Grave Gamer News & Views — crystal dynamics

First Peek at Rise of the Tomb Raider’s Combat

For whatever reason, tomb raiding has always come with a certain precariousness, and I don’t mean falling stalactites and booby trapped crypts. I mean burly men with flamethrowers. Like Frappy Happy Hour seems to draw in every short tempered housewife in the nearby cul-de-sac, tombs serve as a beacon for rifle swinging goons.

Luckily, Ms. Croft has honed her skills since her first outing, becoming something akin to a guerrilla fighter. A one woman army in a halter top.

Check out the game’s combat hereabouts. Rise of the Tomb Raider releases November 10th for Xbox One and Xbox 360. PC gets it early next year and PS4 (sigh) won’t be raiding anything until a full year after its competitor’s launch date.

A Grittier Kind of Croft Comes Our Way March 5th

Watch the newest Tomb Raider trailer here.

It’s nice to be made aware of the fact I’ll go broke during this holiday season and then stay broke through the first quarter of 2013.  Aiming for early March, Tomb Raider hands us a gift for our patience in the form of a new gameplay trailer.

The visuals are a sight to be seen, most definitely, and the game insofar has me wanting to grab hold of a controller…But goddamnit does this thing look like Uncharted.  From armed foreign thugs to shit constantly crashing down on your head, the thin line stopping Lara from tossing quips at bad guys would be the title’s grittier reality.  The gritty reboot has almost become a parody of itself within the film industry, but Crystal Dynamics may not be wrong to run with it.

Amongst the exploding and shouting and perpetual running, there’s this tiny moment after Lara shoots a man dead where instead of posing in victory or firing off a one-liner and instead of suddenly donning a cliched mask of determination to be worn into the next fight, she just looks…changed.  She looks shocked, disgusted, scared out of her mind, and simply affected.  A starkly sobering instance the likes of that surely doesn’t belong in a dumb, high-octane actioner (ex. the timeless Tomb Raider films).

I don’t think I’ve ever seen any virtual version of Lara so humanized.  I’ve had to toughen my hide with a layer of cynicism each time a new Raider crops up so that the disappointment wouldn’t scar me.  I’m shelving the cynicism (and the “Looks like Uncharted” crap) and finally caving into my excitement this go-around.  Besides, I need to work through my phobia of metaphorical scars.

Tomb Raider (PC/PS3/Mac/360 - Q1 2013)

If you don’t mind the multitude of watermarks, treat your eyes to some stills from the latest effort to make Tomb Raider bankable again.  Crystal Dynamics, most famous for gifting the Gex trilogy to the world, looks to reinvent the Lara we know, rebranding her as a survivalist rather than an invincible gun-toting, swollen lipped vixen.  Broken bones, bruised arms, and pained expressions definitely isn’t the kind of raiding I grew acclimated to in the PSX days, but I hope to shit the redesign functions as well as it looks.

While tonally it’s set itself apart, many have ridiculed the one gameplay reel we’ve gotten for looking like a carbon copy of Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series.  Conceptually, you could do worse than mirror Uncharted, but I agree it’d be the exact wrong course to take for Crystal Dynamics to cross the line from “homage” to “rip-off."  Nathan Drake may owe Lara (and Indiana Jones…and the little dude from Pitfall) a lot, but despite the franchise’s seniority, Tomb Raider will still have to feel almost incomparable to compete.

[Forgive my rant; check out the rest of the screens as amends.]

No Tombs to Raid This Year

Developer Crystal Dynamics and publisher Square Enix announced that their modernized reboot of Tomb Raider is delayed until the first quarter of 2013, missing its originally projected Fall release (this is becoming all too familiar).

In an ongoing attempt to make the best game of their careers, studio director Darrell Gallagher states in an open letter to fans, “We’re doing things that are completely new to Tomb Raider in this game and the additional development time will allow us to put the finishing touches into the game and polish it to a level that you deserve."  Gallagher and team feel justified in their decision adding, "We believe this is the right choice and I guarantee it will be worth the wait.”

With minor, minor exceptions, Lara Croft’s virtual presence over the last several years has been strained – typically marred by an inordinately shitty sequel.  The PS2 era were some of Lara’s darkest, most unplayable years.  I hate delays like hell, but I hate a bad game more.  I hope this extra polish and tinkering helps bring Tomb Raider back with a vengeance.