Tomb Raider

[Caine]

Brutal.   Breathtaking.

this.  tried the TressFX and it made her hair look even more unnatural.  turned it off and maxed out everything else, FPS seems steady but I haven't run FRAPS yet.

I've left the hair tech on.   A bit odd Tbh,   I'm keeping it on atm.

[Harkonis]

Picking mine up some time in the morning

[Teggy]

Definitely had the crash problem with tessellation on. Hopefully they'll put a patch out for it but I guess I don't spend a lot of time staring at Lara's angular shoulders

With so many people having the issue, I'm a bit puzzled how it could have made it through QA. Pretty much everyone using Nvidia cards in the GAF thread have the issue.

[shon]

Played for about an hour with maxed settings except for the hair stuff and haven't had any problems, I have an Nvidia Card.
I started playing for about 10 minutes then I decided to try the 3D mode and it's awesome.  I think they made the game with 3D in mind as the opening scenes are really cool.
It has it's own 3D settings so I do see a little ghosting, I can't adjust the convergence manually without going into menus so it's kind of hard to really tell what I'm doing graphically.  So far it's been the best 3D game I've played. 

[Caine]

That's too bad.   It's been completely solid for me.   Very impressed with this so far.

[Roman]

I am so close to calling this my game of the year! Don't hesitate! Go and get this tomorrow.
Loving the exploration and the idea that you can go back to other levels to reach previously unattainable areas.

GOTY contender.

[Caine]

I am so close to calling this my game of the year! Don't hesitate! Go and get this tomorrow.
Loving the exploration and the idea that you can go back to other levels to reach previously unattainable areas.

GOTY contender.

Definitely a contender so far.

[Roman]

I just got fire arrows while in shanty town. Amazeballs!

[Dante Rising]

I'm really enjoying the game also. It is a massive step up for the last game. They seem to have studied the mechanics of the Uncharted and Batman titles, and incorporated small portions of it into their design.

[Harpua3]

Tomorrow is my first day of not smoking... I hope this helps a bit!

[Soulchilde]

Tomorrow is my first day of not smoking... I hope this helps a bit!

good luck with quitting

[Teggy]

Statement from Nvidia:

We are aware of major performance and stability issues with GeForce GPUs running Tomb Raider with maximum settings.

Unfortunately, NVIDIA didn’t receive final code until this past weekend which substantially decreased stability, image quality and performance over a build we were previously provided. We are working closely with Crystal Dynamics to address and resolve all game issues as quickly as possible.

In the meantime, we would like to apologize to GeForce users that are not able to have a great experience playing Tomb Raider, as they have come to expect with all of their favorite PC games.

[Harpua3]

Tomorrow is my first day of not smoking... I hope this helps a bit!

good luck with quitting

Thanks. This is a real bitch so far. Going to get this game...then to work!!! 

[Suitably Ironic Moniker]

Not to turn this into an anti-smoking topic, but I hope you're using some nicotine replacement system, as it does help more than cold turkey. I quit in July 2011, and aside from my desire to quit itself, the Nicolette was the best thing ever for at first couple of months.

On-topic: Tomb Raider is all downloaded and ready to go after I get back from school, I just hope that my 3 year old laptop can run it well.

[Harkonis]

I was hoping Teggy got this on 360 so we could play multi.  Especially since I kept hearing how good uncharted mp was from him.

[Teggy]

I was hoping Teggy got this on 360 so we could play multi.  Especially since I kept hearing how good uncharted mp was from him.

LOL. Well I preordered it on PC because at the time there was no multiplayer. If I knew then there was MP I probably would have gotten it on 360. Although the MP reviews haven't been too hot.

[Harkonis]

Most games that aren't COD get bad MP reviews.  Transformers, Max Payne, and Crysis 2 all had really good MP that suffered from small issues. (in the case of Max Payne, the issue was nobody played it )

[USMC Kato]

Wow, Tomb Raider on PC looks and runs incredible. At least with a high end AMD card.

[Harkonis]

nobody to play multiplayer with!

[Azhag]

75 mins in and loving it

[siege]

Finally sitting down to play it now. About a hour in and I'm blown away. The visuals are amazing and I'm digging the game play mechanics thus far.

This could be a contender!

[CeeKay]

just ran into my first glitch- a deer running backwards.  I'd have shot it but I hear they are an endangered species.

[USMC Kato]

The deer was probably suffering from lag (The Hadron Shuffle)

[Azhag]

Played a couple games of team deathmatch. OK... haven't decided if I'll give it much time, but I'll try out a little more at least.

[Caine]

Click to embiggen

[Crawley]

Gah Steam! By default the cloud save is on for this game by default. I ended up losing almost two hours of playing as it couldn't sync and get my save back. Why is that on by default?

To turn off cloud save go in to your game Library, right-click on the game and choose Properties, then on the Updates tab uncheck the cloud box.

Put another hour and change to get back to where I was. It was a small blessing as I ended up discovering a lot of hidden nooks along the way, collecting all the items I could in the areas, and having a better understanding of the attribute upgrades. Really loving the game and loving that it looks and runs so great.

[siege]

These Ghost Hunter tokens are damn hard to see. Kinda nice you can fast travel back to previous areas to item hunt.

