Now I've finished this I overall think it was an improvement on the first reboot game, but still too incremental a change.
Combat is odd because even on the hardest it's blatantly not balanced around the upgrades at all regardless of difficulty; you almost literally get god mode after the medikit upgrades (on top of a free revive every battle just in case), along with other ridiculous shit like Star Fox lock-on bow shots. In the last game a few upgrades were good and the rest was just filler, this almost has the opposite problem as so many of the skills are super-good. In the end it got so broken it actually looped back around to being a lot of fun for me, as I stopped having to bother with surviving and started playing it like The Club or Bulletstorm or something where I tried to just get the most OTT kills I could. It also helped that I had unlocked much better feeling alternative weapons by the end (as opposed to the starting ones that I mostly disliked) so the gunplay in general got a lot better. So in a weird way the combat became really fun in the end and I'm kind of interested in the challenge mode stuff as the game seems to support it. In general the arenas unfortunately stay pretty flat or straightforward, but it does get a bit better later, and the super-aggressive play your OPness supports kind of naturally leads to a lot of mobility later.
Platforming actually felt a bit more buggy than in the last game to me; I had issues with it being no-skill autoplatforming in Tomb Raider 2013 but at least it almost always worked, whereas there were multiple times in Rise where things like grabbing ledges suddenly stopped working. Stuff like the grapple also made the limits of the platforming much clearer, and there were tons of ledges that should be easily grabbable with it but just aren't.
I've shit on the story a lot elsewhere but I do think it's an improvement on the last game, if mostly because Lara's shitty friends aren't as present. The villains aren't very good but they're still the closest things to compelling characters the game has, as they actually have some character traits and little hypocrisies that make them human
like Ana talking about being afraid of dying while smoking cigarettes
as opposed to everyone else who are just plot/exposition devices. Too bad they're mostly relegated to cutscenes with no interaction with Lara so they don't get to play off anyone else and maybe bring out some personality in others. As least there's nothing as bad as the spanner sequence this time though. Also I much preferred how Lara was handled this time; she still acts way too green a lot of the time but I like how she's actually self-motivated and doing things out of her own interest to a degree. Bringing back the daddy stuff again made me roll my eyes but at least it's established that she's moved beyond what her father did past the intro (to the point that really isn't a spoiler) as opposed to Anniversary where she spent the whole game following his footsteps. Plus at least the ending
makes it clear that this stuff is over for good.
Also the music was the one change in the reboot that legitimately annoyed me, as it took a series that consistently delivered some of my favourite soundtracks and turned it into generic movie score stuff. This game still does that, but there are at least cues from the original theme and a few tracks I thought were okay, so it's a notable improvement I guess.
The actual tomb puzzles weren't much better than the last game, but I do think the trappings were much better and that makes a difference; the lead up to the tombs just made me wish more of the game was focused on that, as they were some of the most atmospheric parts of the game, and if there was some actual danger to them (whether it was introducing supernatural elements earlier or more special wild-animal attacks) that could have paid off well. Even as it is though you get the pay-off of some of the most beautiful sights in the game; on that note I liked how, especially towards the end, there were some genuinely fantastical locations, as opposed to the last game where everything was "gritty" and grounded. At times it almost feels like concept art perfectly translated to the screen; this improvement in aesthetics is easily one of my favourite improvements from the last game and it brings back a real sense of wonder at times. Too bad those great looking parts are frequently relegated to "look but don't touch" and just stay as background detail.
Getting into spoiler territory I felt that
the supernatural aspect was handled much better this time; it seems near-identical to the last game on the surface but a lot of the specifics made me like it more; in TR2013 the Oni were basically just normal guys with bows and swords and actually weaker than the generic human enemies, in Rise their weapons are the same but they're actually much tougher. The lack of hitscan+groups of tough melee enemies promotes taking your time and using the higher skill-techniques like the dodge-kill. Being near-invincible made this not matter too much, but I understood and really liked what it was trying to do. As opposed to the last game where the supernatural enemies were just a bad joke.
Also this is pretty much the only thing I can think of where a stinger has made me less interested in the story of the next game.
