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Old 06-05-11, 16:13   #1
Pietras
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Default TReboot coverage in Italian PSM



[IMG]http://i52.************/8vxemq.jpg[/IMG]

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Il numero di maggio è in edicola con l'esclusivo coverage del nuovo Tomb Raider e di DiRT 3, ma non solo. Un sacco di altre anteprime e recensioni vi aspettano nel numero 168 di PSM!
http://www.gamesvillage.it/piattafor...psm-n-168.html

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Originally Posted by tombraidergale View Post
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Originally Posted by -Cover Page-
TOMB RAIDER. Lara has changed: she's even better and more beautiful!
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Originally Posted by -Page 029-
Lara is always Lara: ready to tickle once again male's instincts and to make people admire her gymast skills. She's completely different, though. Yeah, because we're not talking about the heroine in her thirties with the most explosives sizes we've ever seen in the history of videogames (one of her trademarks traits that, let's say that, helped her becoming a myth), but we're talking about a twenty-one years old girl with a sweet look that inspires a protection feeling. Really. Lara's expression is so charming, and her voice is so soft, that we almost forgot to "take her sizes". Well, we actually looked at her body and we've got the confirmation that the new Lady Croft doesn't want to be a sexy bomb: her body is always fit, but it's slim, graceful and soft, almost as we also have to protect her body.

Princess Croft
Well, one wonders if she's a heroic woman or a hostage in the hands of some terrorists, a princess trapped in a castle or one of those defenseless characters we've all seen in games and movies of all sorts. The great thing is that this is completely intentional. As Crystal Dynamics' developers told us, this was what they wanted to achieve with the new Lara Croft: not a "superhero" archaeologist, but a human character, who knows that she's in a dangerous situation and is ready to show her fragility For example, at the beginning of the demo they showed us (played by Crystal Dynamics' guys, we only had to watch), Lara is often wondering where she is, she grasps for air in anxiety and even asks her mentor Conrad Roth if she's a worthy successor of Croft's family. In short, we asked a question to the developers: "Is this the deepest characterization of Lara Croft?". They simply answered "Yes".

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Images Captions

Top Image: "Where you want, when you want". For the first time in the saga, Tomb Raider has a quick travel system that allows to teleport to a previous visited location via a menu. It may happen that, in a certain area, you found a door that you couldn't open. As the game progresses though, you get a key that can open that door: you can then quick travel to the door, without necessarily travel all the way back.
Center Image: Lara is ready to come back to PS3 with one of her adventures. And what an adventure!
Bottom Image: Cardo (one of the magazine's writers' nickname): "What do you think about Uncharted?"
Crystal Dynamics: "We think that it was inspired by Tomb Raider!"
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Originally Posted by -Page 030-
It's all about balance (of the mind)
There's no need to say it: it's with a character like that that Crystal Dynamics will try to get some more public: she's less cocky than what someone would expect from a great videogames' heroine (and in this case we're not only talking about a heroine, but a real pop icon), but with a higher credibility and human depth. A real revolution, and a bold bet. This has inevitably changed the gameplay aswell, and here we arrive at another point of the game: Lara's athleticism. If the game once looked like a series of "gymnastic routes" where our archaeologist could show her incredible repertoire of tricks, the new Tomb Raider won't be like that: the impression of being confined in fixed "choreographies", with parkour and free running moves, will be completely missed in this game. The new environments will be explorable with full freedom. A very instinctive freedom, that is: you won't have to bother too much on the position of the ledges, you will be able to throw yourself in instant acrobat's actions that will cover different routes every time you perform them, to reach this or that point of the environment.

