The longer I play video games, and the more I continue to look at them critically, the more I begin to see ideas and concepts that crop up repeatedly. Though they come and go, most reappear often enough that they can almost always be worth discussing. After playing through Drakengard 3, a sequel to one the craziest, darkest games I played as a teenager, I noticed that there was one otherwise minor element that only grew irritating because it occurred several times over the course of the game.
Drakengard 3 seemed to love having its cast of characters acknowledge its own problematic game design in their dialogue. The practice, known as lampshade hanging, is about as old as fiction itself. In all other forms of media, from books to TV and movies, it is commonly used to point out and diffuse narrative tension by pointing out imperfections in the logic and/or internal mechanics of a story. However, the differences between gaming and other forms of media make this practice less tolerable.
Chief among them is the inherent difference between a passive medium and an interactive one. When watching a movie or a TV show, the audience is not actively participating in the events of the narrative. Rather, the characters on screen are dealing with problems, with viewers merely acting as outside observers. Therefore, whenever some event enters the story that requires the hanging of a lampshade, it is the characters in the story that are affected, not those watching it unfold from the comfort of their living room.
In an active medium like games, this is no longer the case. Video games have their players actively take part in the events in question, changing the dynamic at play. Whenever a sufficiently “immersion-breaking” mechanic appears, then it is the player who will ultimately need to deal with it. This is the difference between Spider-man getting amnesia and losing his combat prowess in a comic book versus doing the same in a video game. In a comic book, the reader, as an outside entity, can look forward to seeing how he and any accompanying characters deal with this problem. Players of a video game attempting that same trope will need to be the ones who handle getting through this problem as the amnesiac superhero. This does not necessarily have to be bad, as it could serve as a good excuse to use the game’s systems in new, refreshing, and interesting way.
Drakengard 3 shows an example of what happens when this goes wrong. Over the course of the adventure, protagonist Zero will encounter floating platforms that she will need to traverse in order to progress to the next area, in a game where most of the time is spent killing enemies in a Devil May Cry-style beat’em up. After the first few occasions, she and her companions begin to point out these sections by stating things like “I’m not a fan of all this precision jumping.” and “More jumping? Whose is the asshole who designed this place.” While it seems to be another of the many gags the game uses to balance out the otherwise dark nature of its plot, the act of highlighting how dumb and annoying the floating platforms are is meant to add humor, much like Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon attempted to do with its tutorial. What both of these examples fail to realize is that although they acknowledge the inferiority of these mechanics, as a player, one still has to go through the sections in order to progress. Seen in that respect, the gag quickly goes from funny to irritating.
Yet, this is not the only reason why lampshade hanging is a more tenuous prospect in video games. When a developer feels that need to point out that one of their mechanics is “bad,” or at least annoying, it implies that they are aware of how irksome said mechanics are. Otherwise, they would not have been able to bring it to the player’s attention. On its own, that fact may be insignificant. It is the conclusions that one can draw from that statement, and the questions it raises, that make it so damning. If the developers have this knowledge, then why would they not alter these mechanics so that they are not as bothersome as they are? Alternatively, why include them at all? Plausible and rational answers to these inquiries do exist, but to raise the question in a player’s mind is unwise, because it seeds doubt in the designers’a ability, eroding the willing suspension of disbelief. Again, this is only true because of the interactive nature of video games. Other mediums don’t require any work or input on the part of their audience.
The same precision jumping example from before can just as easily be used to represent this point, but Drakengard 3 has other examples that illustrate it just as well. In one of the missions towards the middle of the game, the player, as Zero, is attacked by a Cerberus mini-boss. Once that enemy is defeated, and Zero attempts to move on to the next section of the level, the door remains sealed and another Cerberus enemy appears. One of Zero’s allies reacts by saying, “I fear they’ve discovered Lady Zero’s weakness, a dislike for repeating the same task over and over again.” This is meant to point out how silly it is to participate in the same battle two times in a row against the same exact mini-boss. Despite this, it made me question the game designer’s reason for making the choice to have two back-to-back Cerberus fights. Was the whole point to just set up that one punchline? Were they also attempting to pad out the section with some filler content? The fact that characters point out this little problem make it obvious that it was not an accident, so what was the point?

