Posts Tagged ‘Tomb Raider’

This Post Is Mainly About Tomb Raider

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

Last weekend, in a bid to fill out my completion percentage, I decided to breath some life into stale releases with fresh downloadable content (DLC). For a couple of reasons I typically avoid DLC. By the time developers ship it I’ve long finished the game concerned and have moved onto something else. I also feel it’s rarely worth the extra cash, and accumulating everything I’ve spent on that one game generally leaves me thinking: “Wow, that was so not worth the £60 I’ve dumped on it”.

With the past few weeks, however, the completion force within me has been strong, and so I decided to revisit some of the older titles I had finished prior to the DLC. Because I had already whored Lara Croft for 1000 points in Underworld, I decided to chase after the additional 250 points. With it being a Tomb Raider game, I figured the extra Achievements probably wouldn’t be too hard to score.

Underworld has two expansions — Lara’s Shadow and Beneath The Ashes. Both are priced at 800 Microsoft Points, with a Gamerscore value of 125 Points each. Beneath The Ashes was the first to be distributed to Xbox Live, and so it was the first DLC I purchased. It was also the cause of controversy when a begrudged Crystal Dynamic’s employee divulged it was originally part of the retail game, only to be cut at a later point and re-branded as DLC. So, Crystal Dynamics are now charging extra for a level that was originally meant to be in the retail game. Cheeky, and just plain unethical.

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Nate Drake vs Lara Croft

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

As opposed to reviewing Uncharted, I decided to put both Nate Drake and Lara Croft head to head, only because reviewing Uncharted without referencing to Tomb Raider was seemingly an impossible task. On the one hand we have a new, albeit immediately popular game by the name of Uncharted, and on the other we have a well established franchise that’s had over a decade to hone its formula. I wish I could sit on the fence with this one, but what fun would that be? Here goes…

Puzzles

I’ve been an avid fan of the Tomb Raider series since it first surfaced in the 90’s. Having stuck with Lara throughout her many iterations - both good and bad - there’s no doubt I’ve familiarised myself with the developer’s method in regards to puzzles. Having said that, after 9 releases there’s still a scale of intimidation that accompanies every Tomb Raider puzzle, big or small. Yes, it can be seemingly insurmountable to the extent genuine frustration sets in. But the sense of satisfaction upon cracking a puzzle is what makes Tomb Raider so rewarding, and in essence a great game.

Uncharted, on the other hand, is close, but puts itself at an immediate disadvantage by dumbing things down for the player. When faced with a puzzle, you’re presented with the option of triggering a hint by pressing one of the bumpers. This isn’t an ambiguous sense of direction either, but a concise description of what you’ve got to do. It strips away any sense of achievement.

There’s no competition here. Lara 1 - Nate 0

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