Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Robsoie]

One of the things I didn't particularly like about it was that I never really felt there was any real choice in where to try and climb, so it always ended up feeling like I was on a track. Ie, if the metaphor is a obstacle course, then more like an athletic course where you have a clear route just with hinders on it rather than an area where you have to figure out how to get to the end yourself using the features at hand. Now, and I admit that the following may just be because I was a dumb kid with no problem solutive skill when I played the Tomb Raider games of old, but that puzzling out the route was some of the stuff I liked about those games. So I missed that.

Yes, that's something that annoyed me too , you have that very large environment but there's basically only a single path nearly all the time (sometime there's a secondary route that lead to an hidden and optional "tomb" , "tomb" not looking really like a tomb anyways like that flooded lab room with electricity) .
So much of the game takes place outdoor and we have this single path only like in the old TR games, basically it's a linear game with the illusion of open world.
I haven't yet played any of the sequels (i'm rather close to the end of this first game by now) maybe they opened alternate paths better. 
 
Still i'm enjoying the game a lot more than i thought i would, so much hourly nights wasted in it already

edit : one of the dlc that is included in the egs version of the game by default adds an optional tomb in a very early area (the forest zone in which you will have to hunt food then will climb down a ladder in a small bunker) .
the tomb puzzle is about burning a few locations to create a chain reaction that will break a crashed plane, so you can climb the part up to get the treasure.
Problem is that there's a tree that is supposed to be destroyed during the chain reaction but does not and will prevent you to climb on the last part of the now broken plane.  A bug that never was fixed.
fortunately the solution to that is simple, just go back to the main menu and load the last saved game (or the last camp save if you prefer), go back into the tomb and the tree will have been removed as it should have, allowing you to get to the treasure.

[Robsoie]

Finally completed the 2013 "Tomb Raider"  (well only the main story, i still have to complete collectibles, side quest and tombs) and i enjoyed it a lot, especially the gameplay that feels just right with the character being very responsive in every situations.
Only thing i didn't like is that most of her support cast was very annoying, only 2 of them were great.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 Roth and Grim were awesome support character and that damned gamestory writer killed the both of them while letting the annoying part of the cast alive

Started to play the sequel "Rise of the Tomb Raider" , as expected performance isn't the same as i had to lower more options to get it smooth, but loading time that were only a couple of seconds in "Tomb Raider" are noticably a lot longer, fortunately they only happen when you load the game, as ingame there's no loading time.
 
Now i couldn't help but notice they changed the character face, basically it's like if in a movie sequel they change the actor for the same role, and it's frankly annoying because the new model face seems to be in constant "bewildered" status regardless of any emotion the character is supposed to have : character is in "serious" mode -> looks bewildered, she's supposed to look sad -> looks bewildered, she's supposed to be afraid -> looks bewildered etc... she's supposed to be in a hurry -> looks bewildered.
Wish there was a mod to bring back the previous character model that at least had her face more in par with the current emotion at play.

For the character direction, i thought it would be better than before but now instead of the character development being about Reboot Lara growing up from clueless lost little girl into an experienced adventurer we have Reboot Lara being filled with lots of "daddy issues" while looking constantly bewildered
And honestly i think it's worse.
 
And  for some reason they also changed the character model from the "support friend" Jonah that made it from the previous game (they got rid of all the other surviving cast for some reason too) , fortunately you don't see that guy as often as in the previous game so you're not stuck with "who is that guy ?" thoughts until you realise that's supposed to be Jonah

Now the environment is more detailled in the extreme (explaining probably the difference in performance) as the view is a lot more open (previously on the island there were a lot of forest allowing to avoid rendering the far away world, but in this one there is the rendered faraway world even when it serves no purpose (like in early game in Syria you're on a mountain corner, ready to enter an underground tomb, and you have this huge town in the background . 
 
The gameplay is mostly the same but there is less combat (at least so far) to do . That balance the game more toward exploration but in the same time there's a very noticable loss of "urgency" that in the previous game was keeping me on my toes most of the time .
The atmosphere also changed and do not get me immersed in it like it did on the previous game.

So far it's a good game, but not as good as the previous one.

