Good Bye Tomb Raider and Thanks for All the Fish.

In 2013 the creators of the Tomb Raider series at Eidos (at this point bought up by our good friends at Square Enix who never mess up any game they touch) decided to tell the origins story of Lara Croft. I was very excited for this new version. I spent weeks just soaking up any information I could find on it. The more I found out, the more it frightened me. Tomb Raider was taking inspiration from Uncharted, which it self, was inspired by the Tomb Raider games. Never the less, I remained excited. Even when I saw all the shooting, and the gun fights, I kept my enthusiasm. But the I played the game. This is the single worst thing I could have possibly done. In spite of it turning into a shooter, I was willing to over look that because it was a Tomb Raider game. Normally this is the part where I say "I didn't hate the game but . . ." instead, I'm just going to say that I flat out fucking hated it.

This was not a Tomb Raider game. This was some expensive knock off trying so hard to be a Tomb Raider game. When I think of Tomb Raider, yes there is fighting, and gun fights, I expect that, but what I don't expect is to have the gun fights over power the puzzle solving. That was what appealed to me about the Tomb Raider games. Maybe it was just me, but I liked entering a room and trying to figure out what the hell I was doing. I liked spending hours turning a crank, filling a pool with water, turning another crank, draining said pool. It was a change of pace from the fast and furious gun wielding that was in between. Okay, fast and furious is not how I would describe the old Tomb Raider games. They were slow, with occasional dinosaur fights. Some times it did require you to enter a room and kill a mess of people, Tomb Raider 2, and sometimes it required you to drive a boat through the canals of Venice, also Tomb Raider 2. The point was that the game rarely felt like it was punishing you. If you died, it was frustrating, but, most likely, it was because you didn't see that person on the roof with the gun.

 
In the new Tomb Raider guys come at you from all angles. You can shot gun them in the face, chest, crotch, where ever, and they stumble backwards, get up, and come right back at you. I understand that this is a game, and that you can't make it too easy. But this game was supposed to feel more realistic. If you really wanted realism, then the people should have died when you shot them in the face. The fact that they stumbled backward and came back towards you just brought me out of the game. If there where only a few instances like this in the game, then I could have over looked them, but it was every ten fucking seconds. Then, of course what game is complete now a-days without a fucking rocket launcher? Look, I'm all for making a game difficult, but if you want to make it realistic, some sacrifices have to be made. Make the villains die in one hit, but add six more. That way, it can still be hard, but it would have felt real still.

Also gone from this game were most of the puzzles. Yeah, there were some, but not enough. This was the biggest complaint about the game from most of the fans. Puzzles are what made the Tomb Raider games stand out. Now we are left with a frenzy of bullets. Sure there were some tombs to explore. Sure there were some areas you could go back to after you'd acquired a new skill.

Sure, there was random shit spread around the map for you to find. But, the bulk of the game was getting into gun fights. Maybe that's exactly what the game needed, maybe not. All I know is that the lack of puzzles made me feel cheated.

Then, of course there are the quick time events. I am glad to see that they are fading out but some games refuse to let them die. Tomb Raider is one of those games. Fortunately, they are mostly during cut-scenes. The game does have a lot, but the game play in between is usually pretty generous. Often, it even takes place within the game play, something more games need to learn how to do.

I think my biggest gripe with the game is the story. Father Mathis, the villain, does a lot of really bad stuff on the island such as kidnapping Lara's friend to turn her into some demigod or something. But here in lay the problem.  Thee are ample opportunities for Lara to send an arrow, or a bullet through

Father Mathis's skull and she doesn't. I've never understood that in games. If you have a shot, fucking take it! Don't wait for the ass hole to finish talking. Don't see if he'll let your friend go, don't call out to him, hoping that he'll be afraid of the gun in your hand or the bow with the drawn back string. JUST TAKE THE FUCKING SHOT. If one of his men had seen it, protecting him, or his head moved out of the way just in time, fine, but don't give me this bull shit of "I don't have a clear shot" because yes you did, or would have, if you hadn't called out for him to let your friend go.

In the end, there was some stuff in this game to like, that is to be sure, but mixed with all the bull shit, I just can't bring myself to get excited for the next game. I want to, but I just can't. Oh, and I forgot to mention, the next game has "Xbox One" exclusive rights. This just means the Micro$oft bought first distribution rights. Not that $ony won't get it, but it will be a week or so before they can. By all rights I should be upset with this. I was when they made the DLC for Tomb Raider Underworld, that never came to the PS Store. But now, I just don't care. Xbox want's if first then they can have it. I just can't bring myself to care anymore. I want puzzles, and games that make me think. I shouldn't have to scream at my TV to a person made of pretty polygons. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I find it harder to play these fast paced shooting games. They aren't fun for me any more. Even the Ninja Gaiden games have become more frustrating than fun.

When I play games, it's to have fun, not to yell and scream obscenities at the top of my lungs. Why is it so hard to make a hard, but fair game? I know how it should be done, but no one else seems to. Makers of these games just throw shit in there because they know it will get you killed. It doesn't matter if it's fair or not. Sometimes I feel as if the game over screen is just a nice way of saying "fuck you for playing and keeping us away from our families for so long". This game made me see that. As much as I hate to say it, I feel I might have to give up the hobby. This generation of consoles may be my last. I just can't keep up with it all. I can't keep getting angry over stupid shit like this. But something has to give. And since I don't think it will be the games I've loved so much, it might have to be me. Which is a shame, because there are plenty of games out there that look pretty fun. I'll give
this new generation of consoles a shot, but after that, we'll just have to wait and see.