Lost Forever
We're going too theoretical here: let's try to describe what we saw in the demo, as there's a more interactive environment studied by the developers to follow the line of realism that the entire game is following. The demo starts with a non-interactive video where Lara and her expedition crashes on Japanese's coasts shortly after a huge storm. All of a sudden, we find Lara hanged upside-down in a strange cocoon. There's a fire that lits the ambient and some water down below. The action begins: with one of the analog sticks a Crystal Dynamics' developer starts to swing Lara closer and closer to the fire. Suddenly the flames start to enwrap the cocoon, but they burn the rope and Lara falls down, where the water turns the flames off. The fall wasn't without consequences though: our heroine has her side torn by a piece of stone and we have to go through a "quick time event" to remove it. And here we see the character's vulnerability. It's not all: the claustrophobic feeling is highlighted with some cameras that come closer to Lara when she's in certain situations. At some point she goes through a narrow gap and the camera zooms on Lara's face, showing a really oppressed face. After that some real realism and interactive sequences comes up: Lara picks up a piece of wood and she lights it up with some fire (gaining some more visibility), but she doesn't realize that, by going under a waterfall, she'll make the torch unusable. The brief moment of visibility helped her to see a mysterious figure of another hanged corpse, surrounded by strange relics.

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Images Captions
Top image: "Events of a game-event". A lot of people hates them as they break the action, some loves them as they add spectacularity, the fact is that they will be present in the new Tomb Raider. What do you mean by "what are them?". They're those sort of minigames that solve important moment with simple reflexes challanges. We saw at least four in the demo: Lara who has to unthread a piece of stone stuck in her side; Lara who climbs the wall of a natural well; Lara who fights a giant wolf, armed with a knife; Lara ambushed (two times!) by a mysterious caveman while she crawls in a tunnel.
Center left image: Crystal Dynamics' aim is to create a strong connection between Lara and the world
Center right image: the game will also have a particular energy system, but they didn't say anything more
Bottom image: Crystal Dynamics: "The new Tomb Raider will be for the saga the equivalent of what Batman Begins was for Batman at the cinema"
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Originally Posted by -Page 031-
Image Captions
Top image: Does "great spectacularity" equals to "short game", as in a lot of modern games? The developers told us that the minimum completion time for Tomb Raider is 10 hours.
Bottom image: "Museum pieces". Objects and weapons will have an important role in the new Tomb Raider, but the developers were "closed" on this topic. We can only say that at some point we saw Lara run with a bow on her shoulders, but we didn't have any occasion to see her use it. They told us that the pick-axe, which she'll acquire later on in the game, will be useful not only to fight but to unlock new climbing moves too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by -Page 032-
Lara open-mouthed
The number of times Lara grasps for air and wonders where she is are now countless, and it's this panic situation that helps her thinking. It's the right time for the developer to activate some sort of "super-concentration" (which is called "Survival Instinct"), typical of the latest adventure games. Once the "super-concentration" is activated, some crates carried by the current and some hanged cages light up. Yeah, you guessed it, it's puzzle time, but it's something quicker than the old, clumsy puzzles typical of the old games. Lara hops onto a cage and she makes some explosive barrels slide off it. She then jumps onto another floor, she lights some crates up with her torch and moves the cage in which the crates are, making them fall onto the barrels. The following explosion is the way to freedom... almost.

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Images Captions
Top image: "Without boundaries". The different game's acrobatic component is noticeable simply for the jumps. In the previous games jumping meant the start of an animation in which Lara rushed forward. Not now: during the jump you can steer towards left or right, to throw Lara to side ledges. This means that you can modify your trajectory in any moment, without feeling forced to follow a single route.
Center image: Cardo: "Will a co-op mode, similar to the one we saw in Guardian of Light, be present in this game?"
Crystal Dynamics: "No".
Bottom image: To animate the beautiful face of Lara, Crystal didn't even use motion capture similar to the one used in L.A. Noire
Quote:
Originally Posted by -Page 033-
The main road
As soon as Lara gets out, she finds her mentor Conrad Roth who is fighting against some wolves: during the next dialogue the girl expresses all of her anxiety and her perplexity. Nevertheless, she has to go and find a med-kit, since Roth is injured because of the fight. And here the real acrobatic session starts: in a rural Japanese village, the developers show us how our heroine can now bounce and grab everything, without the need to follow a main road. All of this is possibile thanks to a intuitive movement system that doesn't require to concentrate too much on the position of the ledges. In short, the exploration isn't guided and looks way more natural and enjoyable than before. Who is using the controller doesn't give the impression of using a "topographical guide for young archaeologists", but moves by instincts, changing the routes on the go. Impressive.

