Rise of the Tomb Raider

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Thu Feb 11, 2016 2:40 pm

Hmmm....don't know what to say I finished the game and never had a problem unless something broke line of sight or they moved too far apart. I used an Xbox controller...hit LT, push down on right stick to zoom in, use RT to pull back on bow, when all the way back put targeting cursor on head(s), get diamond and then let go of RT to shoot arrows

Edit: Possibly there's a maximum range? I think I remember once or twice it didn't work but the target was really far away (more of a distant shape).

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Thu Feb 11, 2016 4:29 pm

IceBear wrote:I used an Xbox controller...hit LT, push down on right stick to zoom in, use RT to pull back on bow, when all the way back put targeting cursor on head(s), get diamond and then let go of RT to shoot arrows

Figured it out. The part I've bolded above is the key. The game won't let you "cheat" by putting your target cursor on their heads first. You have to do all your actions first, then target them, then then the diamond will appear. I was drawing my bow, targeting them so I wouldn't have to hold the draw as long, and doing all the actions. Once I did all the actions, then targeted them, then it worked like a charm, though you can't fire right off, you need to let Lara notch the other arrow, then fire.

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Thu Feb 11, 2016 5:26 pm

Yeah, I started hating the helmeted bastards as the first shot only knocked their helmet off and ruined my stealth run if I wasn't fast enough in getting the 2nd head shot in

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Fri Feb 12, 2016 1:20 am

IceBear wrote:Yeah, I started hating the helmeted bastards as the first shot only knocked their helmet off and ruined my stealth run if I wasn't fast enough in getting the 2nd head shot in

I just use poison, it's not as fancy but it will take everyone down, armor or not.

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Fri Feb 12, 2016 7:32 am

Grifman wrote:
IceBear wrote:Yeah, I started hating the helmeted bastards as the first shot only knocked their helmet off and ruined my stealth run if I wasn't fast enough in getting the 2nd head shot in
I just use poison, it's not as fancy but it will take everyone down, armor or not.

True....I realized after I finished I barely used any of the special arrows or ammo

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Fri Feb 12, 2016 9:20 pm

Ant tips for high diving? My success rate is about 1 in 20. Pretty frustrating.

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Fri Feb 12, 2016 9:30 pm

High diving? Don't recall a need for it really. Did I miss a section?

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Sat Feb 13, 2016 12:48 am

IceBear wrote:High diving? Don't recall a need for it really. Did I miss a section?

There are a couple of challenges for Lara to repeat her famous swan dives from the previous older games.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Sat Feb 13, 2016 12:59 am

Famous last words:

"Whose radio is that?"

(You can craft IEDs from radios and the bad guys will come over and check them out, with the inevitable boom quickly following. I need to do this again!)

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Sat Feb 13, 2016 8:39 am

Grifman wrote:
IceBear wrote:High diving? Don't recall a need for it really. Did I miss a section?
There are a couple of challenges for Lara to repeat her famous swan dives from the previous older games.

Ah...I was guessing it was something like that. As I was rushing through to get it finished before xcom2 I really only did the main mission and the optional tombs. Will have to replay it later and do the challenges later

MonkeyFinger · Post by **MonkeyFinger** » Sat Feb 13, 2016 6:22 pm

Guess I'm not that far along yet, not having had much time to play lately. Just started to investigate the Soviet Installation.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Sat Feb 13, 2016 11:01 pm

I would recommend avoiding two weapon mods:

1) The pistol silencer doesn't really seem to work. The weapon is still loud and seems to alert the enemy.

2) The laser pointer is useless and actually works against you. You already get a red dot when you put your cursor over an enemy so nothing is really gained. It hurts you in two ways. First off, when it is smokey or dark, the fact that your cursor turns red when it is over an enemy can help you find them. If your cursor is already red, then that doesn't help you find an enemy in smoke or darkness. Secondly, you seem to lose the headshot indicator on your cursor if you install this so it hurts getting headshots. Overall a waste of coin.

MonkeyFinger · Post by **MonkeyFinger** » Sun Feb 14, 2016 6:08 pm

Ha! One of my base camps has a dead guy laying right in the fire. BBQ time.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Sun Feb 14, 2016 6:37 pm

MonkeyFinger wrote:Ha! One of my base camps has a dead guy laying right in the fire. BBQ time.