[CeeKay]

These Ghost Hunter tokens are damn hard to see. Kinda nice you can fast travel back to previous areas to item hunt.

most areas.  as far as I can tell you cannot get back into the area where you get to use stealth for the first time, and I have a feeling there was more stuff there than I looked for.

ran the benchmark and my average FPS was 44 with everything but TressFX.  definitely having fun, although since I just finished AssCreed 3 I keep wanting to kill the wolves with my hidden blades

[Ridah]

It's surprising how much having TressX (the hair tech) enabled kills the framerate. I'm talking about a 20% loss in performance 

Since I turned that off, and I turned down Level of Detail a notch, I'm getting a solid 50-60 FPS.

[Harpua3]

Not to turn this into an anti-smoking topic, but I hope you're using some nicotine replacement system, as it does help more than cold turkey. I quit in July 2011, and aside from my desire to quit itself, the Nicolette was the best thing ever for at first couple of months.

On-topic: Tomb Raider is all downloaded and ready to go after I get back from school, I just hope that my 3 year old laptop can run it well.

Not to derail either. I ended up smoking a few today so I didn't kill anyone;), but I'm coming up with a plan to execute in the next week or so. I tried Nicolette once and I got violently ill. It was a low dose too...

On topic: I just played the first 25 minutes or so, but thus far this game is excellent! I had to stop to eat , but I'm about to throw a few hours away with this in a few minutes !!!

[siege]

This game. It's like Resident Evil 4 and Uncharted had a love child. The atmosphere is incredible. Reminds me a little of the show Lost.

For those that have tried the multiplayer, is it worth resubbing to Live to play?

[Azhag]

Hopefully work will be out tomorrow for Snowsequeastrion in which case I will play a lot more. Put more time into it than expected today, at "24%" now. Save points are pretty often which makes me happy. I'm definitely missing a lot of the relics and such though, so I'll have to go back later to try to find more...

[EngineNo9]

I've heard this one has a significant reliance on quick-time events, is that true?  Would you say that it would be too annoying for somebody that generally hates QTEs?

[siege]

I've heard this one has a significant reliance on quick-time events, is that true?  Would you say that it would be too annoying for somebody that generally hates QTEs?

There's been a few QTE sequences a few hours in. I'm not a fan of them myself but they haven't bothered me. If you happen to fail one it restarts you a few seconds before them.

[Turtle]

I have a high end PC with a 7950, looks and runs great on ultimate detail. However, there's a few areas in the game that drop my FPS to next to nothing, so I go from solid and stable, to unplayable. It's weird, but all that means is i had to drop the detail down to medium for a chunk of the game, no big loss and it still looked great.

You can definitely see the design elements they pulled from other games. First there's the definitely Uncharted influence, but they definitely one up Uncharted in a few good ways. First is the hub areas that you come back to, and change over time, but there's a nice but of going back and exploring new stuff.

However, besides Lara, none of the other characters are as interesting as Uncharted's supporting cast. Traversal + Gunplay isn't as good as Uncharted though, you can't use your pistol everywhere, but considering the story is of a young inexperienced Lara, I think it kinda works despite the madness that happens later.

[Ridah]

Yeah I'm still tweaking my graphics settings, in some areas it drops into the 40s and then it goes back up. Even when I turn off the bells and whistles this still happens, so I suppose it's just the graphics engine itself... not to say it doesn't look great. It just has its moments.

[EddieA]

I've heard this one has a significant reliance on quick-time events, is that true?  Would you say that it would be too annoying for somebody that generally hates QTEs?

I'm not far into the game myself, but from what I've read in reviews, QTEs are mostly limited to the tightly scripted beginning part of the game and pretty much disappear once the game opens up.

[Harpua3]

Okay , two hours in and I'm impressed. I'm on ps3 and the graphics might be the best on the system. It's actually really impressive that this is possible on this old of hardware. Gameplay is alot of fun, even early on. Shooting a pistol has a weight to it that feels just right. The bow, also handles nice. The audio on numerous occasions has been been very impressive and is filled with atmosphere.

Now if only good games stopped coming out so I could clear my backlog out before ps4!!!

I'm looking at you too, bioshock!!!

Edit: how could I forget?!? What a awesome opener to game. Seriously...

[Caine]

whew.  just put in about 4 hours.  definitely enjoying this.  I need to run the benchmark as I don't know what I'm missing by having the tressfx turned on.  it's a nice little effect in the windy areas though. 

I've progressed into the story's darker sections and they don't hold back from the enemy's menacing presence.  not spec ops the line level, but in the same vein.  of course, by this point, Lara has killed unknown quantities of enemies in far worse ways, but I knew it was a weakness of the presentation going in, that you would do far more kills than the enemies do. 

man, does this game have some beautiful vistas, especially once you get into higher altitudes.  I'll post some of those tomorrow. 

I have found 3 or 4 of the optional tombs and they do bring back a small sense of the older adventures, but I wish they were longer.  you could put all of them back to back and still be in the first big cavern in anything from Legends or Underworld.  the engine is used to great effect though and of all the games I've played lately, they really nailed your sense of being a part of the world.  there are few of the gamey, rigid aspects that stuck out in even Underworlds, like how you could only jump or grapple in certain directions.  the world feels very organic and alive.  I think this has one of the best built worlds of any action game and it certainly has assassin's creed beat when you consider the world as a whole. 

I don't know how far I have before I beat this, but I still have a lot of stuff to find and explore. 

[Turtle]

Another thing I'm liking is the auto cover, somehow they made it work, probably because the AI was made to be a pretty poor shot overall, so being slightly off angle, they still give you the benefit of the doubt. Uncharted has always had issues with its cover system.

The Alan Wake style dodge/scramble is also works well.