Tomb Raider Anniversary Comments by Kristan Reed

@agoude

is it a pal ps3 ?

is the game a pal version?

Pal ps2 games dont work on ntsc ps3s

Has your PS3 got 1.8 firmware?

And I ONLY HAVE A PC AT WORK... I don't understand why other people say it works, maybe i need to tweak something in the menu, i don't know argh

Patience? I tried for 2 hours on one tiny section which i failed continuously due to lousy controls and camera :(

At that point in time, it was either give up or put my head in the oven.

And regarding death, they use some lame ragdoll now, i used to love the death animations in the original, the way her body got twisted and the sound of cracking her neck.

Que much swearing.

because of frustration. (btw you forgot the "?")

Edit: fixed

Thanks for pointing out the errors. I was up til 4.15 AM this morning finishing the game, so I'll blame tiredness and Tom being away! - Krudster

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ANYWAY sounds good. The whole Tomb Raider thing kind of passed me by somehow, despite having briefly rented the first couple. I guess they were kind of ponderously paced for me at the time. Did like the Legend demo but weirdly, didn't like the modern kid-gloves pacing, so I thought "what I'd really like is the old-school level design with the new controls and presentation". Et voila!

The Legend demo was rather choppy with the next-gen options up though, as the old beige monster is looking a little long in the tooth these days. Hmm, whether to wait for the Wii / 360 version... ?!

The Legend demo was rather choppy with the next-gen options up though, as the old beige monster is looking a little long in the tooth these days. Hmm, whether to wait for the Wii / 360 version... ?!

As I said earlier, this verison doesn't have the next-gen options, and looks and performs (on my PC, judging by the demo) like Legend with these options all turned off.

When's it coming out on the 360 krudster? You promised... ;_;

Your guess is as good as mine...I reckon within three months.

Well I'm going to hold tight until Christmas at any rate. If there is no news by then....I'll guess I'll have no choice but to go with the Games for Windows version.

> obliging AI-free goons popping up obligingly

Eurgh.

Edit: fixed. Damn my tired brain.

As soon as they announce the 360 version I'll order it.

360 version (if it ever gets made) for me.

I'll be downloading the PC demo this weekend! Nice!

Wow, who'd have thunk the PlayStation 2's swan song would have a 90 minute John Bonham drum solo?

I hold out for the wii version.

I dont have a ps2 anymore, and i hate playing games on my pc

@agoude: Did you get it to work on your PS3?

Just ordered the game today and am a bit worried now :|

"You can point the finger of blame at God of War and Fahrenheit all you like, but Shenmue started it years ago"

Surely Dragon's Lair started it years ago? Shenmue just made it 'popular' again.

" Oddly enough, I've never ever played a Tomb Raider game all the way through. Maybe it's about time I started... "

I tried to play through the first game but my computer died when I was about 2/3 through it, and I never bothered to play it again... Legend was the only one I really played through (didn't play #5/Chronicles and #6/AoD at all)

what's with the Legend hate BTW?

Does the PC version have high-res textures? If not, then surely that's the reason it's not out on the 360.

They don't look enormously high res, no. Nothing a 360 couldn't handle.

That said, if you were to go back and play the original now, you'd be appalled at how clunky the control and camera system feels, how evil the checkpointing was (unless you played the 'save anywhere' PC version), and, eek, how badly the visuals have aged.


Hmm, no.

Controls are still fine (better than the modern camera relative controls) for the climbing and jumping puzzles. Admittedly not so for the battles, but who the hell plays Tomb Raider for the shooting anyway?

Camera system: Well, one of the first games with a button to fix the camera behind you, and frankly, it holds up better than loads of modern efforts.

Evil checkpointing? There are save points. There is nothing different about them or, their placement, from modern games. So, Idunno? And on another note, save anywhere systems are thinly veiled built-in cheating, they're the spawn of Satan and they're only for total pussies.

And sure the visuals are lowtech, but combined with the music and ambience they still manage to convey the atmosphere properly. I don't understand why some people can be so hysterically appalled at older games' graphics, when the art direction still holds up. You don't go into pretend convulsions each time you play a DS game, do you?


All in all, I find this whole overreacting at old games slightly cliché. So many of them, including the original TR, are still better in almost every way than 90% of the rubbish we get these days.

That said, I'm obviously looking forward to this. Despite them including the awful Legend controls.

I meant, perhaps they don't want to put it out on the 360 because the textures are not HD-res... i.e., cost saving measures on asset creation.

Pre-loading as we speak. And I do know that I could have pre-ordered it for around the same price and be playing it right now, but I'm an indecisive bugger.

eurgh, when's it coming out for 360?

"I meant, perhaps they don't want to put it out on the 360 because the textures are not HD-res"


eh? Erm.. most people run pc games at high res you know...

People just wouldnt buy a ps2 port on the 360 - no matter how up-resed it was. I might be wrong, but i'd say that's why its not happened.

