p00rdevil

My only issue with Tomb Raider was that so much of the game was scripted and pre determined. It was great the first time through, but it kills any replay value. I had a great time with lara and the bow playing through the game once. I even took the trouble to search previous levels for collectables. But now there is not much point in playing it anymore, I know everything that is going to happen when it's going to happen. I think Tomb Raider was too reliant on story, scripted content, cinematics, and QTEs and a little short on gameplay options.

If it stays exclusive to the Wii U it means I won't be playing it. That is all I have to say about that.

http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/Classes#bandit This wiki is a great help. By the way don't get discouraged. This game is hard and challenging, but keep at it and watch your gaming skills grow! Play smart. Don't keep trying the same approach over and over if it isn't working. Take your time, don't get surrounded. Practice your backstabs and parries.

Star Bucks $$$ and I'm not talking coffee!

This has been my experience as well. The last ATI / AMD card I had was the HD 4850. In some applications it was great, in others it was awful. I was playing Age of Conan and under the 4850 I was getting textures issues like blurry or not loading properly. Also I was playing Gothic 2 off Steam and it would not run at an acceptable frame rate at all. Ancient game and the 4850 couldn't handle it? WTF is up with that? Then it came time to upgrade and I decided to go with Nvidia. Both those issues vanished and I have never had any thing like that happen with any game since switching to Nvidia. It will take a lot to persuade me to go back to AMD video cards.

Yea I agree, tough to top perfection. Also there is a new game director heading DS2 so anything could happen.

The general level design, the way you moved from one play field to another. Both games were laid out in a similar way with maps that funneled you from one large area to the next and used a solo hero to move through them, using cover. The stealth element was more consistent in MGS3, but in the earlier game lara was sneaky. The concrete broken down buildings and bunkers set in a wild environment were in both games. There was much difference in the two games as well, but I do think TR drew a lot of inspiration from Metal Gear, as well as from Uncharted.

Never played any Uncharted game and this is my first stint with any Tomb Raider game, so I am coming from a different perspective than many.

This has been among the more entertaining single player games I have played, either console or PC ( I played on the PS3 ). It was one of those rare games that kept me eager to boot it up and play it from beginning to end!

Through out my time with TR I was making mental comparisons to Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater more than any other game. They were different in a lot of ways, but I saw a lot of similar design too. Metal Gear 3 was stronger in two key areas, the character development and boss fights. But as far as the fun I had moving through the environments taking on baddies, exploring, they were pretty equal.

But the bosses in MGS3 are really the best I have ever encountered and holding TR to that standard is holding the bar pretty high. Even so I think the game would benefit by having some boss fights that rival the flesh and blood characters like Kojima's creation instead of the rather generic fellows we took down. I know it is a tall order, but a successful attempt would push this franchise to the next level. The boss fights in TR really seemed weak, especially when compared to the rest of the game which was so stellar.

I thought the balance the devs struck between combat, stealth, puzzle solving, platforming, exploring was pretty good. I think the game could have been be a little lighter on combat and stronger in stealth options and puzzles, but as it was it wasn't bad. I wouldn't shed a tear to see the the QTEs get the ax in the next outing either. At least for the most part.

Sound effects, music, camera, controls, graphics are all excellent. Nothing to be critical about with any of that important stuff at all. In fact I remember having a heck of a time with the camera in MGS3 before I got use to it and learned how to work with it. There was none of that in this game. The only time I had to give the camera any thought at all was during intense melee combat.

I have a PS3 that is never online. I hook it up to upgrade the firmware or OS or whatever needs to be done to keep it up to date. But I don't play games online or keep it online. Mostly because I would have to split my PC cable connection and slow the PC down. I like fast downloads, smooth streaming videos, and low lag in my online gaming. If I share the connection with a console it squeezes the bandwidth.

Going off exploring is what the devs intended for players to do. Sure it's optional, but returning to previous areas via fast travel nets a lot of additional gameplay. And it is not all that repetitive either because there are multiple ways of approaching an area, additional items to collect that were out of reach your first time through, and new ways of platforming and interacting with the map because of upgraded gear. So if you are not backtracking you are missing out on about 1/3 of the total single player gaming TR has to offer. It's a fun time too, platforming in this game never gets old, lol!

Six hours. Yea right. Maybe jamming through the campaign, ignoring the tombs, with the single purpose of rolling the credits as soon as possible. Even then it would be tough on your first play through. This is not a six hour game.