The game is fun. The writing isn't good and IMO they wasted a perfectly good characterization route for this new Lara, but I'm enjoying myself immensely.
I won't argue that the writing is good, but I am enjoying her character. And I think they do a great job of making it seem like she is doing things out of obligation to her friends rather than because she is good at it. Unlike Drake, things seem to actually phase her and it seems like things could go bad for her at any second. The broadcast tower is a good example.
I do think a lot of the ambient/incidental dialog is great (enemies yelling out "holy shit, she's a good shot" after making a headshot), and most of the combat scenarios are interesting, which I feel is a factor of it not being waves of enemies, but rather a small group. Really enjoying it, however something just popped up that may turn me against it. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by it, but I guess by virtue of it being a reboot, I thought it would be absent
The weird samurai monster and supernatural elements
My problem with her characterization is that they desperately try to push the angle of her being "changed" by the events. Problem is, she's already capable when she arrives at the island, so it's not even played as a "fish out of water" situation, where the city mouse has to suddenly live in a lethal environment. She also never gets called out on all that killing she does and apart from gaining some resolve and respect for her late father, the endeavor never really changes her that much. There's no reflection upon what happens, which is absolutely required when you are trying to write a story about trauma and how violence may fiddle with one's humanity. FC3 did that by making Jason's friends freak out when he giggles at all the carnage. Spec Ops has Walker degrade, until he's nothing more than someone screaming insults at his enemies. Hotline Miami turns off the music and reminds the player what was he doing in the frantic haze of killing and resetting at the end of every mission.
I agree, I do like the moments were her ability to survive and overcome odds is played triumphantly (like when she gets a grenade launcher), it's just that the game feels like they had two completely different concepts for the character arc and then just decided to put it in a cup, shake it and leave it mixed. I expected her to be more broken by the events both mentally and physically, until she no longer cares about anything else than surviving. But that transmission never happens nor is really highlighted - it's a similar problem the new DmC has, in that the main characters barely have real character arcs.
Shit, I wrote a lot about my thoughts on the matter in the Bombcast comments, I can forward you that if you want to talk about it more.
Mathias totally calls her on it in the end.
I could add to Lara getting called out for the killing by the incidental dialogue from the enemy encounters. There comes a point when a potential truce is proposed because of another threat and it ends before it begins. After that Lara is openly taunting the enemies during fights. I specifically recall her shouting, "That's right! I'm not dead!" when the enemies are surprised by their inability to kill her. They were also pretty bummed about Lara killing a specific guy and the enemies reference his death during future encounters with her.
To claim that "the endeavor never really changes her that much. There's no reflection upon what happens" seems completely unbelievable and I have to ask if you completely missed parts of the game.
Except that venders of games have return policies and you can return games that don't work. What are you even talking about?
New product returns
Returned product(s) must be in the original packaging and include any manuals, cabling and accessories in sellable condition. We reserve the right to limit returns to unopened or defective products. Defective product(s) will be replaced with a like item, upon return. Terms and conditions of manufacturer's warranty apply to defective video games systems and computer hardware after 30 days.
We do not accept returns of:
Any product(s) returned more than 30 days from the date on the packing slip.
Any product(s) that has been opened (taken out of its plastic wrap).
Any product(s) not in its original condition.
Any product(s) that is damaged, played, or is missing parts.
Any product(s) that were sold as part of a bundle, unless the bundle is returned complete.
Lara cauterizes the wound in her side, the one she got in the beginning of the game, right before she comes up with how to make fire arrows. I was under the impression from the quick look and podcasts that that was never explained. Well, everyone, it is. And afterwards she is even more 'Lara Crofty' which makes sense as she just used a fucking hot ass arrow to cauterize a wound.
Very true. Like I said in my opening post there is a lot of complaining about things in the game that are actually explained or general impressions that are simply wrong.
Remember how she supposedly gets injured in numerous ways and never reacts to any of it? People will have you believe that lie despite the whole sequence having her unable to climb and stumbling along until she cauterizes her wound.
To be fair though she was jumping around and climbing fine until that point in the game when they decided that the wound had become too much for her. In fact when she started acting really hurt I didn't really understand why until she cauterized the wound. Then I wondered why she didn't act hurt prior to cauterizing the wound (besides just prior to cauterizing the wound).
The way I saw the situation play out is that the sequence (right before she's really hurt) made her injury worse. She did take several trees and tree branches right to the gut. Probably wasn't good for her puncture wound.
