Tendo City

Quote:- Lara is 21 in this game.
- It's not only a reboot of the franchise but a reboot of the entire brand. As a result there will be no "real" Lara model this time.
- They're doing performance capturing with this game.
- There are brutal deaths in the game this time. One is described as a deranged man stabbing Lara in the chest and then closing her eyes after she's dead. Another includes a boulder falling on her leg to trap her before another falls and crushes her head.
- CD won't talk specifics on weapons but concept art shows a bow, shotgun and pistol
- The lock on targeting system is gone and it now has a free aim system. CD says that it can compete with any of their competitors.
- "I think that the major difference between this game and the old is the concept of smoke and mirrors," begins Darrell Gallagher, the studio head at Crystal Dynamics. "There was an illusion of freedom because of streaming and loading that would pop you out in a different location, but this is absolutely real. You can literally go any direction that you see and carve your own way to the finish line instead of being guide."
- "It was important in the game to not only deliver the character arc of Lara Croft emotionally, but to deliver it in gameplay as well so the player gets to grow into a hardened survivor," says experienced director Noah Hughes. As the game unfolds, Lara will scavenge new tools and gear that augment her abilities. Lara's athletic prowess will also evolve. Some areas begin inaccessible due to physical limitations or scarce supplies. With the right skills and gear, however, the island is Lara's for the taking.
- There are base camps in the game. Here you can combine items to create something new and access a skill system to upgrade Lara's abilities. You'll also be able to use base camps to fast travel to different locations to minimize backtracking.
- You'll need to gather food and water in order to survive.
- There are humans in the game, including some of the crew members from the shipwreck off the coast of the island.

Scans:

http://playstationinformer.wordpress.com...mer-scans/

Definitely a very different take on the franchise, but I really like what I'm seeing and hearing.

I've never been a Tomb Raider series fan, so I don't care that much one way or the other, but they're making it more like other games today, it kind of seems like, with the open-world thing, free aiming, etc. I don't know if that's an improvement or not though. I own a couple of Tomb Raider games now (1 for Saturn, 4 for DC, Legend for Xbox, Angel of Darkness for PC (haven't even installed that one yet)), but didn't have any before a couple of years ago and haven't played them that much. They're alright I guess, or the first one and Legend are at least. Not great games, but okay.

Maybe my strongest memory of Tomb Raider was being happy that PC Gamer gave Civilization II Game of the Year for 1996, not Tomb Raider; they said that Tomb Raider was a close second, but at the time I couldn't figure out at all why people actually liked it so much. I'd tried the demo and not found it interesting.

Tomb Raider: Underworld is really good, that's the only I've played more than a few minutes.

The first one has a lot of running around exploring caverns and lost cities and stuff, pushing around blocks to solve puzzles, getting through jumping puzzles... there's combat too, but as far as I got at least it's definitely not the focus of the game. That changed a lot in the sequels, though the block pushing and jumping puzzles (with that somewhat annoying Tomb Raider control scheme) didn't, really.

Tomb Raider: Underworld is mostly puzzles solving and exploration of ruins. There's some combat, but it's fairly sparse.

I think that must have been a reaction to people who complained that the series had gotten far away from that, then, which I think it had...

I think they went back more puzzle/exploration-centric gameplay when Crystal Dynamics took over the franchise in 2003.

I don't know, Legend had jumping puzzles, other puzzles, and exploration, sure, but it also definitely has a substantial amount of shooting too.