Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Lip sync and facial animations were noticeably bad in the previous game as well Time makes everything look better. Rise of the Tomb raider however doesn't look better than this. If we remove the compression and the fact that it was the xbox version.

And thanks for calling me blind, I really appreciate it.
Well what should I call you now since you clearly have no idea what you're talking about? The facial animations and lip-syncing in the last game we're not bad at all and nowhere near the garbage that's in this video.
 
Well what should I call you now since you clearly have no idea what you're talking about? The facial animations and lip-syncing in the last game we're not bad at all and nowhere near the garbage that's in this video.
And I'm telling you they were that bad. I finished the freaking game a few weeks ago. This is just more of the same.
 
And I'm telling you they were that bad. I finished the freaking game a few weeks ago. This is just more of the same.
And I'm playing through the DLC right now and can tell you that your claims are complete horseshit. What's in that video here is a fucking joke as far as animations and lip sync go. Again the characters look like fucking robots in this latest video that they're using to show off the game which is laughable.
 
And I'm playing through the DLC right now and can tell you that your claims are complete horseshit. What's in that video here is a fucking joke as far as animations and lip sync go. Again the characters look like fucking robots in this latest video that they're using to show off the game which is laughable.
Relax, why are you so angry? It's just a videogame.
I'm not saying it's amazing. But I don't think it was better in rise towards the end of the campaign. What do you mean the DLC? Which one?
 
Relax, why are you so angry? It's just a videogame.
I'm not saying it's amazing. But I don't think it was better in rise towards the end of the campaign. What do you mean the DLC? Which one?
I am doing the Baba Yaga DLC right now but that's sort of irelevant as it didn't change anything from the base game as far as animation. I keep going back into the main game too as I've been doing a lot of benchmarking lately as there were lots of discussion on dx12 performance in the steam forums.
 
I agree that the lip synching on characters other then Lara is pretty bad and character models are hit or miss in that demo video...lighting looks improved...as far as overall graphics I think it'll be on par or better then Rise
 
The video compression is pretty bad on the new video, pretty sure that new video is ran on Xbox or PS4, the graphics and the nvidia "first look" looked significantly better. On par with RotTR, with better interior lighting. Though some of the animations do look off, but I think they are reusing a significant amount of animations from Rise.

month old Nvidia "First Look"
 
The video compression is pretty bad on the new video, pretty sure that new video is ran on Xbox or PS4, the graphics and the nvidia "first look" looked significantly better. On par with RotTR, with better interior lighting. Though some of the animations do look off, but I think they are reusing a significant amount of animations from Rise.

month old Nvidia "First Look"
yes I've seen that before and that seems pretty much the level of Rise of the Tomb Raider. The vegetation looks a little cartoony there and what's weird is there's a little Flicker and a large Stone actually just disappears right in front of your eyes before she makes the big leap. If they don't even have any more attention to detail in a video that they're using to show off the game then that certainly has me scared for the actual game. In fact if you go look at the other video that was just released there's a guy sitting right underneath another guy looks like he's almost getting tea-bagged which goes along with the other janky animations. Really the game just does not look the least bit polished.
 
I've looked over a lot more footage of both games and it is clear that Shadow of the Tomb Raider is using lower quality reflections and might have subsurface scattering disabled for whatever reason. Hopefully this is fixed in the final release, but as long as the gameplay is good, I'm not going to get worked up over it. Eidos Montreal has always been a questionable studio to me especially with Mankind Divided (even though I really enjoyed the game for the most part) in comparison to Crystal Dynamics.
 
GMG Summer Sale Deal of the Day- 25% off Shadow of the Tomb Raider pre-order- $44.97...

https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/shadow-of-the-tomb-raider-pc/
It's actually been that price on there ever since the game was available for pre-order. I had originally bought it at that price and then there was an even better deal they had where you could use a discount code on top of it. So I had cancelled that order and jumped on the deal so now I have the Lara Croft Edition pre-order For $52.
 
It's actually been that price on there ever since the game was available for pre-order. I had originally bought it at that price and then there was an even better deal they had where you could use a discount code on top of it. So I had cancelled that order and jumped on the deal so now I have the Lara Croft Edition pre-order For $52.

a few weeks back it was on sale for 27% off for a limited time but then the price went back up...then during the current GMG sale it went on sale again...I'm sure once the sale is over with the price will go back up
 
I think I'm going to replay Tomb Raider and Rise of the Tomb Raider in anticipation of the new game coming in September...I never played it with my new 1440p G-Sync monitor so it should feel like a nice new experience...
 