I have that beat. I blew up some Trinity troops with an IED and one them was blown (clipping problem) through a wall. His head in one side and his legs/feet on another. LOL!

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Sun Feb 14, 2016 6:39 pm

Death from above!

I was very lucky with the timing to get this screenshot, my favorite so far!

Skinypupy · Post by **Skinypupy** » Sun Feb 14, 2016 7:27 pm

This game runs silky smooth 90% of the time, but I randomly get these spots where it slows to an absolute slide show. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to why or when it happens either. I'll just be running through an area, then it'll completely chug for about 10 seconds, then it goes back to normal. It's hugely frustrating, as I've had three deaths now when this slowdown has hit during a QTE. I'm not even sure how to start troubleshooting it.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Sun Feb 14, 2016 7:42 pm

Any notice the pop up note on the game menu wishing Lara a happy birthday today! Feb 14 is her official birthday, nice touch!

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Sun Feb 14, 2016 8:38 pm

Skinypupy wrote:This game runs silky smooth 90% of the time, but I randomly get these spots where it slows to an absolute slide show. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to why or when it happens either. I'll just be running through an area, then it'll completely chug for about 10 seconds, then it goes back to normal. It's hugely frustrating, as I've had three deaths now when this slowdown has hit during a QTE. I'm not even sure how to start troubleshooting it.

Sorry I haven't noticed any performance issues but I upgraded my hardware last summer to make sure I could play Fallout 4 so I could just be lucky

Jaymann · Post by **Jaymann** » Sun Feb 14, 2016 8:48 pm

Got nailed by the cut scene railroad again. After a long sequence, I finally reached a new base camp. I saw a cave with some boards over it, but as I approached it I encountered about 4 cut scenes and was whisked off to another map. I couldn't remember the base camp name, so had to try about 10 before I found it.

Spoiler:

Turns out there was a relic in that cave. More poor design.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 8:43 am

Jaymann wrote:Got nailed by the cut scene railroad again. After a long sequence, I finally reached a new base camp. I saw a cave with some boards over it, but as I approached it I encountered about 4 cut scenes and was whisked off to another map. I couldn't remember the base camp name, so had to try about 10 before I found it.
Spoiler:
It was Ridgeline
Turns out there was a relic in that cave. More poor design.

Uh, I think I know where you are talking about:

Spoiler:

I just did that cave and there's no relic in it - I remember it because I was surprised that so little was in it. And I knew where it was because I constantly check the map - that was not a problem for me. That said it is poor design if we are talking about the same thing. You should have been told, "Meet me at X and we'll go up to Y" - that way it would be your choice as to start the sequence to some extent (though you may not know what is coming).

Jaymann · Post by **Jaymann** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 9:04 am

Yes, that's the spot. Seems like it would have been a simple matter to have Jonah off to the side looking away.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 11:33 am

Death from above:

Death from behind:

Death from below:

Damn, I love this game!

MonkeyFinger · Post by **MonkeyFinger** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 1:22 pm

Grifman wrote:
MonkeyFinger wrote:Ha! One of my base camps has a dead guy laying right in the fire. BBQ time.
I have that beat. I blew up some Trinity troops with an IED and one them was blown (clipping problem) through a wall. His head in one side and his legs/feet on another. LOL!

Nice. His name wasn't Roy something, was it?

Got four hours in on the game yesterday, great stuff.

Skinypupy · Post by **Skinypupy** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 1:59 pm

I've played 3 hours now, and my strongest reaction has been 'meh'. The gameplay is still decently fun, but the story is lame, the levels aren't nearly as well designed, the pacing seems really off (I found it strange that the entire Soviet installation is completely abandoned, when there were a truckload of bad guys shooting at me as I was walking up to it), and Lara herself doesn't seem even half as interesting this time around. Hoping it picks up.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 2:20 pm

Skinypupy wrote:I've played 3 hours now, and my strongest reaction has been 'meh'. The gameplay is still decently fun, but the story is lame, the levels aren't nearly as well designed, the pacing seems really off (I found it strange that the entire Soviet installation is completely abandoned, when there were a truckload of bad guys shooting at me as I was walking up to it), and Lara herself doesn't seem even half as interesting this time around. Hoping it picks up.