I liked finding out what happened with Ana, but seriously can the next game just start with Lara busting into the vatican and shooting the pope in the face or whatever and then moving on and pretending this Trinity shit didn't happen? Hell, since we're not getting away from the shootbang just have her go HAM on Trinity HQ with twin pistols and treat it as the start of her becoming more like who she was.
Still, I'm interested in going back to it once the seemingly inevitable DX12 update comes out.
I feel exactly the same way, this game just kind of, welll... sucks. I mean, really I have pretty broad tastes and am generally forgiving if a game can offer something unique, but this game just doesn't. The gunplay is terrible - everything feels extremely weightless and plasticky. On top of that I really can't bring myself to care about getting Lara so far as even the next checkpoint because the plot, characters, and general quality of writing are unbearably trite and uninspired. I really wanted to like this game, but it feels like a chore every time I boot it up and sit through the cutscenes, and it just makes me want exit it and play other, better games.
Just finished the last optional tomb and I want to know how in the world you're supposed to have enough coins for the supply shack. I'm not clearing out areas, but doing a pretty thorough job (~75%) and I've only had enough for the zip line thing. I'm saving up for the upgrade tool, but each coin cache I found only dishes out a single coin! Even if I did clear out the map, I'd probably have enough for 1 more 140 coin purchase at best, and I've been reading about people having leftover coins by the time they finished. What gives?!
Just finished the last optional tomb and I want to know how in the world you're supposed to have enough coins for the supply shack. I'm not clearing out areas, but doing a pretty thorough job (~75%) and I've only had enough for the zip line thing. I'm saving up for the upgrade tool, but each coin cache I found only dishes out a single coin! Even if I did clear out the map, I'd probably have enough for 1 more 140 coin purchase at best, and I've been reading about people having leftover coins by the time they finished. What gives?!
Just finished the last optional tomb and I want to know how in the world you're supposed to have enough coins for the supply shack. I'm not clearing out areas, but doing a pretty thorough job (~75%) and I've only had enough for the zip line thing. I'm saving up for the upgrade tool, but each coin cache I found only dishes out a single coin! Even if I did clear out the map, I'd probably have enough for 1 more 140 coin purchase at best, and I've been reading about people having leftover coins by the time they finished. What gives?!
The coin caches give out way more as you start to exhaust them; the last bunch gave me 25 each time. Maybe it's just linked to how far into the game they are, but that doesn't seem to be the case as even ones in the same area gave me more as a emptied the map. Also crypts and similar have a bunch of coins lying around.
The coin caches give out way more as you start to exhaust them; the last bunch gave me 25 each time. Maybe it's just linked to how far into the game they are, but that doesn't seem to be the case as even ones in the same area gave me more as a emptied the map. Also crypts and similar have a bunch of coins lying around.
So I just got two more caches, and each had 7. As you said, there's some weird scaling mechanic going on which is pretty bizarre to me. Why not just give out 3 or 4 coins per cache and let the player purchase the goods on a normal basis rather than back loading it 'til the end?
Just finished the last optional tomb and I want to know how in the world you're supposed to have enough coins for the supply shack. I'm not clearing out areas, but doing a pretty thorough job (~75%) and I've only had enough for the zip line thing. I'm saving up for the upgrade tool, but each coin cache I found only dishes out a single coin! Even if I did clear out the map, I'd probably have enough for 1 more 140 coin purchase at best, and I've been reading about people having leftover coins by the time they finished. What gives?!
Also I much preferred how Lara was handled this time; she still acts way too green a lot of the time but I like how she's actually self-motivated and doing things out of her own interest to a degree.
I felt rather detached from Lara this time around. It's true she shows strong motivation at least, fueled by obsession. On the other hand, many of her actions lacked reflection and she felt like such a one-note character throughout. I'm interested in seeing where they take her because she needs changes. Lara lacks some kind of memorable demeanor or charisma or flair. Anything. I don't think she's going towards classic Lara as that's too different, but still needs something to not sound forgettable.