I pre-ordered during the most recent GMG Summer Sale for $44.97...I'm confident that at worst it'll be more of the same from ROTR...if that's the case I'm sure it'll be another great game to close out the origin trilogy
 
a few weeks back it was on sale for 27% off for a limited time but then the price went back up...then during the current GMG sale it went on sale again...I'm sure once the sale is over with the price will go back up
It is still on sale even though the GMG sale has ended. Again it has always been over 20% off ever since it has been on GMG every time I have looked.
 
I'm not liking this. I might want enemies to have less HP, but I don't effing want them illuminated. That's immersion gone out the window right there. And it's there even on normal ffs.

As for exploration there is no added value. Basically they made business as usual the hardest selectable option. I had to use resources to light camps anyway and that was the only place where you could save manually.

As for puzzles, the problem with the game is that it is not physics based. Meaning only one solution will be accepted by the game to every problem, despite you coming up with another viable one. So the hints are a must. if you don't want to go crazy. Even with the hints I was going crazy at times in previous games trying to read the level designer's mind.

Also with the obvious paths thing. It's ok not to illuminate the path, but if you are physically only capable to grab the ledge that is supposed to be the "obvious path" then this will be another exercise in frustration. This would only work if you could grab every ledge and climb every wall, not just the one you are supposed to. And that was not the case in the previous games.

So all in all, I'd rather pick and choose every one of those options individually, rather than bundling them together like this. This is like a bad deal, where you must buy something stupid to get the right to buy what you actually want.
 
Shadow of the Tomb Raider's best new features are its custom difficulty settings

The ability to independently tweak the challenge of the combat, puzzles, and platforming made Shadow feel like a truly modernized version of the older games. …

https://www.pcgamer.com/shadow-of-t...-features-are-its-custom-difficulty-settings/
I don't think that means what you think it means.

There is no mention that you can individually tweak each option. Just that you can select Easy normal, hard or deadly 3 times and that's it.

In fact that article further confirms my fears:

Aid-free puzzles or platforming sections can be disorienting in that not every component of the environment is interactive even if might appear to be, which likely spawned the idea of a chatty protagonist and highlighting pieces to begin with. Occasionally, I leapt to my death thinking something was a platform, only to glide off into the abyss below. But it's fine.
No, it's the opposite of goddamn fine. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it damn well should be a duck! I don't want to play read the level designer's mind!
 
There is no mention that you can individually tweak each option. Just that you can select Easy normal, hard or deadly 3 times and that's it...

you can customize combat, exploration and puzzle difficulty individually...that's more then what any other game will do...normally you choose 1 difficulty across the board...but with this new Tomb Raider you can customize all 3 separately
 
you can customize combat, exploration and puzzle difficulty individually...that's more then what any other game will do...normally you choose 1 difficulty across the board...but with this new Tomb Raider you can customize all 3 separately
But the options are not in line with previous practices. So this is basically a case where more is actually less. I'm locked in by the things that are an absolute must to have, and that comes with a ton of baggage.
I don't want bullet sponge enemies -> I get aim assist and highlighted enemies bundled
I want the objects that the level designer meant the player to grab to be identifiable -> I loose resource management and lighting of base camps
I want hints on puzzles when I get stuck - > I get the entire thing spoon fed to me loosing all sense of achievement. Why even do puzzles if you get the solution on a silver platter? But I also don't want to be running around aimlessly for half an hour trying to read the mind of the designer. So the verbal hints that were in previous games were perfect as they only presented themselves when you got stuck.

This is a raw deal, there is on way around it. This game just got shot in the kneecaps, it will be really hard to recover from here.
 
But the options are not in line with previous practices. So this is basically a case where more is actually less. I'm locked in by the things that are an absolute must to have, and that comes with a ton of baggage.
I don't want bullet sponge enemies -> I get aim assist and highlighted enemies bundled
I want the objects that the level designer meant the player to grab to be identifiable -> I loose resource management and lighting of base camps
I want hints on puzzles when I get stuck - > I get the entire thing spoon fed to me loosing all sense of achievement. Why even do puzzles if you get the solution on a silver platter? But I also don't want to be running around aimlessly for half an hour trying to read the mind of the designer. So the verbal hints that were in previous games were perfect as they only presented themselves when you got stuck.

This is a raw deal, there is on way around it. This game just got shot in the kneecaps, it will be really hard to recover from here.
Yeah this is another one of those cases where more options just suffocate the game. I doubt the designers will be able to adjust how many enemies spawn in an area, subtle environmental clues, etc., to account for players doing whatever they want with these difficulty choices.

While I... guess... I'm interested to continue this story, I'll also admit to being fatigued with the character. This rebooted, younger, erm, precocious Lara is basically a one-woman murdering machine and wrecking ball. The "evil conspiracy/force/corporation/thing" Trinity is also kind of tired. There may be better things to play towards the end of the year.
 