[dragdeler]

Interesting, I started out with the latest entry for the graphics. I like the end product, it's much more reasonable in scope than many other games who need to do and be everything at once... Gameplay isn't my favourite cup of tea, and I often pause after an hour or in front of a new puzzle, but it's a solid game, I'm pretty happy I got it for free

[Robsoie]

From what i have read the last entry Shadow of the Tomb Raider is made by a completely different developer (Eidos-Montreal) while Tomb Raider and Rise of the Tomb Raider are Crystal Dynamics' baby. And often i read Shadow is the weakest entry of the 3 (though it's supposed to be the most graphically detailled, but Tomb Raider and Rise looks rather awesome already).

[None]

So.

Northern Journey. Stop here if you're particularly arachnophobic or thalassophobic, 'cuz the game plays hard on both.

It's a one-man project that may loosely call itself a first-person shooter, or more directly from the store page, a 'norwegian happysad game set in a northern land.' You're a nameless red-gloved protagonist tasked by a traveling flutist (who also happens to have sunk your boat) to recover a handful of stolen things.

It's also eurojanky as hell and beautifully so.

Perhaps my best summary for it would be that it's like STALKER, except instead of a radioactive zone, it's nordic fantasy. Environments are equal parts lush and bleak, the cast of characters you'll encounter are peculiar and uncanny, there's a handful of hidden life and ammo boosters to find for the nosy, ammo is a bit scarce. Your arsenal is pretty small, all told, and a little bit clumsy, but it works. Perhaps that's precisely why it works.

It's so many parts uncanny, mystifying, bleak, lighthearted, solemn and self-confident. It's a feverish experience carried on its ambience, compelling if you'd only step into the dream logic that runs its world. There's no sidequests or pointless backtracking, no equipment upgrade gimmicks, no exp bars- one of my favorite levels in it doesn't have combat at all! It's just distilled, inviting uncanniness and intrigue. Step in, get lost, and load your Bear Crossbow. Eight bucks on sale right now, or twelve at full price. Totally worth it at full price, if you think you'll enjoy it.

[Kagus]

Been giving Sailwind a bit of a go recently, and barring some minor weirdness it's been rather compelling.

While the idea of sailing long distances alone with historical equipment is frankly terrifying and insane, the game does throw several bones your way in order to make this task slightly less daunting. Namely, basically the only "historical equipment" available is the spyglass, quadrant, and compass. The other pieces of navigational gear you can buy have no real-world equivalents and are frankly a bit magical. This includes the "chrono compass", which if it had existed would've been the holy grail of pre-digital navigation as it's a compact piece of equipment providing information including: Magnetic north, latitude, longitude, and even time of day. Even the chip log is this fancy automatic tool that just gives you your speed in knots on a dial when you send the chip overboard.

However, while a lot of the rigging has also been simplified, it's still definitely a bit daunting trying to manage two or even three masts of sails on your own during storms or when coming in to port (Dear Dragon Cliffs: "Why?"), and there's a definite sense of accomplishment when you manage to make your first long voyage successfully and see that glorious shadow of a landmass on the horizon after days of infinite sea and the looming dread that maybe you made a miscalculation and have become lost.

The game also has survival elements, so you need to make sure you have enough fresh water to drink for the entirety of your journey, and either food reserves or fishing equipment + time enough to keep yourself from starving. Most interesting of these is the sleep need, as sleeping is both your kind of "fast travel" and an incredible risk that needs to be managed. You are of course sailing alone, so any time you bunk down is time the ship is being left to its own devices. It'll *probably* keep on the heading you've set, but some stray gusts or waves might blow it off-course and you'll spend a few hours going who-knows-where. Time while sleeping is sped up though, and allows you to make very long journeys more bearable as a player by just sleeping through large portions of it. You'll wake up automatically at various intervals and also if a storm blows in, the boat starts taking on water, or if you bump into something. But beyond that, you can't control when you wake up and basically have to commit to each nap you take.


Note: While the chrono compass does allow you to read longitude and you do know the longitudinal positions of all the ports ingame, it's still not super precise and just running a latitude is a perfectly fine way of getting places.