I felt rather detached from Lara this time around. It's true she shows strong motivation at least, fueled by obsession. On the other hand, many of her actions lacked reflection and she felt like such a one-note character throughout. I'm interested in seeing where they take her because she needs changes. Lara lacks some kind of memorable demeanor or charisma or flair. Anything. I don't think she's going towards classic Lara as that's too different, but still needs something to not sound forgettable.
I want them to go down the crazy/obsessed route. The way she motivates herself is almost religious - she believes that she's doing "the right thing" or "the only thing" when often she's just making things worse. I would love to see them double down on that anything for the prize aspect of her, kind of like in the second Tomb Raider film.
That would be cool, though I doubt the current writers would roll with such a prominent flaw for a hero. They seem to want to push her "everywoman" qualities even though she's already laughably reckless and destructive. A matching zealous personality would suit her.
The coin caches give out way more as you start to exhaust them; the last bunch gave me 25 each time. Maybe it's just linked to how far into the game they are, but that doesn't seem to be the case as even ones in the same area gave me more as a emptied the map. Also crypts and similar have a bunch of coins lying around.
My greatest wish for Nu Lara is that they kick Camilla Luddington to the curb. I really don't like to complain about bad acting, because it's so subjective, and you never know whether the actor only had one take to get the line right or whether it was a bad director or any number of other things. But I have to make an exception for Camilla Luddington, because I'm just constantly struck by how badly she delivers almost every line. She has one emotion - exhausted desperation - and that's just her for the entire game. "*pant pant" I've got to _____! RRRAAAAGH!"
I mean, some of the blame certainly falls on the writing. To a certain extent, Nu Tomb Raider's entire schtick is just po-faced "got to" and "must"s, with no room for the characters to really have personalities beyond how driven they are to climb the next mountain or murder the next 80 men. But I'm sure a more talented actress could breath at least some life into the role. A little bit of levity, some semblance of Lara's likes and dislikes. I remember loving how enthusiastic Keeley Hawes would get when she was voicing Lara coming across some fascinating artefact; Camilla Luddington just reads every line in the same breathless monotone, whether it's a translation of a Mongolian scroll or a plan to kill a bear.
My greatest wish for Nu Lara is that they kick Camilla Luddington to the curb. I really don't like to complain about bad acting, because it's so subjective, and you never know whether the actor only had one take to get the line right or whether it was a bad director or any number of other things. But I have to make an exception for Camilla Luddington, because I'm just constantly struck by how badly she delivers almost every line. She has one emotion - exhausted desperation - and that's just her for the entire game. "*pant pant" I've got to _____! RRRAAAAGH!"
Sorry, man, this isn't Luddington. The voice actress in my native language (which is one of the best in film industry) does EXACTLY the same thing. And she had hasn't got any pictures or scenes or anything (according to an interview with her). Just her lines and Director instructions. It is really the directing. Lara is meant to sound like that. Like it or hate it, but it's not Luddington.
"Why" is my feeling about most of the new stuff as far as collectibles go; the game makes some great improvements like providing actual rewards for doing certain side-tasks rather than just abstract experience and crafting stuff, but then adds a bunch of unnecessary crap on top of that.
I felt rather detached from Lara this time around. It's true she shows strong motivation at least, fueled by obsession. On the other hand, many of her actions lacked reflection and she felt like such a one-note character throughout. I'm interested in seeing where they take her because she needs changes. Lara lacks some kind of memorable demeanor or charisma or flair. Anything. I don't think she's going towards classic Lara as that's too different, but still needs something to not sound forgettable.
I still agree with pretty much all of this; she's pretty dull, but I at least found her doing things out of self-motivation (with occasional hints at greed and obsession, even if it's sidestepped) more believable than the last game where the story dragged her along in a generic action hero role and I never got the feeling she actually wanted to do what she had to do for a second.
Just thought she looked older than she really is, but then again running from constant explosions and killing a couple of hundred guys would make anyone look older.
I feel that Rise is better than 2013, I just enjoyed playing it more.
I however feel disappointed with Baba Yaga: Temple of the Witch, I went though it in about an hour & a half, I have finished the main story & a few tombs here & there, but with no more single player content coming out especially after being disappointed with the Baba Yaga but for £8 I suppose it was ok value, but I think its time for me to trade this in & move on.
