I'm 93% done after 8.5 hours. I'm finished with the game and all that's left to do is collect the treasures that I missed along the way. I think the rewards that you get for collecting the treasures are stupid and not worth it. Except, pistol upgrades. Those might come in handy, but you get the last one after beating the game. I barely used the pistols anyway, you'll have more powerful weapons available to you most of the time. The other things you get are different clothes for Laura to dress in, but only accessible in the Mansion and during the main game on the 2nd run. Other's are character profiles, level concepts and the cutscenes of the game. It all seems pretty cheap to me.
Lara Croft's attitude is not as serious as it was in previous games, but still stern. This makes her more likeable. Her voice is similar, but different. And her boobs are a normal size this time around. They also sway sometimes, but it's difficult to spot. They don't sway or bounce while she runs, walks or jumps, which is unrealistic. The models looks excellent. When Lara gets wet, her skin sometimes looks a little like wet barbie dolls. It runs well at 1280x1024 with NexGen content, Depth of Field, and Anti-aliasing disabled on a X1900GT.
I find the camera sometimes a bit too close and sometimes this gets annoying, but it's not bad. The controls are heaven sent compared to Prince of Persia. The camera jitters to a minimum and never spun out of control. I found it acceptable jumping and from ledge to ledge, although the controls will take some getting used to. Usually, they aren't a bother, but in tense situations where you have to move quickly, they are. If you want to jump left and you press left, but the camera changes, or she changes position, you'll have to observe the direction that you want to jump again and press the corresponding button, or else you'll jump to the wrong location.
You can carry one weapon other than your dual pistols and grenades. There is a targeting system in place to shoot enemies that isn't too difficult to use in low tense situations, but it may get a bit annoying during high tense situations. Enemies aren't very difficult, but a handful of them might require some strategy. The puzzles are interesting, creative and some are elaborate. Levels are interesting and immersive with it's cinematic atmosphere.
When a new level is loading, the loading screen tells you some information. Unfortuneately, the developers didn't count on my computer loading it so fast. I know it's desireable for levels to load in 3-5 seconds, but when there is interesting information on the loading screen, it sucks. However, don't worry reading the information here; if you press tab and go to objectives, you'll be able to read it. So it's there just to confuse people - that's my guess.
I don't like the Depth of Field effect. It makes almost everything in the background look hazy and unrealistic. I think this is what was giving the game the pastel look in the demo. I already think the games graphics aren't clean enough without some blurring effect so I keep it off at all times. The games graphics have some quirks. Say you're looking at the edge of a cliff from the side so that you're able to see the edge. Now imagine that the texture reaches beyond the cliff edge, except that it's goes translucent when it does. It gives it sort of a cheap hazy look probably to complement the Depth of Field. I don't know why that effect is so present in this game, but it's not obvious, so you may not see it at all. There are also collision detection issues. They don't bother the gameplay, but they just don't look right. In a cut scene where Lara and this other person were walking on a wooden bridge, they stepped through the bridge, as if their feet were at their knees.
[NEXT GEN CONTENT]
[This paragraph has been updated due patch 1.2 being released]
The difference between turning the NG (Next Generation) setting on and off is night and day. With the NG setting, textures seem sharper, there is bump mapping and more foliage on the ground, better lighting, shadowing cast by most objects, including foliage, Lara is self shadowed, and the water gets bump and reflection mapped. Sounds better right. It should. However, there are a lot of bugs. If you turn on the NG settings, it'll may crash after half an hour of plaing because of a memory issue which Eidos says means that my drivers don't fully support DX9c. That's totaly horse crap, my drivers are fully up to date. The shadowing cast by most objects are so low in resolution that it mostly looks like a bunch of blocks - when Lara moves, her shadows look like a bunch of boxes just disappeared and reappeared somewhere else. It's distracting and not realistic. Laura is also self shadowed, but with banding/clipping issues, as if the shadow when through her polygons. Also low resolution, distracting and unrealistic. Turning off the NG setting gives Lara a more defined shadow, but eliminates most other shadows. The water gets bump and reflection mapped, but only still water (water confined to one area) looks this good. Water that moves, such as rivers or streams still look primitive, reminding me of a 3Dmark 2001se with the fisherman; a.k.a DX8. And the reflections on the water are also low resolution, which look ok considering it's on a LCD screen.
It also sucks that you can't individually select the NG effects that the NG setting gives you when you turn it on. The NG setting does look dramatically better, especially with this new 1.2 patch fixing the previous performance issues. If not for the crashes, I would keep the NG setting on, if possible, but turn off Shadows, which look ugly, and Depth of Field, which doesn't look realistic.
