Originally Posted by
OmegaFenix
Square Enix was out in Force showing off Tomb Raider and Hitman Absolution and after a Quick 15 queue I got my hands on with Lady Croft.
The E3 Hunting demo was on show and I got to guide Lara along a cliff side, up a crashed WWII Bomber and through a forest to her first Camp after which I set off to find some food, discovered a bow and killed a Deer.
The first thing that got my attention was how different Lara carries her self, no longer the fearless Tomb Raider that would backflip off a thousand foot cliff without looking to see if the pool at the bottom was lined up correctly. The closest thing I can liken it too is Uncharted, in the Demo she was injured so jumping and climbing felt physically exhausting so Young Lady Croft wont be doing many Side somersault while firing pistols anytime soon.
One I had gone through the motions and collected the Bow it was time for some hunting. This was the part I was most looking forward to as the mechanic is suppose to be an integral part of the game and would give a good indication of combat mechanics. Bow is readied with the left trigger and drawn back with the right. Lara can't move very fast while its Drawn and can't keep it drawn for too long else she will loose her grip and the arrow will fly away wildly. After finding a bit of high ground I too aim at a deer and let loose, one arrow didn't finish it and instead it limped away out of my firing line. I circled around the only to have it charge me. Managed to follow it back to a clearing I got a clean shot off to put the poor thing out of its misery. At which point Lara cut her out a piece of meat and it was back to Camp where I could spend accumulated XP on mastering a skill. This is where the demo ended with the Now infamous E3 video.
A few things urked me a bit. There are a lot a scripted sequences, cut-scenes and such which breaks the immersion a bit. Its not, in this build, as masterfully done as in Uncharted. In several scenes Lara picks up items and puts them behind her back but when the game resumes there is no trace of these, same goes for arrows, I hope this is something that will be remedied in the full release as its destroys the illusion.
Graphically it was impressive running on the 360. With stunning vistas and a few poorly chosen camera angles in cut scenes that have you admiring Lady Crofts bosom.
I feel that when it is released there is going to be an awful lot of comparison between this and Uncharted. There looks to be a good focus on Story and building the Character of Lara and if Edios did take some pointers for Naughty Dog there is nothing wrong with that.
