Tomb Raider reboot

I think I just kind of mentally downscale the amount of dudes you're fighting to keep it believable for me.

You know how when you're playing an old RPG and you enter a "huge city", but in game it's actually just five or six buildings and twenty people? You're meant to imagine that the buildings and people you see are just a small representative? It's the opposite of that.

I think the game is fantastic, but I think it is unfair to paint people as being overly pedantic by opining that Lara gets her ass kicked a bit much for our taste and that it is uncomfortable to watch. Obviously it wouln't be a fun action game if she couldn't take a licking and keep on ticking.

Demyx wrote:

I think I just kind of mentally downscale the amount of dudes you're fighting to keep it believable for me.

You know how when you're playing an old RPG and you enter a "huge city", but in game it's actually just five or six buildings and twenty people? You're meant to imagine that the buildings and people you see are just a small representative? It's the opposite of that.

Well put!

Demyx wrote:

I think I just kind of mentally downscale the amount of dudes you're fighting to keep it believable for me.

You know how when you're playing an old RPG and you enter a "huge city", but in game it's actually just five or six buildings and twenty people? You're meant to imagine that the buildings and people you see are just a small representative? It's the opposite of that.

Wait. You mean... use our imagination? When playing videogames?
Surely, you jest.

I'm pretty sure I didn't get my point across just right; I wasn't so much complaining, as I was trying to convey the mental process of coming to terms between a game trying to be realistic (to a point) and find middle ground between what the canon and story should feel like to the player, and the mechanics that will a) make the game fun to play, b) respect the game mechanics from the previous iterations so as not to alienate the user base that was following Lara Croft in earlier titles.

Again, I think they did a super job because those two are not easy to put together. The story places a young Lara that feels defenseless and unable to handle this situation. A player coming from previous titles, expecting to kill lots of enemies, would feel very frustrated with a game that only had hiding mechanics and a few kills here and there. That is now what a Lara Croft game should be.

At the same time, diving so quickly into expert-bowman mode does detract somewhat from the feeling of Lara being in over her head in this helpless situation. I think the design team made the right call and let players enjoy a good Tomb Raider game early into the story, rather the take their time ramping up Lara's courage to finally make her first kill and take her sweet time for the second kill after that and so on.

SallyNasty wrote:

I think the game is fantastic, but I think it is unfair to paint people as being overly pedantic by opining that Lara gets her ass kicked a bit much for our taste and that it is uncomfortable to watch. Obviously it wouln't be a fun action game if she couldn't take a licking and keep on ticking.

I agree. I said myself, and I'm sure others did too, that this is a minor immersion breaking issue. Nobody is saying the game should be hyper-realistic (no game is), just that there's a contrast issue with trying to humanize an action game heroine in this manner and also have her be an action game heroine.

I also don't like being called pedantic. I go to great lengths to be open-minded about everything I encounter in life, and that goes for my suspension of disbelief when it comes to games. It's not out of line to say that this game tests my suspension of disbelief compared to other action adventure games.

EDIT:

Hobbes2099 wrote:

At the same time, diving so quickly into expert-bowman mode does detract somewhat from the feeling of Lara being in over her head in this helpless situation. I think the design team made the right call and let players enjoy a good Tomb Raider game early into the story, rather the take their time ramping up Lara's courage to finally make her first kill and take her sweet time for the second kill after that and so on.

I also agree with this, and it goes beyond just the gameplay for me. If there is one huge problem I can point out with Tomb Raider it's that it pushes Lara's human vulnerabilities under a microscope while at the same time asking us to suspend disbelief surrounding them. I went into this game, as I do with every game, expecting to suspend disbelief (so much so that I do it without thinking). Absorbing hails of bullets, becoming an expert marksman in less than 48 hours, being able to jump large chasms, these are all fine on their own. However, when the game then shows my character seriously injured and limping from a single fall, many of which I've put her through myself with no adverse effects, it rips my mind out of my suspension.

Put simply, it's the game saying "hey sure, you can be the action heroine. Oh, but not during this scene." This doesn't make it a bad game, if anything it's an issue I hope they can find a solution to for the next game. Which I will absolutely buy and play on day 1.

