Community Event in Germany - My Opinion

[Dark_Messiah]

Warning: Bad English. I hope you understand this. And I am sorry that this thread is a bit messy at the moment xD


I will add all my quotes with info from this thread in the first post so you dont need to read the whole thread.

You may or may not know that I (and some other german Webmasters) visited the german Square Enix offices to meet Meagan Marie and see the new Tomb Raider. I just want to share my opinion on the game with you.

The Presentation



At first they showed us the trailer. Nothing new After that, Meagan went into the room and introduced herself. She started the demo and after the (awesome) loading screen we saw a very familiar scene. She presented "Day 1" the same level as shown on E3.

The graphics look amazing and much better than on YouTube. But, they did not fix her hair (yet).

After that, she said that she will show something completly new to us and so she started the second demo. After another (even better) loading screen (Some kind of audiolog from Lara) we saw a long cutcene. I think you all know the wolfsden scene so I will not describe it that much. (I will update this thread with more information soon)
But I can say that both cutcenes (At the beginning and at the End) are epic

Hands-On



After the presentation we had the chance to play the E3 demo for over 1 hour. That was enough time to try everything out. We even found an unfinished shimmey Animation.
We also found 3 Wilsons Eastereggs (http://tramprennen.org/wp-content/up.../03/wilson.jpg), 2 Bouncing Shoes, some collectable Food and many bugs).
The Camera works very well. And Lara can sprint in the Game. AND THERE ARE NO WHITE LEDGES!!

My Opinion

In my opinion the game looks really good. It just feels like a Tomb Raider. More than LAU. I think in the presentation was more exploring than in the whole TRL game. I also like the dark and gritty survival style.
I am a big fan of the old TR Games (and I even like AOD). I hated the LAU Games but this game seems like a very good start (for a new franchise) and even now (its not even near a completion) its already Crystal Dynamics best Tomb Raider game they ever made. I dont know if the game will be good because we only saw a very small part but what we saw was very nice. The controls are really nice and the game runs very smooth with 60fps on the Xbox360.

Dinner

After that they invited us to a dinner.


Meagan gave s a wonderful (Limited) Tomb Raider Poster and we all got a bag full of merchandise.

Group Photo: http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/2...uppenfoto1.jpg


Video of the Q&A (Not made by me)

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-cxO-3dieg (Q&A Starts 2:00)
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKp0y...eature=related
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKMk9...eature=related

Additional Info from the thread(so you dont need to read this whole thing ):

Originally Posted by Dark_Messiah

Thank you. In german its "hangeln".

-You can expect a gameplay trailer and the voice actor announcement at the beginning of 2012.

-Laras deaths are very brutal (Laras head gets smashed by a big rock and you see only her hand and her smashed face) and her kills are very brutal. (The wolf scene is very bloody).

-Lara automaticaly picks up ammo, food or other objects.

@killercowz

I dont know but it seems like its back.

Originally Posted by Dark_Messiah

@Spong You walk over food or something and then a little message pops up "Picked up: Food"

Originally Posted by Dark_Messiah

The wolvesden was a straight line, yes.
And now, I dont thin it have anything to do with the pacing of the game. The game (the Village/Wolfsden Demo) was slower paced than LAU trilogy.
And it is informative. You hear a sound and see the popup "Picked up: Shotgun Ammo" or something. (she really picked up shotgun ammo in the presentation)

Originally Posted by Dark_Messiah

The whole event was Xbox 360 only
And I think its finished because the sound and the pop up looked very final to me. (But everything can change until Fall 2012)

The Loading Screen looks a bit like this: http://data2.blog.de/media/773/1152773_ecef56cd12_l.jpg
with a countdown, some moving bars and text. And you hear Lara talking about her situation.

Originally Posted by Dark_Messiah

Oh and there are Chests that you can break up with your Iceaxe. (We dont saw any iceaxe gameplay but as Lara walked near by one of these there was an icon with the iceaxe)

Originally Posted by Dark_Messiah

Lara has some new abilitys for her climbing. She can jump onto a wall and the scramble a bit up so that she can reach higher levels. And she can swing on these kind of flags https://www.flaggen-pehl.de/images/3022.jpg

No we did not see any ladders.

Meagan showed us the radio tower where Lara will have to travel to later in the Game and it was very far away. And she showed us a far away mountain and said "With the right equipment, you can climb these Mountain".