I felt you as you do up to the half way point but the plot and pacing really pick up IMO when you reach the

Spoiler:

The reboot had some great set piece battles that are really lacking in the first half of this game, but the second half makes up for it. The pacing is also off I agree - and that problem never completely goes away.

There's just so much stuff to do - missions, challenges, crypts and tombs, gathering resources/crafting - but the story set up is that it is very urgent at each step that Lara proceeds to the next. It feels very out of place for Lara to stop and go hunt a bear or mine some ore because she needs to upgrade her shotgun , when it is urgent that she foil the next plan of her opponent.

But like I said, after a certain point in the

Spoiler:

the pace picks up and there are again some great set piece combats as in the original.

Now excuse me, I need to hunt/mine because I need to upgrade my armor for the final battle (perfect example!)

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 2:36 pm

I really liked it myself. It probably had some of the issues that you mention (especially since Grifman agrees with you), but I honestly never noticed it. It could be that compared to the other games I've been playing, which I am finding on the stressful side, playing Tomb Raider is like coming back to an old friend. Anyway, it's probably not as good as the first though I honestly can't compare how I feel about games compared to others when so much time has passed since I last played it. I liked that they went back to more puzzles in the tombs as I liked that in the original game.

Oh, just thought of why I might not have noticed some of the issues. I had went all in so got the Babba Yaga DLC which takes place before the spot that Grifman mentioned so that kept me busy for a bit. As for the pacing thing...pretty much every game with any RPG element in it has that issue nowadays. Mass Effect...the universe is going to be destroyed; I'll get to that as soon as I'm done mining over here, Fallout 4 is supposed to be about finding your kid, and I spent all my time collecting junk and never bothered with the story line very much at all, etc. Guess I'm just jaded about that to the point I don't notice or care anymore when pacing is like that. Honestly, I want to play on my own time and explore so I probably would hate it and feel stressed if it made me do stuff on the game's timetable.

I'm honestly eyeing replaying it just because I finished the game and never did get a grenade launcher for my rifle.

Skinypupy · Post by **Skinypupy** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 3:33 pm

The reboot struck the perfect balance of collectibles, exploration, story, and set pieces. So far, this one seems to be focusing entirely on collectibles (feels like there's something to pick up every three steps), but is pretty much ignoring all the other aspects. Since finding every single shiny hidden in every last nook and cranny is my least favorite part of any game, that could explain why it's fallen completely flat for me so far. I don't really care much about collecting all 10 hidden do-dads in an area...I want to see a good story and be involved in big, audacious set pieces.

It also might be a case of bad timing. I played through the first two Uncharted and a good chunk of the TR reboot right before the holidays, so I might just be burned out on that style of play at the moment.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 3:52 pm

Skinypupy wrote:The reboot struck the perfect balance of collectibles, exploration, story, and set pieces. So far, this one seems to be focusing entirely on collectibles (feels like there's something to pick up every three steps), but is pretty much ignoring all the other aspects. Since finding every single shiny hidden in every last nook and cranny is my least favorite part of any game, that could explain why it's fallen completely flat for me so far. I don't really care much about collecting all 10 hidden do-dads in an area...I want to see a good story and be involved in big, audacious set pieces.

It also might be a case of bad timing. I played through the first two Uncharted and a good chunk of the TR reboot right before the holidays, so I might just be burned out on that style of play at the moment.

Why not just ignore the doodad collecting?

Skinypupy · Post by **Skinypupy** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 4:00 pm

Trying to, but the game seems to be heavily skewed towards it. Feels like I'll end up being vastly underpowered if I don't give it a concerted effort. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 4:05 pm

I really like the story and there's a lot of very interesting stuff in the documents/tapes/logs that you find. A number of them are small mini-stories about various individuals, some named, some un-named but I found those fantastic in filling out the world Lara finds herself in. I especially enjoyed:

Spoiler:

Though fairly common in games, I haven't enjoyed journals this much since System Shock 2.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 4:08 pm

Skinypupy wrote:Trying to, but the game seems to be heavily skewed towards it. Feels like I'll end up being vastly underpowered if I don't give it a concerted effort. Perhaps I'm wrong.

I think except for maybe one or two places, the game is very easy (other than some of the platforming which I just suck at in general), and you probably only really need half the skills, even less. Frankly, except for one "boss fight" I think you could make it with the bow alone since you have so many different types of arrows to use.