Now, I do not mean to insinuate that Drakengard 3 is a bad game. Instead, it is emblematic of a tendency games have when trying to inject a little levity. In these circumstances, it is extremely tempting for designers to intentionally include ill-fitting mechanics that are common to its contemporaries, then point them out for a laugh. Tempting as it may be, this is a mistake. Attempting to make jokes in this manner will often serve merely to bother the player, rather than make them laugh.

Hosts: Chris, Brandon, Garrett

0:02:05 Gaming News
Steam no longer supports paid mods in Skyrim
Thank goodness. I’m no against modders getting paid, but there was no way this was going to work. Here’s Shamus’s take, as promised.

What the fuck, Konami?
Clearly, they don’t even care anymore.

0:21:15 Viewer Questions
“Is there anyone in the film or television field that you’d like to get involved in game design?”
This question was clearly inspired by Silent Hills. It was interesting to ruminate.

“What do you predict that Kojima’s next project will be?”
I legitimately wonder this. I would assume that either way, he’ll want to take some time off to recharge after what Konami did.

0:35:00 Garrett’s Week

0:44:25 I player Unrest
It’s a good RPG, but sadly that’s all I have to say about it. I wish I had more meaningful commentary than that, and I wish the game left a bigger impression on me.

0:47:30 I played The Banner Saga
Though I played on Easy, I really enjoyed the game. Every part of it feeds into the overall tone the developers were trying for.
If you want to know more about the combat, I wrote an article about it.

0:55:40 I watched Serenity
That basically ends my Joss Whedon marathon. I’ve seen everything I need to know.

0:57:55 Chris played some Nintendo-DLC
In particular, we spent most of the conversation on Mario Kart DLC.

1:07:00 Wrapping Up

Every once in a while, I play a game that challenges some basic notions of game design. Usually, these do not turn out to be very good, as these notions exist for a reason. On the other hand, they sometimes open up new possibilities for what game developers can do. The Banner Saga is an example of the latter. A hybrid of the Oregon Trail and classic RPGs, The Banner Saga takes place in a setting heavily inspired by classic Nordic myths. What I want to focus on is a single choice that the developers made regarding the combat. This choice informed the rest of the combat mechanics, and restructured the game in a way that I have certainly never seen before.
In The Banner Saga, the developers made the decision that Health and Damage output would be governed by the same stat. Each fighter has two major stats: Strength and Armor. When attacking another unit, one can either chip away at their Armor, or deliver damage to their Strength. The exact amount of Strength damage is equal to the aggressor’s Strength, minus the Armor of the assaulted party. If Strength reaches 0, then the unit will be incapacitated, unable to participate any further in the battle. In other words, whenever somebody is attacked, not only are they that much closer to defeat, but their offensive capability is reduced. This one change to the usual RPG dynamic has a noticeable impact on the rest of combat.
The first of these changes is that players are encouraged to avoid outright killing targets in favor of crippling them and moving on to the next one. While fighting, player and enemy turns are interleaved. Players can determine the order in which their units act, but after every ally action, the enemy moves one of their units, followed by the next ally unit, and so on and so forth. Enemies with low Strength are less likely to be to do any significant damage, especially when friendlies still have Armor. As a result, leaving a weak foe alive means that units with more Strength will take longer to act, since the game still needs to cycle through the weakened enemies first. This extra breathing room makes it much easier to focus on other units, until it is finally time to start cleaning house and removing opposition. I used this very thought process myself on many large enemies, including the game’s final boss. By leaving his subordinates low on Strength, I could keep him at bay long enough to finish him before he had the chance to take out too many of my own forces.
The other behavioral shift I noticed during my time with The Banner Saga is that I played a noticeably more defensive game than I typically do. Whenever a party member of mine had taken Strength damage, I always winced because I knew that the fight would be made that much more difficult with their reduced damage output. Because of this, I found myself often grouping my forces together, concentrating all of their attacks on a single unit at a time, keeping them out of range of other units. This allowed my party to maintain their strong offensive capabilities for most of a fight. Though this strategy might be seen as slower and less skillful in other tactical RPGs, The Banner Saga makes it one of the fastest and most effective tactics. Enemies do have AoE attacks, but the risk of spreading units apart too much is always there. Unless some degree of caution is taken, units can crippled just with a few well aimed Strength attacks. Given that the plot is about a group of people trying to stay alive against all odds, this appears to be intentional and a nice way to immerse players into the atmosphere of the game.
The Banner Saga takes a lot from well known tactical RPGs. However, the choice to take health and damage output, and merge them into the same statistic is one that I have personally never seen before. Of course, there are many other ways in which the game stands out, making its worth known, but this is the one that stood out to me as something that other designers might be able to gain inspiration from. I would definitely recommend taking a look at The Banner Saga is you are looking for something different in your strategy RPGs.