When reality gets in the way of fun...

Really, I think this game is pretty swell. I'd love to see a less actiony and more realistic Tomb Raider as well, but this ain't it.

I personally don't find a ton of reason to complain about wounds in cutscenes specifically when Lara can get shot a few times and then fully recover by simply standing still for a few seconds in the game play. It's silly in a way that only action video games can be, which means you need a massive injection of disbelief suspension if you look too long at the stuff that's going on.

What I'd love to know is what the franchise will look like now. Lara started off afraid and weak before a catastrophic situation, and ended screaming in the face of danger and armed men. That should technically allow Lara to start the next chapter as bad ass as the first title back in the 90's.

I really want to keep playing it fleshed out Lara, not super heroine Lara.

I absolutely loved this game but I couldn't exactly put my finger on what had done it for me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was because of the emotion put into Lara by her voice actor. I could really feel the emotion in what she was saying which is something I have never experienced in a game and it had a huge impact on how I felt about the main character and even her friends. She cared so I cared.

In terms of mechanics, I greatly enjoyed progression of the game mechanics. The game flowed in a way that just felt... right. TR is easily the best game that I have played so far in the new year (but I will be playing Bioshock 1 for the first time in the next month so we'll see if it holds up), and I only hope the next game in the series can live up to this one.

Well, I'm sorry if my pedantry comment ruffled feathers, but when the conversation was focused on how many broken bones Lara would actually have and how a stomach puncture would have killed her if she didn't receive immediate hospitalization, then yeah, that's getting into the area of being overly concerned with details and precision.

If it had stayed on the 'yeesh, these death scenes are pretty gruesome' that would have been one thing, and I actually agree that they are very cringe worthy.

I guess what I find interesting is how people will focus on that as being immersion breaking but giant zombie samurai warriors on a mystical storm island is totally OK.

The reason I mentioned the points I did is because they broke immersion for me for the reasons I mentioned. There's absolutely no logic behind it because I was fine with other events that were just as unbelievable, I suppose it's just an artifact of personal experience combined with the presentation of certain scenes. And it's absolutely nit picking since I think this is a fantastic game. I mostly mentioned them as points in the game that would have been better if handled differently.

For all issues like this, I think it comes down to internal consistency. The game presents a fiction where things work a certain way, and it's jarring when something happens that appears to contradict these rules. For the initial scripted implement it may well just be because this is an event that establishes the fiction, so of course it seems off but then future such injuries are taken as expected.

complexmath wrote:

For all issues like this, I think it comes down to internal consistency. The game presents a fiction where things work a certain way, and it's jarring when something happens that appears to contradict these rules. For the initial scripted implement it may well just be because this is an event that establishes the fiction, so of course it seems off but then future such injuries are taken as expected.

But the game makes pains to tell the player that Lara has been trained for survival and has been exposed to working/living in similar conditions her entire life. Maybe not conditions with murderous castaways, but in remote settings at the least.

I dunno, I saw it less as "omigod, how did Lara become such a badass so quickly?" and more of a "Lara knows how to do all this stuff, but she hasn't been battle tested yet." It was more about actually putting her training to use in a real life situation instead of at Croft manner under Roth's watchful eye.

complexmath wrote:

The reason I mentioned the points I did is because they broke immersion for me for the reasons I mentioned. There's absolutely no logic behind it because I was fine with other events that were just as unbelievable, I suppose it's just an artifact of personal experience combined with the presentation of certain scenes. And it's absolutely nit picking since I think this is a fantastic game. I mostly mentioned them as points in the game that would have been better if handled differently.

For all issues like this, I think it comes down to internal consistency. The game presents a fiction where things work a certain way, and it's jarring when something happens that appears to contradict these rules. For the initial scripted implement it may well just be because this is an event that establishes the fiction, so of course it seems off but then future such injuries are taken as expected.

I agree that her magical durability and implausible competence is at odds with the arc they want to convey.

However, after that initial scene, she proceeds to have the crap beaten out of her constantly for the rest of the game and completely shrug it off. This is why I personally don't view that scene as uniquely breaking immersion; in a way, it just sets us up to expect her to be invulnerable from there on out.