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 4:20 pm

Yeah I was pretty much just using the bow. You'll be given the other weapons via the story. The parts you collect are really just for variations of those weapons which are better and worse than the default. It really doesn't matter which one you have. The only thing I collected consistently was the herbs and stuff for bandages

MonkeyFinger · Post by **MonkeyFinger** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 5:16 pm

On the 'story is lame' front, just stumbled across this article where it won the Writers Guild of America's Outstanding Achievement in Video Game Writing award, winning out over Assassin's Creed Syndicate, The Witcher 3, and Pillars of Eternity. For whatever that is worth.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Tue Feb 16, 2016 12:42 am

Some random musings:

The grapple axe is great, thought it would be difficult to use but it ended up saving my butt several times.

Climbing arrows were very well implemented. Another cool mechanic.

This will sound weird but Lara has a lot of different ways to kill people

Poison traps, IED traps, fire arrows, explosive arrows, poison arrows, shrapnel bombs, guns, knives, lots of ways to play.

Stealth is very well implemented. I love how you can hide in a bush, stealth kill a guy, and she pulls the body back into the bushes with her.

Overhearing merc chatter while stalking them was cool, especially when they describe what Lara was doing in the campaign.

The music is fantastic, especially the combat music.

I really like combat. It's very short, violent and brutal. Lara can't take a lot of direct hits, and neither can her opponents. It's a very different feel from say, Fallout 4 where both you and your opponents feel more than a bit like bullet sponges.

Upgrade your climbing axe and don't be afraid of melee. I generally don't like that style of combat, but in TR sometimes that just works best. Sometimes it's just easier to charge an enemy than try to aim at him. Plus while you are hammering on him, he can't use his gun and you can really stun them. I was even going melee against armored ***less toward the end, two or three at a time and beating the crap out of them.

Death from above rocks.

Death from below rocks even more.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Tue Feb 16, 2016 12:47 am

MonkeyFinger wrote:
Grifman wrote:
MonkeyFinger wrote:Ha! One of my base camps has a dead guy laying right in the fire. BBQ time.
I have that beat. I blew up some Trinity troops with an IED and one them was blown (clipping problem) through a wall. His head in one side and his legs/feet on another. LOL!
Nice. His name wasn't Roy something, was it?

No, sorry, he looked like this:

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Tue Feb 16, 2016 8:35 am

I was even going melee against armored ***less toward the end, two or three at a time and beating the crap out of them.

You know I was terrified of facing them after all the buildup and ended up being disappointed in how easy they were

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Tue Feb 16, 2016 11:45 am

Well, I thought they were difficult enough. It helped that I wore the armor that protects against Greek fire. What I did was get up on a platform which gave them limited room to get to me. Then I would melee them off the platform. While one was climbing back up, I attacked the next. When I had an opening I would shotgun the guy climbing up or hit him while he was on the ground where I could get a good headshot.

Of course, if they were too easy, you can always up the difficulty level

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Tue Feb 16, 2016 5:02 pm

Grifman wrote:I just did that cave and there's no relic in it - I remember it because I was surprised that so little was in it.

Correction, I got that cave confused with another. There was relic in it. My bad.

Skinypupy · Post by **Skinypupy** » Thu Feb 18, 2016 2:05 pm

Played a couple more hours and I'm starting to warm up to it a bit. It's still nowhere near as good as the last game, but at least I'm no longer alternating between bored and frustrated.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Sat Feb 20, 2016 2:05 am

Great game, I'd rate it just a bit lower than the first one:

1) More tomb raiding (which was fun) but less combat, which I enjoy, so I missed that aspect (though I know some TR fans hate the increased emphasis on combat so YMMV)

2) Much less QTE's, actually only one I can think of.

3) Biggest problem is pacing. Trinity is almost ready to seize the mcguffin, I'm pushing towards the end, my allies are advancing, urging me on, Lara even says time is urgent, and game dumps me into an ancient city with 4 challenges, a tomb, a crypt and tons of stuff to collect. Given I still have skills and weapons I want to upgrade, it's kind of hard to ignore. They should keep these things in hubs where you aren't being pushed. They definitely shouldn't have put this city here or put this stuff in the city - it really interrupts the flow of the story.

Still looking for the sequel though. Stay for the end of the credits and "continue" the game after the end of story and you'll get some additional treats/exposition.