0:02:19 Viewer Question
What would be your ideal Star Wars game?
This was written in lieu of the trailers of both the new Battlefront game and Episode 7. Also, I need to make clear that Star Wars is not a franchise that appeals to me, so if my opinions are seen as heretical to fans, it’s not something I can help. This is in regards to both the movie and game discussions.

And remember, if you have questions and/or comments that you’d like us to read on the air, you can do so at thetexturepop@gmail.com

0:21:15 Gaming News
Skyrim allowed paid mods on Steam.
For the record, we recorded this podcast on Sunday. By the time of this writing, paid Skyrim mods have been removed. So I kinda have to put my foot in my mouth regards to the apocalyptic tone expressed during this segment. Still, I stand behind the opinions expressed on this subject. It’s a well-meaning idea, but Valve didn’t really think too much about what the implications were behind such a massive, overnight change.

0:39:55 Garrett talks about his week.

1:03:00 Sam sells furniture (and reads The Fault in Our Stars)
As someone who follows John Green online, I really need to start reading his books. They seem like they’d be right up my alley.

1:09:40 Sam played portable games (while selling furniture)
In particular, he played Muramasa: Rebirth, Persona Q, and Crimson Shroud.
It’s nice to hear Sam make similar criticisms that I made when I played Persona Q. I even wrote an article about it way back when.

1:21:00 Sam got into Monster Hunter and God Eater: Burst
As our resident Dark Souls player, I’m not really surprised these games would interest him.

1:34:50 I finished Pillars of Eternity.
It’s like Baldur’s Gate 2, but without all of the stuff that makes me hate Baldur’s Gate 2.

1:46:00 I watched Dollhouse by Joss Whedon
It’s a darkly interesting series. Though only 2 seasons long, it did more than many other shows have managed in 5 seasons.

1:50:00 Sam, Chris, one of my friends, and I played Insomniac Game’s FUSE
Dear god, that game. We’re going to keep going, but it’s going to be painful.

