Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition Review

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

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If you are the must-have type to always want the cutting edge, newest , bigger and better version of anything, then check out the latest review and PS4/Xbox comparison of the new and improved Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition.
 
I'll stick with TechReviewUSA's (from YouTube) name for it: Tomb Raider: Fraud Edition.
 
It has some improvements that may be noticeable but honestly, this "definitive" stuff should be a $10 DLC at most, even though I think that is even stretching it. I really miss the Quake 2 / Half-Life era.
 
I'm confused -- looked way way crappier than the PC version -- which I played maybe 45 minutes of then went on to something more interesting.
 
collegeboy69us said:
I'm confused -- looked way way crappier than the PC version -- which I played maybe 45 minutes of then went on to something more interesting.
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It was in my top 5 games I played this year. Spent the time to find all the secrets and I normally never do that.
 
The PS4 version is actually pretty solid. It looks better than the PC version and runs at 60 FPS. Still, it's $60, where as the PC version can be had for what, $5 on a Steam sale? It's $9 on Amazon right now. I'd rather save my $50 in that case.
 
What have they done to her face...puffier expression and not as nice as the pc version. I'll pass.
 
Climber said:
It was in my top 5 games I played this year. Spent the time to find all the secrets and I normally never do that.
Click to expand...

Top 5 what? Admittedly, 2013 wasn't a good year for games. So to throw Tomb Raider on there would probably be accurate. Though it was still a shit game, which explains the poor sales slump of games throughout 2013

#1 The story sucked. Most games are at least good at 2 out of 3 game elements. Story, graphics, and gameplay. Most games today are good at story+graphics, but Tomb Raider only has graphics. Without spoiling it for anyone, the start of the game pretty much tells you what you'd expect the rest of the story to play out.

#2 No gameplay. The game is riddled with so much QTE, there's very little control you have over her. The game is extremely linear, and while you can explore tombs, it's rarely rewarding. She can carry an arsenal of weapons, but in the end the Bow is your best weapon.

#3 No bosses. This is a general complaint I have with modern games, where I stack the best weapons cause I expect a super bad ass boss in the end. But like most modern games, it's just a wave of trash mobs.

#4 Tomb Raider? More like room raider, as the Tombs you explore are just rooms. Seriously?

#5 Lara Croft has no personality. She was known as a bad ass, but most of the game treats her like a frightened teenager. At this point I would have been more entertained if she had larger breasts again, then that personality they gave her. So dull, like bread without butter or jelly.

#6 Puzzles? Combat wasn't the main attraction to Tomb Raider games, but solving large elaborate puzzles and getting from point A to point B. Navigating some of the room alone was considered a challenge, but not in this Tomb Raider. You run into puzzles, but again limited to one room. This game was designed to keep you moving at a steady pace, so they didn't want a huge elaborate puzzle to slow that pace, or stop it all together.
 
Ashbringer said:
Top 5 what? Admittedly, 2013 wasn't a good year for games. So to throw Tomb Raider on there would probably be accurate. Though it was still a shit game, which explains the poor sales slump of games throughout 2013

#1 The story sucked. Most games are at least good at 2 out of 3 game elements. Story, graphics, and gameplay. Most games today are good at story+graphics, but Tomb Raider only has graphics. Without spoiling it for anyone, the start of the game pretty much tells you what you'd expect the rest of the story to play out.

#2 No gameplay. The game is riddled with so much QTE, there's very little control you have over her. The game is extremely linear, and while you can explore tombs, it's rarely rewarding. She can carry an arsenal of weapons, but in the end the Bow is your best weapon.

#3 No bosses. This is a general complaint I have with modern games, where I stack the best weapons cause I expect a super bad ass boss in the end. But like most modern games, it's just a wave of trash mobs.

#4 Tomb Raider? More like room raider, as the Tombs you explore are just rooms. Seriously?

#5 Lara Croft has no personality. She was known as a bad ass, but most of the game treats her like a frightened teenager. At this point I would have been more entertained if she had larger breasts again, then that personality they gave her. So dull, like bread without butter or jelly.

#6 Puzzles? Combat wasn't the main attraction to Tomb Raider games, but solving large elaborate puzzles and getting from point A to point B. Navigating some of the room alone was considered a challenge, but not in this Tomb Raider. You run into puzzles, but again limited to one room. This game was designed to keep you moving at a steady pace, so they didn't want a huge elaborate puzzle to slow that pace, or stop it all together.
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Nice list, but enjoyment is an opinion. I thought the game was fantastic.
 
