Tomb Raider preview: the first two hours
While I'm still genuinely concerned by the complaints I've addressed here, there's something to be said about a game that feels like I've barely scratched the surface after more than two hours of gameplay.

One of the game's many insta-kill QTE moments

Lara must be stealthy... or else

You can upgrade your weapons and your abilities
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Andrew Yoon posted a new article, Tomb Raider preview: the first two hours.
While I'm still genuinely concerned by the complaints I've addressed here, there's something to be said about a game that feels like I've barely scratched the surface after more than two hours of gameplay.-
My biggest concern with this game is that they will make it more of a linear roller-coaster ride / shooter and forget my favorite part of Tomb Raider games (going back to the first one) . To me Tomb Raider games are all about exploring cool environments and spotting a place you want to (or need to) be and figuring out how to get there by running, jumping, climbing and solving minor puzzles. The original was almost like a slow motion Mario game with more climbing and less jumping, which also happened to be in a cool environments with a well executed dark atmosphere. If it's all QTE's and crazy over-the-top Uncharted-like cut scenes and linear design... then I have no interest. Graphically at least it looks pretty nice. I like their visual design choices so far.
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I remain cautiously optimistic. As the first entry in a 'reboot' I don't expect it to be a perfect game by any means, the real test will be whether or not it's a good enough game to warrant a sequel, and whether or not they can drop some of the more common gaming tropes (the QTEs sound awful) in the second iteration. The emphasis on stealth is encouraging, though the feeling of being underpowered seems to me like something that should stick rather than something that should disappear fairly early with the leveling system (especially if you're going to put an emphasis on stealth). Still though, i'm interested to see where they go with the series and will be playing it on release.
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