This is a difficult problem to solve in a shooty game where the main character is supposed to be plausible. I think the only solution is "don't make every game protagonist an action hero," but that's what sells; whatcha gonna do...

It kind of has the JRPG feel to it: people can get meteors dropped on them in battle on keep on going, but if somebody gets run through in a cut scene that person is hosed. Still, I didn't have the problems with immersion-breaking that a lot of others did. There are a few moments that made me cringe, but I thought it ramped up well. The injury in the beginning

Spoiler:

is kind of a problem - it reopens once or twice, until she cauterizes it.

nel e nel wrote:
complexmath wrote:

For all issues like this, I think it comes down to internal consistency. The game presents a fiction where things work a certain way, and it's jarring when something happens that appears to contradict these rules. For the initial scripted implement it may well just be because this is an event that establishes the fiction, so of course it seems off but then future such injuries are taken as expected.

But the game makes pains to tell the player that Lara has been trained for survival and has been exposed to working/living in similar conditions her entire life. Maybe not conditions with murderous castaways, but in remote settings at the least.

I dunno, I saw it less as "omigod, how did Lara become such a badass so quickly?" and more of a "Lara knows how to do all this stuff, but she hasn't been battle tested yet." It was more about actually putting her training to use in a real life situation instead of at Croft manner under Roth's watchful eye.

When? Seriously, when did the game go to pains to make it clear that Lara has remote survival experience? I'm half-way through the game, and the closest I've seen to that was when Roth said "You're a Croft", which is hardly a comprehensive CV on remote jungle survival skills.

On your comment about injuries vs. zombie samurai, it's because the brain has a foundation in reality for one but not for the other. Regardless of medical training, every human has an innate sense of how much punishment our bodies can take because that's the reality we live in. There are no zombie samurai though, so our brain immediately shoves that into the realm of fantasy and completely overlooks it. That's why taking the first one too far breaks the suspension of disbelief, but the second doesn't cause a second thought.

As for focusing on particular details and not on others, my response is that this is far more than just a slight detail, which is the entire point I've been trying to make. The only reason this is at all an issue is because the game focuses a gigantic spotlight on it.

ahrezmendi wrote:
nel e nel wrote:
complexmath wrote:

For all issues like this, I think it comes down to internal consistency. The game presents a fiction where things work a certain way, and it's jarring when something happens that appears to contradict these rules. For the initial scripted implement it may well just be because this is an event that establishes the fiction, so of course it seems off but then future such injuries are taken as expected.

But the game makes pains to tell the player that Lara has been trained for survival and has been exposed to working/living in similar conditions her entire life. Maybe not conditions with murderous castaways, but in remote settings at the least.

I dunno, I saw it less as "omigod, how did Lara become such a badass so quickly?" and more of a "Lara knows how to do all this stuff, but she hasn't been battle tested yet." It was more about actually putting her training to use in a real life situation instead of at Croft manner under Roth's watchful eye.

When? Seriously, when did the game go to pains to make it clear that Lara has remote survival experience? I'm half-way through the game, and the closest I've seen to that was when Roth said "You're a Croft", which is hardly a comprehensive CV on remote jungle survival skills.

First time Lara needs to get food there is a voice over from Roth and she tells herself "Remember Roth's training". And one of the videos she watches at a campfire has a scene of her and Roth reminiscing about her tagging along with her parents as a kid and finding an artifact and showing it to Roth. That led me to believe that she's been going on expeditions for quite some time. So yes, for me, that was enough to establish that she has the skill set, but has just never tested them in the field before.

http://youtu.be/m3xZpydHHLM?t=12m40s

Oh yeah, I remember those scenes. I interpreted those as having past knowledge of how to butcher an animal, and a kid tagging along on her parents excavation. I can see how your interpretation would change your entire view of Lara's current situation.

This is why I take issues with the pedantry comments. We're talking about differences of interpretation, and it's the details that matter in those cases. So your interpretation enabled you to put some details within your suspension of disbelief realm, where as others of us were not because of different interpretations.