Besides.. The ps2 version appartently works on the ps3 (for those that have one). And they're doing a wii version. So that's the two most popular formats covered :-)

"eh? Erm.. most people run pc games at high res you know... "

Sure, hence the "PC look" that some PC games have when played at higher resolutions, where the polygon count and the texture size aren't high enough in comparison to the resolution. Making everything look flat, undetailed, etc.

"I assume if the PC version autoconfigs well with a X360 pad, a PS2 pad connected via a USB converter will work similarly well?

Confirmation/denial of this would be greatly appreciated."


I played the demo with a PS2/USB combination. It works fine.

somebody said it plays well on keybord + mouse... bollocks cannae beat analog controller. ps2 version for me.

You didn't comment on the music - is it as good as in the first Tomb Raider game? In my opinion the original score was brilliant. I still hum bits of it to this day, when I'm absailing down buried sphinxes.

my PC cant even run the demo...poor thing...so its the ps2 version for me :D

Yep, the music is fab.

If someone from the design team is reading this, feel free to explain the thinking behind the terribly hard bit at the end of level 13 that was mentioned in the review.

"feel free to explain the thinking behind the terribly hard bit at the end of level 13 that was mentioned in the review. "

What is it with gamers nowadays and their hate of challenge?

YAY! Now I know I have to get this.

having played the demo again, id say its better to leave auto grab off.

it makes the experience a bit more involving, let go of ledge/button and your dead.

sotc is another good example of manual grab making a platform game better.

Legend was hardly awful, the vehicle sections didn't do it any favours that's for certain but the rest of the game was an entire galaxy away from the car crash that was TAOD.

Having been playing TRA since yesterday I have to say it is just as glorious as this review would have you believe. And thankfully no stupid ass bike sections to be seen.

Oh and I'm proud it appeared on the PC and PS2 formats first respectively, next generation console owners have had it too good for far too long if you ask me. 'Bout time they had something to moan about missing out on instead. :D

I read the review and all the comments, and I still have no idea what a quick time event is. It must be well known, as it has two paragraphs and even its own acronym, but I don't have a clue.

Steam's a ripoff. I've always felt that this kind of delivery system is great for software, movies, whatever, but as long as the distributors are going to charge me the same amount as I'd have to pay for a packaged and shipped product I say "fuck them".

It's like the online music thing - the costs are so low for the music companies, but they refuse to pass on any of the savings to the consumer. There is probably some price-point where the majority of people would just buy it legally rather than steal it. I don't know, $.25 for a song or something like that maybe.

Ah, forget it...

/rant over

Heh.

A quick time event (QTE) is when the player must get through a sequence of instant action required situations via the pressing of an appropriate button when it appears on the screen.

Oh, bollocks I've ordered one of those wireless things from Play a few days ago so now I'm not sure which version of the game to buy. The PC version might sound nicer but I always worry that I'm going to spend ages getting the sodding thing to work...

Great game, best TR yet and has the atmosphere of the original.

Haters saying it's old just need to stfu and try it :)

Glad you like it. No idea why people who clearly have no intention of giving a game a chance spout negative bile about it. Fair enough if you've played it a fair bit and still don't like it, but otherwise....give it a chance. It might surprise you.

"Does the PC version have high-res textures?"

if you mean the next gen graphics option that was in legend then no, there are no next gen graphics options at all.

shame really.....

So depth of field is already considered to not be a next generation style graphical effect?

Look, the game simply does not need all that shiny bumf to be a worthy buy. It's 100% fine as it is in the looks department on a PC and due to the lack of "next gen" content it canb e run quite safely at high resolution and settings with plenty of FSAA too. And it looks incredible.

If all that next gen pulava was going to be used the game would have taken at least twice as long as it did to develop, and that simply was not necessary at all. They did the right thing and concentrated on what really made a good to honest TR adventure by making the graphics a secondary issue. They are competent/brilliant as they are. And that's all a decent game needs surely?

In the case of Forza 2, certainly! :)

demo runs much faster than trl on the same machine at max, 1440x900!

can't be bothered to compare effects though...

I just think it's a shame that it doesn't have the same graphics options that Legend had, I played Legend with & without and there was a big difference.

that said.... I'm really enjoying it anyway, it's that good I would glady wait for a 360 version (fingers crossed) and buy it again :D

Never got into the Tomb Raider games until Legend, which was great fun albeit way too short (less than 7 hours for me).
Shall be picking up this on PS2 tomorrow

And even though I own a 360, I couldn't give two shits and a rat's arse wether it comes out on a 'next-gen' system or not.

My first Tomb Raider game was on the PC and I've been buying the PC versions ever since. The main reason being that it's the best looking out of all the ports and I'm a bit sentimental. Not only that but the original had a 3Dfx patch for it making it look all rather lush for those with 3d accelerator cards (remember those?).

I've been playing the game this evening as it arrived from Gameplay a day early. It's great fun although whether or not it deserves a 9/10 is somewhat questionable as although it's a great action adventure it's not doing anything particularly ground breaking...

Ive ordered it from Play.Com..... still not been posted yet - has anyone else who uses them noticed that they dont seem to be as on the ball as they used to? Normally you get stuff before the official release date but recently they seem to be going WELL off the boil.