@thatpinguino: at the end of the day it's still a video game. Playing as someone who moves or climbs super slow because they have a wound isn't fun. Missing a bunch of shots because the character isnt a combat vet isn't fun. Sure, there is some dissonance but I still think Tomb Raider is a much better game to actually play than Uncharted.
Both series have such generic, forgettable stories that makes them irrelevant to me. The fact that Uncharted gets a pass for it's mediocre gunplay, flat out bad level designs(jet ski, ship graveyard), dumb supernatual stuff, generic stories and characters yet tomb raider gets tons of shit because "there aren't enough tombs", dumb supernatural stuff, cookie cutter characters and Lara kills too much is pretty lame.
Uncharted has been criticised for its jet ski and ship graveyard segments innumerable times over the years. I myself recently called out the jet ski segments in my blog even... And when I eventually get around to blogging about Uncharted 3 I will similarly give the ship graveyard (and sandstorm) firefights a dubious mention. Not that many seem to care.
Also, the characters are superior in Uncharted because the writing is snappier, which in combination with the superb acting makes the character interactions feel natural and believable. The characters themselves aren't particularly deep, but they're loaded with personality and are generally likeable. Obviously you can disagree to their likeability, but there's a still huge gulf between the quality of characters in Uncharted and Tomb Raider 2013.
As for the shooting, I still stand by Uncharted 2 at least having perfectly adequate shooting and that it mixes in well with the traversal, melee, and stealth elements. That, and the level design throughout most of Uncharted 2 is really well done.
I was glad to hear Vinny & Austin quickly shut down Alex's comparison between Lara's mass-murderin' and Nathan Drake's. Because tonally speaking they're very different games. Uncharted is generally light-hearted swashbucklin' puckish rogue treasure hunting fun times, whereas the Tomb Raider reboot was trying to portray this darkly grim, survivalist tale. It's more closely similar to The Last of Us than it is Uncharted.
Tomb Raider 2013 essentially wanted to be both a serious, harrowing drama following a young girl forced to kill to survive... while also then having her packin' a grenade launcher attachment blowing fools away left & right, and skinning animals for ''XP''. That, and the writing and the characters were horrendous in Tomb Raider. I basically couldn't stand anyone, and all of the supporting cast read like an ethnic stereotype checklist.
I still enjoyed it a lot, though, because the gameplay is superb and I'm excited to play the sequel. Given that Rhianna Pratchett is on board again, however, then I have extremely low expectations for the story stuff, which will hopefully allow me to more easily set that shit aside in favour of just shooting people.
Funny to see Jeff churnin' out so many reviews as of late, the majority of which are all middling to negative. He gave Halo 5 4 stars, though that feels like one of those reluctant 'this game's well made & I enjoyed it but ehhhhh '4 stars to me, like Borderlands 2.
The Men in Black cartoon intro is fucking DOPE. I generally don't like to fall back on such a term, but it feels like the most appropriate for this 'un.
The reference humor was pretty unbearable, but when it was just silliness for silly's sake, it worked for me.
My thoughts exactly. A lot of surprisingly entertaining stupid to be found, but it's offset pretty harshly by the referential ''this is a thing that exists and is funny because you most likely recognise the thing we are referencing'' that is constantly threatening to tear it all down.
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