I’m in range . . .target’s coming up . . . almost there, almost there. . .
Lara puts her hand on the cave wall to steady herself as she descends into the dark. She puts her hand on the cave wall and ducks to avoid the roots above her. She puts her hand on the cave wall and takes a few deep breaths, and then continues. She puts her hand on the cave wall, and I feel the cold, slimy stone under my own hand.
A friend of mine recently reviewed the new Tomb Raider. The game has been out for a little while now, and I only had a light interest in giving it a try, mostly to see if there was anything to the controversy about attempted rape in the game. My friend is a fan of the Tomb Raider’s from way back, so she was a little disappointed in how little roaming and puzzle solving is in this new one. I haven’t actually played ANY of the Tomb Raiders, so all I can really compare to is Uncharted, which the new one plays a LOT like. Once again we enter the weird Twilight Zone where a game comes out, influences other later games, which in turn influence the remake of the original game. Game over.
Anyway, my friend liked the game enough that I picked it up and gave it a try. (Thank you Steam Summer Sale!) The result is . . . I really like Uncharted: Tomb Raider Edition. The running and jumping is fun, shooting dudes with a bow and arrow is always a good time, and the small amount of exploration is quite good. The voice acting is great, and while Lara is still attractive in a “not a real person” kind of way, it’s FAR toned down from the originals.
I’m enjoying the story, which is of the adventurous bildungsroman variety. It’s fun to see Lara transform from naive college graduate to hardcore explosive-fucking-arrow Rambo step by step. Contrary to the articles that were written early on about the game, the transition is NOT motivated by sexual assault, but rather is done piecemeal in Lara’s quest to save her friends. She transforms in order to race toward a positive goal, rather than to run away from a negative experience. (At least as much of a positive goal as you can have on an island full of psychopaths.) The attempted assault scene is very short (though it MAY trigger some people’s wounds, so be wary), and the major outcome of the scene is Lara’s trauma over taking a life for the first time.
I am first and foremost a story based gamer. I play my games on Easy so I can see how stories unfold. I explore for hidden passages because I don’t want to miss any optional cutscenes. So it was a weird experience for me to be captured by the technology of this game. It’s beautiful, though it has some serious oversights in it’s graphic design at times (when Lara is upside down, only her ponytail hangs with gravity, the rest of her hair is a stiff helmet). But when you walk, Lara sometimes reaches out and steadies herself on things around her.
Taking a look at this past year in games, and what is coming up in the NEXT year, I am pretty blown away. I think that we are going to see a tremendous revolution in what games can and WILL do in the next two years. Take Minecraft, add in some Tomb Raider and Journey, then the Occulus Rift and the Virtuix Omni teadmill . . . and then starve to death in your apartment because the bread you made with your wheat can’t actually FEED you. Those games that we all dreamed about as kids, where you could go anywhere in a virtual world, do anything . . . actually BE there . . . they are almost here. We are so close I can taste it.
The hype created by MMO games over the years is almost upon us. I’ve spent the entire day drooling about the games that I’m going to play 3 years from now, and all because Lara Croft reached out her hand and put it on the wall. So, go pick up Tomb Raider on Steam and dream with me.
ASIDE: I’m a dude who has never been raped, so I don’t really feel all that qualified to thumbs up or thumbs down based on that part of the game. I gave my opinion, but you should really consider that about the same as me giving my opinion on how Bruce Bochy should manage the Giants.