The timeline was essentially...
Got hurt and reacted to it.
Got used to the injury and carried on.
Injury got worse and required drastic action (cauterizing the wound with the arrowhead).
EDIT: And before anyone says that you can't do this and that with a specific injury lets not forget those medical stories of getting some foreign object jammed right through your body and not really getting injured because it missed all vital areas.
I've reached the point of no return so I think I can safely say I have no idea why Brad and Patrick were complaining that it wasn't an open world game like Far Cry 3. The game has plenty of huge open areas that let you go off and find collectibles. The game lets you go back to old areas to use new skills/equipment to reach new areas. I've never played an Uncharted game so all the set pieces in the game were amazing and you are actually in control of what's happening instead of seeing a cutscene. I didn't experience any 'narrative dissonance' as everything that Lara goes through is explained. We see her gradually stop caring that she's killing guys and every skill is explained as "training" she did with Roth in the past.
All in all it's pretty fantastic. All that's left is beating the game and then going back to collect all that stuff.
Do you understand that when you buy a product you expect the product to work out of the box. If it doesn't work you get a refund. Customers are not and should not be mindful of server issues because they didn't buy the game that says "will not work when you try to play" on the box. Your comment is so devoid of real world expectations that I don't even know what to say.
Do you think people buying the game in stores know that this single player game is dependent on servers to work properly?
Games come with Zero warranty, They come with zero guarantee that they will work. That is the agreement in all the EULAs. You are not entitled to a refund of anything when it comes to a game.
Is that something that should be fixed? Maybe, but that's not the arguement we're having right now. What everyone agreed to is to play a game that MIGHT not work.
Because gamers are spineless and will never, EVER hold to a "I'll never buy (insert company's) games again" claim. Zero consequences means nothing will ever really change. The guy you quoted making all the excuses is exactly the kind of customer the industry wants. "BUT YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND!!" Yeah, sure.
They already have the consequence, I didn't even buy Sim City, I just acknowledge the reality of hosting servers. I know for a fact MMO's aren't necessarily going to work day 1. I know that high demand games aren't necessarily going to work day 1. And the end result is that I don't BUY it day 1. If you don't like it, don't buy it, stop complaining all across the internet thinking there is "quick and easy solutions." If it was, and it was easy everyone would be doing it. It's not in EA's best interest or any company believe it or not to lose customers because THEY STOP PAYING FOR GAMES. At the same time it's not always economically viable to satisfy everyone 100% of the time, so sometimes they don't.
Except that venders of games have return policies and you can return games that don't work. What are you even talking about?
You guys realize that Diablo 3 had the exact same problem for about 2 weeks right?
How exactly is this an excuse for EAs apparent ignorance? They could have and they should have learned from that experience. It's the exact opposite of an excuse, it goes to show that they simply don't fucking care. Saving money on server infrastructure, clearly worth it …
Translation: I don't understand server costs and a willfully ignorant gamer who will wah wah wah not understanding how the world works, gimmie my bottle!
You think that Blizzard didn't know how many people would go play diablo 3? Activision blizzard has 7738 employees and you think that they are all so dumb to not know that Diablo 3 is going to be some super popular game?
If you need to support more players you need to buy more boxes of servers for the more players you plan to support simultaneously. Does it make any sense for you to support the 3 million people out the gate when the game is launched, spend millions on these physical server boxes, setting them up, installing your linux distros and server programs only for that number of simultaneous users to go down to 300 000, two weeks later? Blizzard makes the same choices, Valve makes the same choices, and EA does as well. It simply doesn't make any economic sense to spend millions of dollars on server boxes just for 72 hours of a single games life that is only going to happen for 2 days out of something like 3 years.
Do you understand that when you buy a product you expect the product to work out of the box. If it doesn't work you get a refund. Customers are not and should not be mindful of server issues because they didn't buy the game that says "will not work when you try to play" on the box. Your comment is so devoid of real world expectations that I don't even know what to say.
Do you think people buying the game in stores know that this single player game is dependent on servers to work properly?
I didn't buy the game, but I'd be pretty annoyed if I can't play the single player game I just bought because the online servers aren't working.
I bought Diablo 3 about 2 months after it came out and I was still getting kicked out of online games because of their server issues. What was the point of stacking nephalim if it would get reset after only 30 minutes of playing. How's Diablo 3 doing now by the way?
People will know in the future not to buy this crap. I'd assume the word of mouth is destroying future purchases for SimCity.
Log in to comment