I just started playing it for PC last night.
Massively disappointed.
I feel like I'm spending all my time in cut scenes and QTEs with little to no real game play, any real puzzles or platforming that made the first game so enjoyable.
I feel like I'm playing "Space Ace" or "Dragon's Lair" on laser disk arcade machines instead of Tomb Raider.
And if any of you liked it, more power to you, it just ruined the whole experience for me.
 
I personally found the game to be great. The PS4 version looks pretty much on par or if not better. Its using tressfx which the PS3/360 versions didn't do and its hitting 60fps.

Ashbringer said:
#5 Lara Croft has no personality. She was known as a bad ass, but most of the game treats her like a frightened teenager. At this point I would have been more entertained if she had larger breasts again, then that personality they gave her. So dull, like bread without butter or jelly.
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Its suppose to be origin story. Lara is younger and this is the first time she has ever had to kill anyone so she isn't going to have the same badass attitude.

Also yeah there is QTE's but there still plenty of actual gameplay. Same with the platforming there is a lot of that, it may seem thin at the start but you encounter a lot of platforming the further you get. The game isn't exactly short (longer then average similar game) so the gameplay is spread out all over the place.
 
I don't know where all this hate is coming from; I thought the game was great on PC and I'm looking forward to renting it for PS4.
 
I have this for PC and PS3 (only bought the PS3 version since I was stuck with the nVidia drivers issues that plagued the game at launch). I don't intend to buy this game again for some minor changes that does not justify full retail cost.
 
I'll wait until it's 30, I thought it was a great game on PC but I'll be damned if I pay 60 for it.
 
The new consoles are so devoid of games that they actually have to write reviews for a "definitive" version of a game in which the developers did nothing but add different textures.
 
To be fair, they did turn off Tesselation (proven with screenshot this week) and i think they use newer code for TressFX witch perform better.

I mean it's much better than the PS3 and Xbox 360, but i still prefer playing it at 2560x1440. and it's not 60FPS, the FPS clock around 40 to 60 it's variable.

The Xbox One version is lock to 30 fps tougth..
 
Megalith said:
The new consoles are so devoid of games that they actually have to write reviews for a "definitive" version of a game in which the developers did nothing but add different textures.
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I originally thought the same thing. While they are very similar there are differences. The thing I can't seem to wrap my head around is the title. Definitive Edition - when the two versions PS4 and Xbox One are different from each other made by two different development teams from what I understand. Think it was Kataku that did a review and said the PS4 was more definitive than XO because of faster frame rates. Went on to say both were better than than the PC version, in which if frame rates made a game more definitive, then a PC would come out a clear winner. A true head scratching experience.
 
Ashbringer said:
#1 The story sucked. Most games are at least good at 2 out of 3 game elements. Story, graphics, and gameplay. Most games today are good at story+graphics, but Tomb Raider only has graphics. Without spoiling it for anyone, the start of the game pretty much tells you what you'd expect the rest of the story to play out.
Click to expand...

The story was great, not sure why you have such a low opinion of it, but it sets the stage for the rest of the series. It matches the tone of the first couple games quest lines, explains how she got her guns, and other tidbits you find in the other games.

No gameplay. [/B] The game is riddled with so much QTE, there's very little control you have over her. The game is extremely linear, and while you can explore tombs, it's rarely rewarding. She can carry an arsenal of weapons, but in the end the Bow is your best weapon.
Click to expand...

So much QTE? Probably less than 10% of the game is QTE is hyperbole much?

No bosses.[/B] This is a general complaint I have with modern games, where I stack the best weapons cause I expect a super bad ass boss in the end. But like most modern games, it's just a wave of trash mobs.
Click to expand...

Welcome to the Tomb Raider franchise. The couple "bosses" in the game is about what your going to get.

]Tomb Raider?[/B] More like room raider, as the Tombs you explore are just rooms. Seriously?
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This is true, but this wasn't about raiding tombs. This is her intro story line, the prologue for her entire backstory and I thought they did an excellent job telling how she got her start.

Lara Croft has no personality. [/B] She was known as a bad ass, but most of the game treats her like a frightened teenager.
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Because she is. It is her very first "life or death" adventure and several close friends have been killed. Of course she is scared and they did a good job of balancing out that fear with her learning how to survive without being some sort of Bear Grylls survival expert, bruce lee kung fu master, and a wild bill Hitchcock shootist amalgamation which wouldn't have ben realistic at all.

Puzzles?[/B] Combat wasn't the main attraction to Tomb Raider games, but solving large elaborate puzzles and getting from point A to point B. Navigating some of the room alone was considered a challenge, but not in this Tomb Raider. You run into puzzles, but again limited to one room. This game was designed to keep you moving at a steady pace, so they didn't want a huge elaborate puzzle to slow that pace, or stop it all together.
Click to expand...