Just finished the game with 90% progress at 25 hours (also played the Baba Yaga) DLC. Really enjoyed the whole thing through and through. Amazing looking game, and a ton of fun throughout.
Definitely going to try some of the other content that's available before moving on to other games.
Hey guys, I am STUCK on that section where you're surrounded by guards up above, but there's a TON of holes to this water area below. I'm already playing on easy.
Hey guys, I am STUCK on that section where you're surrounded by guards up above, but there's a TON of holes to this water area below. I'm already playing on easy.
Hey guys, I am STUCK on that section where you're surrounded by guards up above, but there's a TON of holes to this water area below. I'm already playing on easy.
You know you can stealth kill guys who are standing near the edge of the water holes, right? You might take a few shots during the animation, but just swim from one whole to another and wait for the guys to approach, stealth kill, and repeat. That worked fine for me and I played on a higher difficulty.
You know you can stealth kill guys who are standing near the edge of the water holes, right? You might take a few shots during the animation, but just swim from one whole to another and wait for the guys to approach, stealth kill, and repeat. That worked fine for me and I played on a higher difficulty.
Yeah, I can do that on a few of them, but after that they seem to stop coming close enough to the edges of the holes. I'm spotted as soon as I come out.
Adds NVIDIA VXAO Ambient Occlusion technology. This is the worlds most advanced real-time AO solution, specifically developed for NVIDIA Maxwell hardware. (Steam Only)
Added a new benchmark feature to allow easy comparison of performance on different systems, as well as at different graphics settings.
Fixed some HBAO+ and other Ambient Occlusion issues.
Fixed motion blur problems in Stereoscopic 3D mode.
A variety of other smaller optimizations, bug-fixes, and tweaks.
Started this today and played a 4+ hour-session instantly. A technical marvel! Plays and looks great on my GTX970.
Still in the middle of the Soviet compound and sidemissions start to crop up.
My greatest wish for Nu Lara is that they kick Camilla Luddington to the curb. I really don't like to complain about bad acting, because it's so subjective, and you never know whether the actor only had one take to get the line right or whether it was a bad director or any number of other things. But I have to make an exception for Camilla Luddington, because I'm just constantly struck by how badly she delivers almost every line. She has one emotion - exhausted desperation - and that's just her for the entire game. "*pant pant" I've got to _____! RRRAAAAGH!"
I think the main issue here is that you're expecting Lara to express herself like a human. She's not a human however. Even going by "videogame" standards, she's even more of a literal terminator than Nathan Drake ever was. No human could survive the traumas her body suffered, only to shrug them off a few seconds later and keep on moving at full speed. Oh sure, she may have had a few injuries that made her limp for up to ten minutes, but then it's full speed ahead after that. The irony is that Crystal Dynamics was wanting the player to truly see how vulnerable Lara was in the reboot, and this game. They ended up doing the opposite.
The survival mode is pretty interesting, all the collectathon/survival stuff makes a lot more sense in that honestly, where in the main campaign it's pretty much only there for atmosphere/storytelling reasons.
Performance on my 280x was terrible before I found out there was a hotfix driver for ati cards. Since then, I can even play this on high. I wish the Radeon Settings program would at least notify you of this, even though it's an optional hotfix.
I've been having fun with the game, my favorite part's the challenge tombs. Even though these are optional, they're the best pieces of design and the only place you'll find real puzzles, so I hope that most people playing this game are doing these.
Some questions regarding collectibles:
- Early on I missed an item in Syria and you can't fast travel back there... Am I screwed for 100% completion?
- Is there an in-game tracker for the challenge stuff? I have 2 commie flags left in the first area, and one poster... These aren't marked on the map, so tracking them down could be a pain.
Performance on my 280x was terrible before I found out there was a hotfix driver for ati cards. Since then, I can even play this on high. I wish the Radeon Settings program would at least notify you of this, even though it's an optional hotfix.
I've been having fun with the game, my favorite part's the challenge tombs. Even though these are optional, they're the best pieces of design and the only place you'll find real puzzles, so I hope that most people playing this game are doing these.