Super props to Crystal Dynamics for making a game that can spur such varied discussion and responses to the same game.

I think the falling on the spike in the opening scene comes up a lot because it's pretty much the first thing that happens when Lara becomes playable. My personal issue with it all was actually external to the game. Everyone I heard talking about the game expressed how normal and vulnerable Lara was. In cutscenes this is pretty true, but otherwise she's got all the standard action hero tropes. That's not bad, but from a story perspective it doesn't work. It's basically delivering two separate experiences. One is the narrative delivered in cut scenes, and the other is the action hero experience you get from the actual gameplay. Both are good, but it would be better if they could have been more solidly related. A greater emphasis on stealth, more lethal combat, someone acknowledging what an incredible badass Lara is during cinematics.

gore wrote:

When reality gets in the way of fun...

Really, I think this game is pretty swell. I'd love to see a less actiony and more realistic Tomb Raider as well, but this ain't it.

I personally don't find a ton of reason to complain about wounds in cutscenes specifically when Lara can get shot a few times and then fully recover by simply standing still for a few seconds in the game play. It's silly in a way that only action video games can be, which means you need a massive injection of disbelief suspension if you look too long at the stuff that's going on.

Suspension of disbelief works best when you don't need too much of it. Some kind of single point of departure. Having to handwave of fiat things is really damaging to a narrative. While I agree with you, what I really want is to not have to.

Ultimately I'm just picking nits, It's one of the best games I've played in a while, and I'm eager to see what they do with the franchise next.

I think Zudz hits the nail on the head. Great game, just a couple nit-picks (which don't overall detract from enjoying the game at all).

Couldn't have said it better myself. I know, I tried.

Zudz wrote:

Suspension of disbelief works best when you don't need too much of it. Some kind of single point of departure. Having to handwave of fiat things is really damaging to a narrative. While I agree with you, what I really want is to not have to.

Actually, an anecdote: Suspension of disbelief also works really [em]really[/em] well when you need a huge amount of it. I'm not a big fan of musicals, but I am a big fan of Björk, so I went and saw [em]Dancer in the Dark[/em] when it came out. That movie completely and utterly emotionally destroyed me--I was still shaking a couple of hours after I came out of the theater. And, I'm pretty sure that a big part of the reason why is that I had to suppress my usual disbelief so far in order to be okay with the "musicalness" of it that I quite simply had nothing left to insulate me from the rest.

That's pretty atypical, I know, but I wanted to throw it out there as a counter-example. And I don't think it applies at all to TR: for one thing, action hero people slaughtering hordes of enemies and getting impaled on spikes doesn't actually take much disbelieving, it's kind of expected. If this were a sports game, then we might be talking.

Hypatian wrote:
Zudz wrote:

Suspension of disbelief works best when you don't need too much of it. Some kind of single point of departure. Having to handwave of fiat things is really damaging to a narrative. While I agree with you, what I really want is to not have to.

Actually, an anecdote: Suspension of disbelief also works really [em]really[/em] well when you need a huge amount of it. I'm not a big fan of musicals, but I am a big fan of Björk, so I went and saw [em]Dancer in the Dark[/em] when it came out. That movie completely and utterly emotionally destroyed me--I was still shaking a couple of hours after I came out of the theater. And, I'm pretty sure that a big part of the reason why is that I had to suppress my usual disbelief so far in order to be okay with the "musicalness" of it that I quite simply had nothing left to insulate me from the rest.

That's pretty atypical, I know, but I wanted to throw it out there as a counter-example. And I don't think it applies at all to TR: for one thing, action hero people slaughtering hordes of enemies and getting impaled on spikes doesn't actually take much disbelieving, it's kind of expected. If this were a sports game, then we might be talking.

I feel like I should trim that quote, but I'm not sure where.

Mostly, I just have no context for your example. There's a video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MlatxLP-xs there. It came up as part of a conversation in another thread. It's flippin' huge. It's 39 minutes dedicated to what's wrong with the Mass Effect 3 ending. Regardless of your feelings about Mass Effect, he has a bit about Narrative Coherence and suspension of disbelief that I feel like should be required reading. Watching. Whatever. I don't have sound because I'm at work right now, but it looks like you can jump to the 23 minute mark if you want to skip the background and get right to it. (I, of course) recommend watching the whole thing.