This is perhaps the thing I agree with most. While there were several open world puzzles, especially if you wanted to find all the secrets, they were easy and paled in comparison to the first couple Tomb Raider games. The original tomb raider and resident evil game puzzles were pretty complex and required some thinking skills which is what got me into those series, modern versions of those games are just more combat oriented and less puzzle based than their forebears, partly because kids these days will just youtube the answers so why put a lot of thought and effort into the puzzles. /shrug
 
The person controlling Laura in that video is horrible. They need to stop playing games...
 
Haste266 said:
The person controlling Laura in that video is horrible. They need to stop playing games...
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Yeah they were killing me with some of the things they were doing, maybe it's just because I've played through the game already, and they were still figuring it out.

Overall I thought the game was pretty acceptable. Don't know if I'll ever play through it again anytime soon. But still, it's a good game.
 
xp3nd4bl3 said:
I don't know where all this hate is coming from; I thought the game was great on PC and I'm looking forward to renting it for PS4.
Click to expand...

Because Tomb Raider shows a trend in games I hate. Gameplay takes a huge back seat over graphics. Games are easy, and tiresome boring. There's no accomplishment when you finish the game, only more DLC. Another trend of gaming I really hate.

Now the game is about a year old, and it just broke even in sales. It shows that I'm not the only one who feels the same about these sorta games. That and the current slump of game sales overall. Most top rated games in 2013 are built like Tomb Raider. Graphically impressive, but you abandon the game due to boredom. Though I finished it, just so I can uninstall the game off my hard drive.

But they do it cause for gameplay to work there must be a difficulty. Difficulty means Rage Quit. Rage Quit means person returns game or doesn't buy DLC crap. By difficult I mean not punishing difficult either, like Dark Souls or MegaMan X games.
rage-quit-and-try-again.jpg
 
Ryoohki360 said:
To be fair, they did turn off Tesselation (proven with screenshot this week) and i think they use newer code for TressFX witch perform better
Click to expand...

They didn't turn Tessellation off completley. But it is toned down a lot. It's most reserved for character models. Whereas the PC version applies it to trees and some other stuff, as well.

This comparison has some pretty good shots, comparing PC to the PS4 'defiinitive edition':

http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2014/01/24/tomb-raider-face-off-pc-vs-ps4/71343/


Half of the immediately apparent difference, is the fact that the PS4 definitive edition has a more aggressive native gamma and is a little less bright. It's actually probably a more correct gamma. (see: blacks are more black. Maybe a little crushed, even). This alone, adds richness to the colors and the overall image. This is why correct gamma is a huge deal, with TV reviews.

It's also why I complained about the official video comparison to the PS3 version. The PS3 version is not gamma corrected/gamma crushed like the PS4 version. and actually, the video is even worse than the real thing. It's likely that their capturing method is un-optimal for PS3. It's a pretty typical issue with review sites. but Digital Foundry showed that the PS3 version's native gamma and brightness is basically exactly the same as the PC version. The 360 version is a bit darker/more correct!

For the PC version, to achieve a correct or slightly crushed gamma, you could either change the brightness and gamma settings on your display (you can also do this for PS3/360), in your graphics card drivers, or you could use an injector like SweetFX, that can actually add an effects pass on the game, that would correct/slightly crush the gamma, etc.

I edited one of the PC screenshots to show this. All that I did was change the gamma/black level to be very slightly crushed (this means the blackest blacks are true black, but so are a couple of shades lighter than true black) and I lowered the brightness a little bit. I did not change the color or saturation or contrast, or anything else:

*right click images and open in separate tabs, for easy comparison.

*this is what the PC/PS3 version would look like, if you took two minutes to change the gamma and brightness settings:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9vnnbb1cpj9614u/LookingOnward2gcb.jpg

original PC shot from Hardcoregamer:
http://www.hardcoregamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/LookingOnward2.jpg

nearly the same shot from the PS4 version, as provided by Hardcoregamer:
http://www.hardcoregamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/LookingOnward.jpg


**somewhat trickier, is that the PS4 version appears to have new color grading, on an area by area basis. So here is a screenshot of the one of the night time fiery scenes. it appears they color graded the scene to really bring out red and deep orange.