Survival Adventure
The demo ends and the impression is that the new Tomb Raider is extremely organic: we can feel the realism, as opposed to the old rigid mechanics. The figure of a hyperbolic Lara Croft, both for her skills and sizes, and of an environment that looked like a personal gym for the lady, is completely gone. Sure, there's the danger that the old fans will complain and that this realism will make Lara look too fragile to be the protagonist of an adventure. But who said that every hero has to have Nathan Drake's cockiness or Indiana Jones' whip? Crystal Dynamics' guys said this: "the new Tomb Raider will be a survival game". And, in fact, this description fits right considering what we saw.

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Images Captions
Top image: "A whole world around". Tomb Raider's environments are designed to give you a sense of progression. How? By giving a certain kind of structure to the landscape and creating particular cameras that make you often see the parts that you already visited. For example, in the rural village, after climbing on a cliff it was possible to see the huge hole created by Lara by escaping from the den.
Center image: The game will be full of clues (even macabre) that will make you understand that there's a big mystery behind the shipwreck.
Bottom image: "Survival, yes. Horror, no". The "Survival Instinct" reminds the "special vision" of Arkham Asylum: it serves to the purpose of making some interactive objects "shine" so that you can notice them, just as what happens in Batman's game. For example, we saw Lara noticing some wolves footsteps in the snow that could lead her to her next objective, but also warned her of the possible presence of the wolves.

Last edited by Pietras; 17-05-11 at 02:01.
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Old 06-05-11, 16:27   #2
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Has the same image from TR ever been used on so many magazine covers before?
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Old 06-05-11, 16:29   #3
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Originally Posted by Rivendell View Post
Has the same image from TR ever been used on so many magazine covers before?
Not that I know of, could be wrong though.
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Old 06-05-11, 16:30   #4
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It's pretty good going in that case, if so!
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Old 06-05-11, 16:32   #5
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Originally Posted by Rivendell View Post
Has the same image from TR ever been used on so many magazine covers before?
No. Underworld had big magazine coverage in late 2007/early 2008 too, but the covers were different and uncoordinated, you can check them here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?s...14.10285661500 This time CD made it all much more cohesive
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Old 06-05-11, 16:42   #6
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A lot of Playstation magazines....were any Xbox people even invited to this demo?
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Old 06-05-11, 16:45   #7
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A lot of Playstation magazines....were any Xbox people even invited to this demo?
That's what came to my mind too lol Maybe they're trying to repent for Underworld DLC exclusivity
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Old 06-05-11, 16:49   #8
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Originally Posted by Pietras View Post
No. Underworld had big magazine coverage in late 2007/early 2008 too, but the covers were different and uncoordinated, you can check them here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?s...14.10285661500 This time CD made it all much more cohesive
Keep in mind that all these magazine covers seem to be popping up overnight, so that already tells you this is generating a lot more buzz than Underworld... and a lot faster. Things are certainly looking up, no?

So now the question is: Which magazine cover is the best??
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Old 06-05-11, 16:49   #9
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I have one question, where can I find HD version of this picture used in those covers?
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Old 06-05-11, 16:52   #10
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Originally Posted by TRNation View Post
So now the question is: Which magazine cover is the best??
EDGE for me. The design is clean and the purpule logo accents the blood so well.

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I have one question, where can I find HD version of this picture used in those covers?
I got it from wallpapers released by NAG magazine:
http://www.nag.co.za/2009/03/official-nag-wallpapers/
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