Curse me and my not having played ME3 yet. I'd like to watch that, instead I'll just save it for later.

Don't worry, you're not missing much. That video is pretty much typical of the Mass Effect Ending nerd rage that happened last year. It's pretty clear to me that the guy wasn't paying attention during the game, because he seems puzzled about a lot of things that were covered in side missions. Much of it is rendered obsolete by the extended cut and Leviathan DLC.

Mostly it boils down to the role of ambiguity in story telling. This guy argues for a story having to lay everything out in nicely organized, consistent lines, without which the story is garbage. He often punctuates his assertions with wacky music and sound effects, like Yakkity Sax and Sad Trombone. It is full of such non-arguments as long cuts of Shepard shooting uselessly at the Crucible child, and close ups of the Crucible child with wacky text or sound effects superimposed, as if those "funny" techniques are supposed to validate his arguments somehow. My opinion is that his video is garbage.

I can see that we stand on opposite sides of the issue of Mass Effect's ending. We're probably way further off topic than this thread calls for though.

On topic: ... I got nothin'. Someone else want to take the baton?

nel e nel wrote:
complexmath wrote:

For all issues like this, I think it comes down to internal consistency. The game presents a fiction where things work a certain way, and it's jarring when something happens that appears to contradict these rules. For the initial scripted implement it may well just be because this is an event that establishes the fiction, so of course it seems off but then future such injuries are taken as expected.

But the game makes pains to tell the player that Lara has been trained for survival and has been exposed to working/living in similar conditions her entire life. Maybe not conditions with murderous castaways, but in remote settings at the least.

I dunno, I saw it less as "omigod, how did Lara become such a badass so quickly?" and more of a "Lara knows how to do all this stuff, but she hasn't been battle tested yet." It was more about actually putting her training to use in a real life situation instead of at Croft manner under Roth's watchful eye.

Great discussions in the thread. Just chiming in to note that I played the game in a similar mindset. I didn't see the character arc as "innocent girl becomes badass action heroine" as much as "potential badass becomes actual badass." It's like if Short Round hung around Indiana Jones for a decade or so before they found the Temple of Doom.

By the end of the experience you're clearly in the same place, with Lara as video game action heroine, but getting a glimpse of that transformation in the beginning of the narrative (though not perfect) made a big difference.

I know that I tend to be very literal, so it would have worked better for me if there had been more explicit description of her past training and experiences. I totally get what nel and others are saying, but for me it wasn't enough to convey "this is someone who has trained for this kind of situation", gun-toting crazies aside.

BluesmanTLU wrote:

Great discussions in the thread. Just chiming in to note that I played the game in a similar mindset. I didn't see the character arc as "innocent girl becomes badass action heroine" as much as "potential badass becomes actual badass." It's like if Short Round hung around Indiana Jones for a decade or so before they found the Temple of Doom.

This is how I saw it too. For me, the character development was the best part of the game. It's amazing they pulled it off as well as they did given the requirement to include such a mind-numbing amount of combat.

Zero Punctuation reviewed Tomb Raider, and the comment he made that stood out to me was about Lara being entirely reactionary. He compares to FarCry 3 and Spec Ops, both of which I haven't played so I can't agree/disagree with his comparison, but it's something I'm going to keep a closer eye on as I finish Tomb Raider, and eventually play FarCry 3.

I haven't played Spec Ops, but I think Yahtzee's comparison to Far Cry 3 is laughable. Jason spends the entire game following other peoples' instructions. He gets to make one single decision for himself at the very end of the game, and it ends up being a really stupid decision anyway

Spoiler:

since the 'bad' option just kills you

Comparatively, in Tomb Raider there's a pretty crucial turning point where Lara starts making and executing her own plans instead of just reacting to things and following instructions. Jason never stops being a puppet.

I think I reached that point last night. It was a very noticeable change within the game itself, up until that point I definitely thought Lara was being entirely reactive.