[VERDICT]
This is an EXCELLENT game. It's got great atomsphere, interesting levels and locations, fun puzzles you can get lost in, an interesting story and some decent graphics. I don't think it's length, although seemingly short, is short at all. By the time I finished, I new it was worth my money. My only greivance is that it could have received a bit more polishing to get the NG setting to work properly and getting a few other bugs, and difficulties out of the way. But, I still think this game can qualify for game of the year.
Lara Croft's attitude is not as serious as it was in previous games, but still stern. This makes her more likeable. Her voice is similar, but different. And her boobs are a normal size this time around. They also sway sometimes, but it's difficult to spot. They don't sway or bounce while she runs, walks or jumps, which is unrealistic. The models looks excellent. When Lara gets wet, her skin sometimes looks a little like wet barbie dolls. It runs well at 1280x1024 with NexGen content, Depth of Field, and Anti-aliasing disabled on a X1900GT.
I find the camera sometimes a bit too close and sometimes this gets annoying, but it's not bad. The controls are heaven sent compared to Prince of Persia. The camera jitters to a minimum and never spun out of control. I found it acceptable jumping and from ledge to ledge, although the controls will take some getting used to. Usually, they aren't a bother, but in tense situations where you have to move quickly, they are. If you want to jump left and you press left, but the camera changes, or she changes position, you'll have to observe the direction that you want to jump again and press the corresponding button, or else you'll jump to the wrong location.
You can carry one weapon other than your dual pistols and grenades. There is a targeting system in place to shoot enemies that isn't too difficult to use in low tense situations, but it may get a bit annoying during high tense situations. Enemies aren't very difficult, but a handful of them might require some strategy. The puzzles are interesting, creative and some are elaborate. Levels are interesting and immersive with it's cinematic atmosphere.
When a new level is loading, the loading screen tells you some information. Unfortuneately, the developers didn't count on my computer loading it so fast. I know it's desireable for levels to load in 3-5 seconds, but when there is interesting information on the loading screen, it sucks. However, don't worry reading the information here; if you press tab and go to objectives, you'll be able to read it. So it's there just to confuse people - that's my guess.
I don't like the Depth of Field effect. It makes almost everything in the background look hazy and unrealistic. I think this is what was giving the game the pastel look in the demo. I already think the games graphics aren't clean enough without some blurring effect so I keep it off at all times. The games graphics have some quirks. Say you're looking at the edge of a cliff from the side so that you're able to see the edge. Now imagine that the texture reaches beyond the cliff edge, except that it's goes translucent when it does. It gives it sort of a cheap hazy look probably to complement the Depth of Field. I don't know why that effect is so present in this game, but it's not obvious, so you may not see it at all. There are also collision detection issues. They don't bother the gameplay, but they just don't look right. In a cut scene where Lara and this other person were walking on a wooden bridge, they stepped through the bridge, as if their feet were at their knees.
[NEXT GEN CONTENT]
[This paragraph has been updated due patch 1.2 being released]
The difference between turning the NG (Next Generation) setting on and off is night and day. With the NG setting, textures seem sharper, there is bump mapping and more foliage on the ground, better lighting, shadowing cast by most objects, including foliage, Lara is self shadowed, and the water gets bump and reflection mapped. Sounds better right. It should. However, there are a lot of bugs. If you turn on the NG settings, it'll may crash after half an hour of plaing because of a memory issue which Eidos says means that my drivers don't fully support DX9c. That's totaly horse crap, my drivers are fully up to date. The shadowing cast by most objects are so low in resolution that it mostly looks like a bunch of blocks - when Lara moves, her shadows look like a bunch of boxes just disappeared and reappeared somewhere else. It's distracting and not realistic. Laura is also self shadowed, but with banding/clipping issues, as if the shadow when through her polygons. Also low resolution, distracting and unrealistic. Turning off the NG setting gives Lara a more defined shadow, but eliminates most other shadows. The water gets bump and reflection mapped, but only still water (water confined to one area) looks this good. Water that moves, such as rivers or streams still look primitive, reminding me of a 3Dmark 2001se with the fisherman; a.k.a DX8. And the reflections on the water are also low resolution, which look ok considering it's on a LCD screen.
It also sucks that you can't individually select the NG effects that the NG setting gives you when you turn it on. The NG setting does look dramatically better, especially with this new 1.2 patch fixing the previous performance issues. If not for the crashes, I would keep the NG setting on, if possible, but turn off Shadows, which look ugly, and Depth of Field, which doesn't look realistic.
[VERDICT]
This is an EXCELLENT game. It's got great atomsphere, interesting levels and locations, fun puzzles you can get lost in, an interesting story and some decent graphics. I don't think it's length, although seemingly short, is short at all. By the time I finished, I new it was worth my money. My only greivance is that it could have received a bit more polishing to get the NG setting to work properly and getting a few other bugs, and difficulties out of the way. But, I still think this game can qualify for game of the year.