The game will NOT be Open World, there will be points where you need to go. But there will be many ways to get to your target. Meagans example:"You can go the right way to your target and you can go the left way. But you will miss something if you travel only one of them so you need to explore."
so the game will not be an open world game like GTA but you will have a freedom to choose where you want to go.

There will also be some sort of sidemissions.

Originally Posted by Dark_Messiah

We saw a cutcene where lara got dragged into the cave. It was very short (10 Seconds) and in the Ego Perspective.

*Square Enix Logo*
*Lara Ego Perspective gets dragged into the cave
*Crystal Dynamics logo*
*Lara is hanged up at the top of the cave*
*Game begins*

And they said thats the beginning but we dont know for sure yet.

Originally Posted by Dark_Messiah

We saw water. And Lara was actually in the water. After the Wolfsden Lara falls into a lake because the plane she is walking on falls down (A plane wreck just like that in Nepal of TRL. Lara walks on top of it.) but its not deep enough to swim. She only walks through the water.

And no, I did not saw invisible walls xD

Originally Posted by Dark_Messiah

Yes there were.. I think 1 plane wrecks and some wings you can walk on.

At first Lara climbed on one of those houses in the village. From there she jumped onto another house. From there over the plane to a rock. Then on top of the Rock. After that she climed a wooden "thing" (Some wooden bars that she climbed almost like a ladder). And then she went into the wolfesden.

Originally Posted by Dark_Messiah

Okay I will try.

In the Den, Lara searches for the radio and picks it up in a cutcene. Nothing Special.
After that there is a very bloody quicktime event where Lara kills a wolf. She actually stabs him 7 times really fast. It happens really fast and you can see nothing but blood. You can only hear her knife several times and the Wolf. After that there is some quiet music and Lara says:"I am sorry.. It was either you or me" (Or something like that).

Then she went back to Roth and they sit next to each other at a fireplace and Roth tells Lara that she must reach the radiotower because the signal for the radio will be very good there. Lara is not happy about it and is very sad about everything. Then Roth tells her that she is a Croft and that she can do this and Lara answers: "I dont know If I am this kind of Croft".
Then Roth gives Lara the iceaxe and after Lara took it he grabs her Hand and says: Take care. Then the screen fades out.

I hope you could understand my bad grammar xD

[Spong]

Excellent stuff! Thanks for posting and sharing
The pics are cool (except the group photo, for reasons I won't go into ). I've not watched the videos yet, but I will shortly

*waits for complaints about the lack of PS3s in the pictures*

[larafan25]

You are a God sent from Heaven.

-Sprint = MFGYES!
-No white Ledges = Nothing new. Technically there are coloured edges, but no ledges so far.

[Killercowz]

OOooo semi new information!

Thanks loads!

It looked like it was a lot of fun.


^ IKR? I'm so glad we have sprinting again!




EDIT 2: OMG the music in the videos! I think we heard it before but it sounds intense.

[Mikky]

I hate you. ;___;

[Spong]

@Dark_Messiah
The move you're talking about, but didn't know the English translation for, is a shimmy (to go by that AoD pic you linked).

[Killercowz]

Originally Posted by Spong

@Dark_Messiah
The move you're talking about, but didn't know the English translation for, is a shimmy (to go by that AoD pic you linked).

Is the classic shimmy back?

[larafan25]

^There's not much difference, is there?

Originally Posted by Killercowz

OOooo semi new information!

Thanks loads!

It looked like it was a lot of fun.


^ IKR? I'm so glad we have sprinting again!




EDIT 2: OMG the music in the videos! I think we heard it before but it sounds intense.

Isn't the music from Inception? I think it's the inception music.

[Spong]

Originally Posted by Killercowz

Is the classic shimmy back?

It didn't go anywhere, did it? I mean the move she has in LAU is essentially the same thing.

[Dark_Messiah]

Originally Posted by Spong

@Dark_Messiah
The move you're talking about, but didn't know the English translation for, is a shimmy (to go by that AoD pic you linked).

Thank you. In german its "hangeln".

-You can expect a gameplay trailer and the voice actor announcement at the beginning of 2012.

-Laras deaths are very brutal (Laras head gets smashed by a big rock and you see only her hand and her smashed face) and her kills are very brutal. (The wolf scene is very bloody).

-Lara automaticaly picks up ammo, food or other objects.

@killercowz

I dont know but it seems like its back.