Quote: "I really like the new Lara, and the actress playing her is perfect. Lara is an intelligent, well-educated and privileged girl but she wants to prove herself, she doesn't want things handed to her any more, she doesn't want to be treated differently because she's female or because she's pretty, but she's also naive and her "rebellious" nature has landed her in the deep end of an ugly world that she'd been shielded from her whole life. She's a vulnerable character, but she's not hopeless."
And now she violently murders wildlife with a bow and machineguns people to death.
Quote: "I think she has the potential to be one of the best videogame characters ever, so long as they bring back her vulnerable side. It's good (and refreshing) to have a vulnerable protagonist in a single-player game, after all they are alone and should not be running around killing hundreds of "bad guys"; if you want a legitimate story anyway. When you have a character that has fears and emotions it opens up the game to deeper ideas."
You see, thats my problem with the game. They adress these things and thats great. I loved it when "Spec Ops: the line" did it but in this game... yeah! They just mention it, have her in pain and beaten down here and then but then drop it alltogether.
To be specific: its half assed.
Yahtzee from the snobs at the escapist magazine mentioned something else I did not quite put my finger on but irritated me about the entire new setup: She never really makes any choices, she just gets pushed around in these situations.
I would have liked the entire game a lot more if they would have chosen either to be videogame or cinematic experience and not attempt to do both. It could have been a great game with few intense fights and good puzzles rather than being uncharted with the occasional hint of humanity... and then going back to walzing through an enemie camp like the french foreign legion.
Its decent, dont get me wrong, but it does not have that much of an arc. At the risk of quoting the geeks from the escapist magazine again: "you cant throw a brick off a driving truck and call that an arc."
It would have been brilliant if you could have sneaked past most or kill them and if the game would have adressed it. Lara could have become some kind of murderous monster or a stronger girl and it could have affected the storyline. Like in many other games.
In dishonored, a game about an assassin, you have the option to never kill anyone.
This only bothers me because I like characters to be believable or at least believable in their own universe aswell. Cool heroes that are supposed to be good guys but still kill enough people to be concidered a natural disaster are just plain offensive to me.
Take for example "The escape from butcher bay" and "the Witcher 2". Both games where the blood is flowing but it is entirely plausible in these stories and that it happens to these characters.
Its still better than final fantasy where preteens in fetishwear murder dozens of elite soldiers though. A lot better.
Yes: Decent videogame! Really! Gorgeous looking videogame too... but very very videogame.
-Wolf