So the first shot here is the PC version with ONLY gamma correction/slight black crush, and a small drop in brightness. It would look similar on PS3, if you changed your display settings:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/iai292lj7faawn4/FlameOn2.jpg

and here is the screenshot again, with those changes, but also with a new color temperature and tint. I just eyeballed this real quick. It's a little too red, but it's close enough:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/urjdq4stamzx0xj/FlameOn2 (2).jpg

original pc shot:
http://www.hardcoregamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/FlameOn2.jpg

PS4 shot:
http://www.hardcoregamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/FlameOn.jpg

I say this is tricky, not to put the new version down; but to imply that there really isn't any way for you to realistically copy these color grading changes on the PC version. Because the color grading/temperature/tint is different for each area/scene. This isn't simply a universal, uniform change, like the gamma and brightness. But it was interesting to notice and play with for a minute.
-------------------------------------------------

Other changes in the PS4 version are:

The textures are better than the PS3 version, but not quite as good as the PC version, overall. Although clothing textures do appear to be better, when seen very close-up. But that could also just be due to the lighting/gamma changes.

area/scene specific lighting changes and small effects tweaks. All of which combine to net a bit more dynamism in the mood and visuals for some scenes. As you may notice, the fiery scenes have more smoke and the light from the flames bleeds into the smoke, creating a glow.

some changes to objects and/or additional objects added in some areas.

Lara now sweats during tense scenes.

New face model, which is mostly just different, rather than objectively 'better'. and it reportedly emotes less convincingly.
Less drastic, is that there have been some minor tweaks to the body model and clothing textures.

another thing to note, is just how good the game manages to look on PS3. It looks more like the PC version than it is unlike. Some lighting effects are toned down to a bloom effect, it has normal hair model, and it runs at 720p/30. But it otherwise looks very similar: Here's a screenshot comparing all three. You'll notice some added objects, in the PS4 version:

*note, the PC screenshot is my own, which I happened to take 1 year ago, at nearly the same spot. The screenshot is missing the sun effect, because it was taken before the PC patch that restored missing lighting and effects. I was about halfway through the game, before that patch came out. Otherwise, it is Ultra settings, minus TressFX. and AA is SMAA injected by SweetFX, which probably doesn't show in the screenshot:

PS4
http://www.hardcoregamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/TomDefImage1.jpg

PS3
http://media.officialplaystationmag...TR9_Screenshots_v1_Lara_SolariiVillage_04.jpg

PC:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bp048h1x9z8m0nt/tr2.jpg

and here is a PS3 shot, from a night time/fiery scene:
http://media.officialplaystationmag...164TR9_Screenshots_v1_Lara_GreatEscape_04.jpg
 
Boob Raider, now with +10% bigger bewbz and +25% overall hawtness increase
 
Guess what guys. This game isn't for people that own it on the PC or any other console. This is for those that haven't played the game and have the new consoles. Just like when any other older game finally makes it way to the new consoles. They are meant for those that haven't played before. Bitching that you already have the game on X platform and aren't going to buy it again doesn't mean jack shit.
 
Ashbringer said:
Because Tomb Raider shows a trend in games I hate. Gameplay takes a huge back seat over graphics. Games are easy, and tiresome boring. There's no accomplishment when you finish the game, only more DLC. Another trend of gaming I really hate.

Now the game is about a year old, and it just broke even in sales. It shows that I'm not the only one who feels the same about these sorta games. That and the current slump of game sales overall. Most top rated games in 2013 are built like Tomb Raider. Graphically impressive, but you abandon the game due to boredom. Though I finished it, just so I can uninstall the game off my hard drive.

But they do it cause for gameplay to work there must be a difficulty. Difficulty means Rage Quit. Rage Quit means person returns game or doesn't buy DLC crap. By difficult I mean not punishing difficult either, like Dark Souls or MegaMan X games.
rage-quit-and-try-again.jpg
Click to expand...

If you listen to half the people here though graphics means a hell of a lot more than game play. Fuck game play nobody cares about that shit, it is how pretty it looks. People don't care if the game is to stare at a block for 10 hours, as long as that block is rendered in 1080p at 120+ fps, they don't care. You try to give them a game with great game play but less than perfect graphics and they will bitch and cry and scream like a 3 year old for months on end.
 
Exavior said:
Guess what guys. This game isn't for people that own it on the PC or any other console. This is for those that haven't played the game and have the new consoles. Just like when any other older game finally makes it way to the new consoles. They are meant for those that haven't played before. Bitching that you already have the game on X platform and aren't going to buy it again doesn't mean jack shit.
Click to expand...

I never played the new game, just picked this up for the PS4 using a GameStop trade in promo.
 
You know what, its a beautiful game, and if you want to feel like you're playing the old laser disk Space Ace or Dragons Lair arcade games, by all means go for it.
The constant streams of QTEs annoyed the hell out of me and made it practically unplayable. I felt like I was watching a movie and wiggling a joystick or pounding a button every few minutes.
 
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