on this in the MS thread yesterday, but I'm really not seeing the difference between this and male pain sounds and grunts. Ever watch women's tennis? I'm sure they're not making those grunts for kicks.

Scratched wrote:

I was going to comment on this in the MS thread yesterday, but I'm really not seeing the difference between this and male pain sounds and grunts. Ever watch women's tennis? I'm sure they're not making those grunts for kicks.

Actually, the grunting in tennis is largely psychological.

Duoae wrote:
Scratched wrote:

I was going to comment on this in the MS thread yesterday, but I'm really not seeing the difference between this and male pain sounds and grunts. Ever watch women's tennis? I'm sure they're not making those grunts for kicks.

Actually, the grunting in tennis is largely psychological.

I thought it was more to do with breathing and chest muscles as they're doing a swing, but I'm not an expert and not about to become one. The point being pain sounds and grunts never get picked up on when it's a male doing them in a game, only a female.

I was merely suggesting that a game billing itself on the idea that the protagonist will be badly hurt at all times is going to need more than the standard 5-10 grunt sounds.

I can see the splash on the box already. "Now with 68 different grunts!"

My TR experience is pretty limited, aren't linearity and QTEs defining characteristics? Seems to be working for them so far.

The original Tomb Raider is an environmental navigation puzzle game with action elements that don't work so well (in many ways a forerunner to Uncharted). It is linear in the sense that the plot does not branch and most puzzles have only one intended solution. (And I'm sure some of the early oughties sequels messed around with QTEs in the same way all mediocre-to-bad games did back then.)

The question is, are we getting an actual puzzle game (that is, one in which challenge is derived from figuring out how to traverse the environment) or a string of mostly-scripted action sequences intermixed with puzzles that try very hard to solve themselves? I think that Guardian of Light proves the developer is not afraid to include some legit puzzling in their TR games, but who knows how the demographics shift from XBLA to AAA.

Random edit: I had no idea Crystal Dynamics is the same studio who developed the Legacy of Kain series and the Gex games. Dudes have been around forever.

Duoae wrote:
Scratched wrote:

I was going to comment on this in the MS thread yesterday, but I'm really not seeing the difference between this and male pain sounds and grunts. Ever watch women's tennis? I'm sure they're not making those grunts for kicks.

Actually, the grunting in tennis is largely psychological.

Well, it's a bit like follow through on your swing

What are QTEs? Quick Time ____?

Jakobedlam wrote:

What are QTEs? Quick Time ____?

Events. Where they put up a series of prompts for you to follow.

I saw a total of three QTEs, and I would hardly call them QTEs. They were a couple button mashing moments, no different than pulling a grate off the wall in Batman:Arkham Asylum-- and I don't recall any complaints about that aspect of Batman. Actually, these looked better than that, because they weren't simply "press A as fast as possible every time something gets in your way". These were far more contextual and varied with their respective scenarios far better than, say, the "tap X when prompted while your character runs down an alley in Shenmue, so he doesn't trip over a crate." That's a real QTE-- or Heavenly Sword's non-brawling gameplay aspects. In this case, though, I see it as far more of a means to immerse the player into the cut scenes with what little connection the player truly has to the game-- the controller.

I'm looking forward to this. And the girl's voice doesn't bother me so much anymore

Am I the only one to notice that Nathan Drake makes grunting noises all the time in the Uncharted games? He makes noise everytime he jumps or lands, which is all the time. I didn't think Lara was much worse.

And yes, people seem to have forgotten what QTEs really are. God of War and Shenmue style button prompts are QTEs, not this contextual single button mashing.

kyrieee wrote:
Duoae wrote:
Scratched wrote:

I was going to comment on this in the MS thread yesterday, but I'm really not seeing the difference between this and male pain sounds and grunts. Ever watch women's tennis? I'm sure they're not making those grunts for kicks.

Actually, the grunting in tennis is largely psychological.

Well, it's a bit like follow through on your swing

That was my point. They use it as a psychological crutch to make them think they're hitting it as hard as they can. They don't need to do it. (The men do it needlessly too.)

They also use it as a distraction tool. I often wonder what would be the effect/consequences of a player who grunted early or late with regards to hitting the ball.... would it throw the other player off or get them told-off by the umpire?

Anyway.... with regards to Tomb Raider... pain and grunts get picked up on when men do it too (at least for me)... i just find that i comment on it when it's excessive and, in all honesty, you tend to find that directors (including those who make games) make women more vocal in their effort than the men who tend to do more heavy breathing/sucking in of breath and moans under their breath.

Scratched wrote:
Duoae wrote:
Scratched wrote:

I was going to comment on this in the MS thread yesterday, but I'm really not seeing the difference between this and male pain sounds and grunts. Ever watch women's tennis? I'm sure they're not making those grunts for kicks.

Actually, the grunting in tennis is largely psychological.

I thought it was more to do with breathing and chest muscles as they're doing a swing, but I'm not an expert and not about to become one. The point being pain sounds and grunts never get picked up on when it's a male doing them in a game, only a female.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiai

What bugs me aren't the grunts in games, but the footsteps. Hearing every single footstep in, say, LA Noire, was really disconcerting when trying to listen to a heated conversation. I feel like some games' sound designers need to take classes on sound for films.

4xis.black wrote:

The original Tomb Raider is an environmental navigation puzzle game with action elements that don't work so well (in many ways a forerunner to Uncharted). It is linear in the sense that the plot does not branch and most puzzles have only one intended solution. (And I'm sure some of the early oughties sequels messed around with QTEs in the same way all mediocre-to-bad games did back then.)

The question is, are we getting an actual puzzle game (that is, one in which challenge is derived from figuring out how to traverse the environment) or a string of mostly-scripted action sequences intermixed with puzzles that try very hard to solve themselves? I think that Guardian of Light proves the developer is not afraid to include some legit puzzling in their TR games, but who knows how the demographics shift from XBLA to AAA.

Random edit: I had no idea Crystal Dynamics is the same studio who developed the Legacy of Kain series and the Gex games. Dudes have been around forever.

The fact that they made Soul Reaver makes me think that the environment-traversal type of puzzle is more likely as it's definitely in their wheelhouse. But there is a lot of talk about doing things completely different, so maybe not.

Jakobedlam wrote:

What are QTEs? Quick Time ____?

Erections. /bonezone

But seriously folks, I agree with WipEout, I didn't see any QTEs in the game, certainly not in the strict 'hit string of buttons as they flash on the screen or you will die' sense. Just the waggling of the LS to kick free from the pursuer.

I think it's also worth pointing out that the developers specifically noted that this was at the very beginning of the game. Seemed reinforced by the sweeping panoramic shot of the island when she emerged from the cave.

She's only just begun. #carpenters

I think it looks pretty effin sweet, and her side getting punctured by a rod at the onset - yeeesh!

nel e nel wrote:

But seriously folks, I agree with WipEout, I didn't see any QTEs in the game, certainly not in the strict 'hit string of buttons as they flash on the screen or you will die' sense. Just the waggling of the LS to kick free from the pursuer.

I have such an aversion to QTEs at this stage that even the hit of them gives me pause. I think I over interpreted button prompts (which is something many games are doing now.) It could be that waggling the left stick will be the limit of the button based game play; which would make me very happy because I'm loving the rest of the game.