I managed 88% completion on the first playthrough, without even trying
You had more patience than me. I only achieved 77% first time around, although admittedly I stopped looking for collectibles about half way through, unless they were right in front of me. The option to go back after completion makes looking for everything on the first playthrough kind of redundant since some items are in very obscure areas, which runs counter productive to the fast pace dictated by the story arc.
On one hand you want to stick to the story and race through it, since it plays like an interactive action/adventure film, and on the other you're presented with the temptation to take your time and collect everything, even though some items are unavailable unless you have the relevant gadgets which are acquired later on.
Ironically, upon revisiting after completion to collect everything, I died from a random misstep off a cliff somewhere and was unable to load the save date from the main menu due to a reoccurring screen freeze bug, so I had to start the game all over again. Not that it really bothered me all that much since I enjoyed playing through it again and it naturally took a quarter of the time on the second go.
It's certainly nowhere near as challenging as previous TR installments, and while the tomb puzzles were dead easy, much of it has to do with the controls, which have improved enormously in this game, at least from a console perspective (which is its main selling platform). Controlling Lara in previous entries was notoriously difficult, particularly the puzzle challenges of the earlier games.
In some ways it wasn't really the puzzle solving enjoyment of the earlier games, it was the relief of finally not dying from an awkward jumping manoeuvre required to complete those puzzles. One fractionally mistimed jump, one slightly incorrect leap due to horrible camera angles, one accidental bump of the control stick a fraction to the left or right and you were dead and screaming at the game in frustration, staring at the load bar over and over. And that's another thing, the load times in TR 2013 are much faster, making the few times you do die relatively headache free. Along with the superb graphics, the designers really pushed the 360 to its limits.
I can appreciate that you didn't find this game worthy, but flaws aside, I though it was great fun. However, I certainly had a few issues with it myself, although far more trivial. Namely Lara's almost green eyes in the actual game, which for some reason kept annoying me. I've always seen Lara as brown-eyed. She has brown eyes in the concept art, yet in the actual game I swear they're almost green, and it just doesn't quite look like 'Lara'. Is it just me?
I also wasn't sold on Camilla Luddington as the voice of Lara at first, but she grew on me, particularly when she talks about the artifacts. I actually thought it was Claire Holt from
The Originals (and previously
The Vampire Diaries), whose actually Australian but has an identical accent in those TV shows.
OCJOC
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JayneVeidt
10 years ago
Just beat it, liked it a lot and gave it an 8/10. Definitely not a perfect game.:S
The exploration was not rewarding enough, the gameplay was not difficult enough, the story was quite weak, average at best, there were too many silly QTE sequences, not enough boss fights, the tombs were very mediocre, the multiplayer was very bland... all these seem pretty obvious issues or problems to me.
Hednahären leds av Vintersorg!!!
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