Some questions regarding collectibles:
- Early on I missed an item in Syria and you can't fast travel back there... Am I screwed for 100% completion?
- Is there an in-game tracker for the challenge stuff? I have 2 commie flags left in the first area, and one poster... These aren't marked on the map, so tracking them down could be a pain.
There are no missable achievements. You can eventually go back anywhere and get anything. There's also a chapter replay option. The game is more well thought out achievement-wise than the last game.
I don't think there's a location tracker for the challenges, there is for the missions though. The challenge stuff is usually few enough per catecory that you can find them by yourself just checking around using Lara Vision (or just find the last couple you need with a guide online.)
I finally finished this game a few days ago. There was a ton of stuff I feel it does much better than the original title - the map design, less reliance on quick time adventure sequences , more tombs that are all better designed, more tombs as part of the actual main game... but it also suffers in other ways - the story line of the first one was a bit more straightforward and the cast was a little better. Lara , as character , feels like a struggling lost victim for the first ... maybe hour or so of the original game and the longer the series goes on the more she feels like Chev Chelios from Crank. I don't actually have a huge problem with this but I feel like the overall plot for RISE missed the mark a bit , it's based around the same myths that fueled the story line for Uncharted 2 but ... it's not as good.
What I want out of this series is for the entire game to play out more like the the first hour - that whole section involving Syria and the framing device used while climbing the mountain is the best bit of the game. RISE is at it's worst when you're stuck in a giant area with little direction and nothing to do but find widgets and do sort of lazy side missions. The bonus tombs are great but ... what if - those tombs were part of the actual game ? Not just a bonus but like, you go to a region and explore a tomb... raid it even ?
I feel like the pacing of Tomb Raider hit it's peak with Tomb Raider Underworld but the actual combat and stealth sections feel awesome in these last 2 games. So , how about for the next one (and possibly last one in this Survival Lara series) they build actual stages again , complete with a single action set piece, boss encounter , giant puzzle to solve and a story sequence. Place the quick timey even stuff between levels and make it more interactive.
Were I to score it ... I'd probably give it an 8 or maybe an 8.5/10. TR2013 is a bit less consistent in overall quality but I still think it deserves at least an 8/10.
Think I'm in the later stages of the game now, and the more I'm playing, the more I realize that this is a disappointing sequel. There were a lot of aspects in the first game that could've been improved, to make this a truly good follow-up, but... nothing really changed.
- The story and characters are worse than the original. In the original you at least had the gang of survivors, here there's a few forgettable characters, the traditional insane bad guy and not much to care for. It's too bad because Lara's facial animations are out of this world... Such a shame there's no decent emotional core.
- The upgrades feel pointless yet again. Maybe I should've played on Survivor, but I feel that on normal difficulty you should get the sense that upgrading stuff makes a difference. Some are pointless, and other skills just make a very easy game... even easier. You can autopilot through every encounter. Upgrading just doesn't feel satisfying or rewarding at all.
- The optional tombs are nice, but most of the time when I'm done I think 'that's it?'. Seems like the later ones are even shorter and easier than some of the earlier ones. Still, these are the most fun sections in the game, and it's a shame some players will probably skip all of these.
These were my major complaints in the original, and they're all back here. It just feels like they could improve on so much, but didn't...
Anyone else have the Avid Shopper (get all the shop items with hidden coins) & The Chosen Few (find all crypts) glitch on them? Seems to happen to more people, I didn't get either of them.
At least I got the 100% one. Is Baba Yaga worth getting at 10?
[03-29-2016] PC Patch notes for patch 1.0.647.2 (Patch #6)
We have just released the sixth PC patch for Rise of the Tomb Raider, build 1.0.647.2. This patch adds updates related to the new Cold Darkness Awakened game content, as well as a variety of other fixes. For details please see below.
This patch will be applied by Steam automatically when you next start the game. If your game does not update, please restart the Steam client. If you are using the game on the Windows Store, the update will be available later in the day, and will be downloaded by the Windows Store automatically.
(or just find the last couple you need with a guide online.)