Additional note: There's honestly a bit of a grinding cliff in the early game, as two of the three starter boats really don't have cargo space or weight tolerance to support more than 2-3 missions worth of goods at a time, and trying to take those small vessels into the open ocean for longer journeys is daunting at best. So earning enough money to buy one of the larger boats is a bit of a stretch. However, this can be circumvented (or circumnavigated, ah? Ah? ...nah) by the fact that the goods trading system is currently borked and once you've garnered enough reputation to get a discount on bulk goods you can just buy them and then sell them back to the original merchant for a profit.

[scriver]

I'm a bit sad that it isn't co-op, honestly. I don't really play co-op games but it just seems like the idea if a neat little sailing co-op game would be neat.

[Kagus]

I'm a bit sad that it isn't co-op, honestly. I don't really play co-op games but it just seems like the idea if a neat little sailing co-op game would be neat.

I do quite like co-op games, crew sims especially, and I'm also very sad that it's not co-op... It's technically on the dev roadmap, but listed under " Maybe? Someday?", so I'm definitely not holding my breath for multiplayer to be implemented.

And honestly, I can kinda understand it in a way... The major risk that would be allayed by having a teammate is sleeping and having something go wrong underway. ...however, sleeping also speeds up time and is essential in not spending 12 real life hours on making a crossing. And you wouldn't be able to do the time warping unless both players were sleeping at the same times, which kinda defeats the purpose.

Still think it would be fun though. Heck, I had a hell of a time even with completely different stuff like Blackwake. And while I haven't personally gotten to it yet, the current largest ship in Sailwind has something like 11 different winches you're supposed to be taking care of while underway. That's a lot to deal with all at once when a squall comes in out of nowhere

[dragdeler]

hey robsoie I could just google it, but... what are the geographical themes of those 2 other (earlier) tomb raiders? I'm starting to enjoy this more and more but notice the setting contributes a lot.

[Robsoie]

The first one happens in a mysterious island (at some distance from Japan) with some montainous areas and caverns , the 2nd one has a very short trip to Syria with a small desert and rocky , then Siberia that has 2 different geographical zones : one with very snowy mountains, snowy forestal area, and the much more temperate climate area (forest + mountain).
Of course both game have their underground stuff too. 

The atmosphere of both games is very different so it makes it worthwhile to play both.

[dragdeler]

aight thanks i just might 

[Robsoie]

Rise of the Tomb Raider may also have the most replay value of the 3 games with the Expedition mode that is mostly a "create your mission" system.

[Iduno]

I assume someone else has heard of it, but I haven't seen it posted, so: Wordle

It's a bit like Mastermind, with words. Except a bit easier, because it tells you which answers belong to each letter (grey for "not in this puzzle", yellow for "right letter, wrong place", and green for "right letter, right place"). You get 5 guesses to get the right word, and there's only one word per day. Obviously finding some words with a lot of useful letters helps (I'd go with H, T, C, S, and several vowels). Everyone gets the same word, so try to not post spoilers.

Edit: My Strategy:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think using the first 2 guesses on words that contain none of the same letters (unless the first word is nearly all correct) should get you a lot of information, especially if you use common letters like above. COINS and THREW is 3/5 vowels, and some common letters. I'm missing L and M, but a good third word should be able to get those added. Let me know if you can think of 2 better words. I'm sure you can just type 5 letters that don't make words, but that feels like it's against the spirit of the game.

[Aoi]

I assume someone else has heard of it, but I haven't seen it posted, so: Wordle

Well, that was interesting. Got today's in 3... and I accidentally used a 'dead' letter in the second guess.

I'm assuming that every word is, well, a word, not random letters, and every letter is different?

[Iduno]

I assume someone else has heard of it, but I haven't seen it posted, so: Wordle

Well, that was interesting. Got today's in 3... and I accidentally used a 'dead' letter in the second guess.

I'm assuming that every word is, well, a word, not random letters, and every letter is different?

They are all words, but I'm not sure if repeated letters are allowed or not. My last 3 guesses were trying to find the correct middle letter, and I ended up getting it on the last possible guess.