My Experience with Uncharted

Uncharted was always one of those games that I wanted to play some day, but never got around to doing. That is, until recently. Now, when I first saw Uncharted I figured it would be like the Tomb Raider games e.g. lots of puzzles and some fighting. I have played every Tomb Raider game (actually I started with 2, but I did play anniversary). I haven’t played the last one though: Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. I played the demo, and while it was fun, it’s another one of those games that, like Uncharted, I might get around to eventually.

So I pop Uncharted in, and for a while, it’s very much like Tomb Raider. Then the gun fighting starts. The last first person shooter I played was Doom 1 on the PC, and I did so bad that, at the end of the level when it was tallying up my time I shit you not; the numbers were replaced with the words “Time Sucked.” I didn’t give up on shooters until Quake at which point the running and jumping and looking up and down was too much for me. I need to see my character in front of me not just his arms. So, Uncharted is a third person shooter as opposed to a first person shooter. It didn’t matter to me, first, second, or third person shooter I suck at all of them. Nevertheless I persevered. That is until mid way through the game.

It’s around then that the snipers came in. Up to this point I had already met the rocket launcher guy (technically it was a mechina 34 or whatever the hell their gun was called) and now I had snipers. Both of whom could one shot me, and did, often. Which brings me to another unrelated point. How come I’m the only one who seems to be able to run out of ammo? I finally manage to kill a rocket launcher guy and I get three shots out of his gun while he gets ten or more? I call bullshit! The same thing can be said with the sniper.

So after the snipers I was ready to give up. I put the game down for a day or two. I told myself that when I came back I should treat the fighting more like a puzzle and figure it out rather then run in there with guns blazing. It worked. I started to enjoy the game again . . . that is until the final fight. So I’m back in the monastery fighting two rocket launcher guys and four five snipers and getting my ass kicked. (There should totally be a trophy for that by the way. Die two hundred billion times, get a trophy). I will say this about Uncharted, its load times are vast improvement over Tomb Raider where, if you die, you are taken to a load screen and eventually brought back to just before you died. In Uncharted you die and come right back to where the game last saved. Why in the hell I can’t save the game MY SELF anymore is beyond me. One of the most fun things about the old Tomb Raider games was that you could do a beautiful swan dive off a cliff and save your game right there, and die every time. I did it on purpose just for the sheer fun of it. Anyway I digress.

I finally get passed the monastery and now I’m on a boat. This time the sniper can shoot up to four shots and never run out of ammo. So here I am (after receiving my nonexistent two hundred billionth death trophy back in the monastery) on a boat, dead . . . again. So I finally make it to the end and there’s a quick time event. If there’s one thing I hate more than first person shooters it’s quick time events. Those things need to fucking die already. At least this quick time event was consistent; unlike another game I played- cough God of War cough.

So I finally beat the game. I liked it for the most part. But it’s got me thinking. The new Tomb Raider game is supposed to be a reboot. I’m fine with this, but the creators are taking inspiration from Uncharted (and Assassin’s Creed apparently) which is in itself already a reboot of Tomb Raider (Uncharted not Assassin’s Creed). Either way I will buy the new Tomb Raider. I just hope it’s more like Tomb Raider and less like Uncharted. Again, not to say Uncharted is bad, in fact the story, characters and the game itself were quite enjoyable, better than Tomb Raider in many ways (of which I won’t get into here) and I intend to play the next two games as soon as I can, but I grew up with Tomb Raider so I will always have a place in my heart for Miss Croft.

 UPDATE:

I liked Uncharted 2 even more than the first game. I am eager to go and pick up the third. But, as always, there are some things that I don’t like.

Now I don’t know a whole lot about guns, but I’m pretty sure, if a guy is wearing full armor (of any kind) and I shoot rocket into his face, he’s going to die. Not the case with Uncharted 2. Those machine gun guys took three hits with a rocket!

My only other issue with the game was the goat/ yeti/ purple zombie guys. I shot the thing in the face with a shot gun multiple times and nothing. The main villain (Gragoravich?) shoots one in the face with a shot gun and it dies instantly. That’s so not fair! He could one shot me as well though, so maybe he had a high powered shot gun, yeah, let’s go with that.

UPDATE:

So I beat Uncharted 3, which harkened back to Uncharted 1, which means more gun fights. There were times when Nate says “need to take these guys out quietly.” But every time I tried the guy turned around. It didn’t matter if I waited five seconds or five minutes to figure out his pattern. Once I started moving, he turned, initiating another gun fight. In the carefully thought out words of Final Fantasy VI’s Kefka I

  SHOOTERS!

Other than that, Uncharted 3 was a fun game. There are two things that baffle me though. 1, In Uncharted 1, 2, and 3, Drake had several chances to shoot the villains in the head, why did he not? It would have made life much easier. 2, I fail to see what Drakes “deception” was. Maybe I just missed it, or maybe it was the part of the game when he leaves (forgot blond girl’s name) behind to get on the plain, or maybe it’s referring to his name,  which apparently is not Nathan Drake, OR maybe it’s referring to Sir Francis Drake’s deception.

All in all it is a good game. I am looking forward to The Last Of Us. And probably Uncharted 4. I really must love torturing myself.