Tomb Raider, Mirror's Edge reveiws/impressions/rants...

I picked up Tomb Raider and Mirror’s Edge last week, and I beat both in about 3 days, both were great in different things, and both are flawed. Let’s start with mirror’s edge shall we?

It looked so amazing, in the trailers, nothing could be more fun than jumping across rooftops and finding hidden messenger bags, while uncovering the reason why Faith’s sister was framed for murder. The demo was really a perfect demo, you got to do really cool tricks, run across rooftops, and get chased by cops, cool right? Well, it’s cool for the first few levels, but then you start getting chased by hordes of SWAT teams with machine guns and you’ll have choppers with mounted guns chasing you, then, the “fun” becomes very unfun. I mean, it doesn’t make sense that they’d be sending the equivalent of a small army just to kill one person, Faith isn’t superwoman, I really wanted to play the game without shooting a gun, but when I saw three guys with SHOTGUNS aimed at me, I just kinda snapped and went crazy with the guns. Oh and for a game that is supposed to let you run across roofs and go multiple routes, it’s pretty linear, especially in the later levels, where all you see are tight corridors and vents… many many vents… Kinda contradictory dontcha think?
That’s enough ranting though, because I think the real meat of the game is the time tirals, especially once new map packs start coming out, then I’ll like it even more. Right now all I play is time tirals, I get my rooftop playground, without the annoying enemies, perfect! One other thing is the game’s art design, I love the use of colour, but, sometimes it’s too bright, to the point where my eyes hurt from the blinding white. It’s like viewing giantbomb using the white skin, instead of the black one, it just hurts my eyes. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing, I just had to adjust the video settings to avoid getting sick.

I was on the fence about getting Tomb Raider, I really enjoyed Legend and Anniversary, but after watching some footage of Underworld recently, I was appalled at how much clipping there was, in the end I decided to get it, and in some ways, it’s really impressive, in others it just lacks refinement. I was really impressed at how good the game looked, with vast, detailed environments, like the Mexico level, that was just HUGE! But that did come at a price, framerate, while always playable, sometimes it drops a little too much for comfort, like in any level where there’s large vistas, the framerate drops a bit, and the camera gets a little choppy. The animations are also a little stiff sometimes, like when jumping across ledges, it just gives you the impression that the game was rushed. I really did like the puzzles though, they’re the best part of the game, sometimes puzzles are huge, and I’ve found myself wandering around aimlessly for ages, until I suddenly realize what I’m supposed to do. The varied environments are amazing, you go from the Mediterranean sea to Thailand, to Mexico, to somewhere in the Arctic, this is definitely one of the best TR games, that said it could’ve been much better if it wasn’t so rushed.

That’s what I’ve got for today, I’ll be picking my GOTYs tomorrow hopefully, from a list of all the games I’ve played this year, which are:

Burnout Paradise               Battlefield: Bad Company       Valkryira Chroncles
Devil May Cry 4                  Siren: New Tanslation              Resistance 2
Rainbow Six Vegas 2          Soul Calibur IV                           Mirror’s Edge
GTAIV                                    DeadSpace                                Tomb Raider: Underworld
GRiD                                      Bioshock                                     Prince Of Persia
MGS4                                    LittleBigPlanet