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Yeah this is another one of those cases where more options just suffocate the game. I doubt the designers will be able to adjust how many enemies spawn in an area, subtle environmental clues, etc., to account for players doing whatever they want with these difficulty choices.

While I... guess... I'm interested to continue this story, I'll also admit to being fatigued with the character. This rebooted, younger, erm, precocious Lara is basically a one-woman murdering machine and wrecking ball. The "evil conspiracy/force/corporation/thing" Trinity is also kind of tired. There may be better things to play towards the end of the year.
Yeah the 3 game long prequel, now where have I heard that? Even the second was pushing it. But I tend to not think about it as I play that this is supposed to be the young inexperienced "amateur" version. Then what will be the next phase like? Blocking nukes with her forearm?
 
I just finished my re-play of Tomb Raider 2013...when it came out I had my 1080p monitor and wasn't able to use SSAA...but now with my new 1440p monitor I can max it out with SSAA 2X and TressFX and get ~60fps...looked really good...the hair technology still looks amazing and might be the best hair simulation ever

I wasn't going to worry about getting 100% completion but my OCD kicked in and I ended up getting it...now on to my Rise of the Tomb Raider replay...
 
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Yeah this is another one of those cases where more options just suffocate the game. I doubt the designers will be able to adjust how many enemies spawn in an area, subtle environmental clues, etc., to account for players doing whatever they want with these difficulty choices.

While I... guess... I'm interested to continue this story, I'll also admit to being fatigued with the character. This rebooted, younger, erm, precocious Lara is basically a one-woman murdering machine and wrecking ball. The "evil conspiracy/force/corporation/thing" Trinity is also kind of tired. There may be better things to play towards the end of the year.

I never played the previews games, so the Trinity aspect kind of threw me off as it wasn't in the first. I can understand an over arching story to connect the game, but the way they handled it in the Rise wasn't that great. I'd be happy if they continued with this Lara in future games though. I thought the story and area of the second game just wasn't as interesting as the first. Shadow looks a bit more interesting. I hope there is more to discovering some ancient civilization / power / whatever. I'd like some mystery or something. Rise was decent enough to carry the game but I just blew through it without caring much.

Outside of that, for the 4th game (assuming there is one) I hope they change up the gameplay a bit. Not in a "lets make this online and shove points into your face" way, but I'd like to see the combat and movement change a bit. Shadows looks fun but the climbing mechanics all feel so similar.
 
Pretty sure this is the last one in the trilogy man. No future ones unless its another reboot.
 
Well IMO they shouldn't reboot, they should just make the next game and finally call it Tomb Raider. Start fresh with a new story along the line of the first TR game from the PS1 but with the new engine and features.
 
with the heavy foliage in this new game the engine really needs to be able to deliver the goods to fully immerse people in the jungle setting...I think Crystal Dynamics created their own in-house engine for Rise...the engine from the first game was pretty feature rich (with TressFX)...CryEngine would have been perfect for this...hopefully they continue to push the technology to deliver a fitting ending to this reboot trilogy
 
They said this is the last game of the prequel trilogy. Not the series. They have every intention on making more games. If they haven't already started the next one.

Ty for the clarification. Thank god. I love this series for adventure.
 
Ty for the clarification. Thank god. I love this series for adventure.
Don't quote me on that, I can't quite remember where I've read that. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up in vain.

Despite the issues with the messed up difficulty settings I'm still anxious to get this game.

I find it very unsettling that there are so many gameplay videos up on youtube already. Why do they give these youtubers so early access to unreleased games? I don't want to see spoilers, and I want to experience game on my own, and not watch the opening sequences played by someone else beforehand.
 
Don't quote me on that, I can't quite remember where I've read that. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up in vain.

Despite the issues with the messed up difficulty settings I'm still anxious to get this game.

I find it very unsettling that there are so many gameplay videos up on youtube already. Why do they give these youtubers so early access to unreleased games? I don't want to see spoilers, and I want to experience game on my own, and not watch the opening sequences played by someone else beforehand.
It's the leap of logic sales made that people buy games based on LP or other real gameplay videos, so earlier exposure must mean improved sales. But I'm like you. Back when Dark Souls III came out I unfollowed something like a dozen streamers on Twitch because they were streaming the game 2 weeks early, and I never refollowed them. I'll do the same again if any streamer does the same with any other game I am looking forward to.
 
Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Exclusive 4K PC Tech Trailer

all 3 TR games have raised the bar for graphical fidelity (TressFX, SSAA, VXAO etc)...this looks like another showcase game for amazing graphics...

 
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