2:09:00 Chris played more South Park: The Stick of Truth

2:22:50 Wrapping Up

On numerous occasions, I have cited a dislike of most of the old Infinity Engine RPGs. In particular, Baldur’s Gate and its sequel were not very enjoyable. If not for my prior experience with their contemporaries, like Planescape: Torment and the early Fallout games, it would have been extremely tempting to swear myself off of the genre entirely. However, the recent renaissance of cRPGs, from Shadowrun Returns and Wasteland 2 to the upcoming Torment: Tides of Numeria, has brought a new perspective. Recently, Obsidian released Pillars of Eternity, which used those classics as inspiration. In doing so, it highlights many of their problems and proposes some interesting solutions to solving them.
The most obvious improvements Pillars of Eternity made to the systems of its predecessors are in the UI. None of them are major changes, but they all fix some of the more legendary problems that Baldur’s Gate and its sequel were notorious for. For example, almost anyone who played those games will recoil in horror if one tells them that “you must gather your party before venturing forth.” Because of how slow characters moved, players could spend upwards to several minutes getting every single member of their group to the exit so that they can transition to the next area. Though that may not seem like a lot of time, when compounded over the sheer number of area changes, it is possible to spend hours in in-game time just waiting for the party to get into position. Should enemies still remain on the map, it will even be necessary to manually guide the party to the exit, else they will accidentally walk straight into battles, further slowing process down. The sheer tediousness of this exercise was, at my most charitable, mind-numbing to the extreme.
Pillars of Eternity fixes this issue in two ways. Although it stills used the memetic phrase, the game will automatically begin the process of bringing every party member to the point of transition the moment the player attempts to move to the next location, saving them from tediously selecting each member and moving them manually. On top of that, there is a “fast-movement” mode players can enable to accelerate the flow of time, minimizing the real-world wait for the party to gather. Though this is far from the only example of such improvements, it serves as a good demonstration of how Pillars of Eternity opted to do more than just reiterate old mechanics without considering how they may be improved.
Another major difference between Baldur’s Gate and Pillars of Eternity was in the fighting. Back in the old days, Baldur’s Gate utilized a Real Time with Pause combat system. This meant that characters theoretically acted in real time, requiring players to pause the action in order to coordinate tactics, but upon closer inspection reveals this is not entirely true. Though allies and enemies will only act with the passage of time, in truth the game utilizes turn-based mechanics under the hood. During long, protracted fights, I began to notice that my party and the opposition were repeated launching spells and attacks in the same order, no unit acting while another was in the middle of their own move. Baldur’s Gate 2 makes this even more obvious by giving players the option to auto-pause the game after each round of combat.
In terms of play, this uncomfortable blend of turn-based play and real time combat offers the worse of both worlds. Turn-based mechanics work because they allow players to take their time and make meaningful, tactical decisions. Without the threat of enemies attacking, it is possible to better consider all possible options before the enemy gets their turn. On the other hand, real time systems focus on the moment-to-moment action. These systems are often built to test quick-thinking and reflex, the goal being to make smart decisions and act on them swiftly. Tactics are important, but they not as strongly emphasized.
With the way Baldur’s Gate combined the aspects of these two design philosophies, players have the slow speed of a turn-based game with the need to reflexively, quickly pause after every single action in order to avoid giving away any advantage. Many time in the game, I found that if I did not pause after an enemy attack, my cleric might either launch a low-damage attack, or worst, do nothing at all. When several characters require immediate healing, this often spelled the difference between success and failure.
Pillars of Eternity fixes this in two ways. Instead of a rigid turn/round system, the game relies on cooldowns between attacks. Characters with lighter equipment and/or greater speed will be able to act faster and more frequently than their slower counterparts. Not only does this make party and equipment setups more interesting, but it solves the problem where players are using real time thinking and reflexes on a fundamentally turn-based system. An extremely robust array of auto-pause options also serves to benefit this system. By enabling them, players can force the game to pause on specific events like one character finishing an ability, getting low on health, or even something as simple as the start of a battle. As a result, players can rely on the game handling that aspect on its own, meaning they can focus on the action without having a thumb over the Space Bar at all times.
The balance of short-term versus long-term resource management is also different between the two games. As is the case with most RPGs, Baldur’s Gate gives each character a set number of hit points. Once those hit points reach zero, they are killed unless a resurrection spell brings them back to life. In order to recover from damage, players could either use healing magic, or allocate time to resting in a place where no enemies are lurking. Theoretically, this meant that players could spend as much time as they wanted in the wilderness, before heading back into town. So long as they continuously found safe locations, or cleared out areas, any health could simply be recovered by resting. The only potential long-term consequences to doing so are inventory space and party member death. Because of this, battles were either be a total blowout or extreme tough, without any middle ground. Whenever one of those tough battles is finished, resting also became the only logical option so that the party can recover.
Pillars of Eternity uses a different system. Each party member has two pools which get used in battle. Like any other game, each character has health, with represents long-term damage. However, Endurance is another statistic that comes into play. Acting as a shield of sorts, Endurance will soak up most, but not all, of the damage during a fight and is restored at the end of a battle. Should it ever reach zero, the character is knocked out, unable to participate in the fight any longer. Should their health instead drop to zero, they are permanently killed off. This allowed Obsidian to balance each fight so that it will pose a good challenge to a reasonably-leveled party, while also limiting the overall impact of any single engagement on the player’s long-term survivability.
Health is completely restored on rest, just like in Baldur’s Gate. However, this is balanced by the fact that resting outside of an inn costs a camping set. At any given time, only six camping sets can be in the player’s inventory, meaning that their supply will always be limited. The difficulty is in balancing the desire to travel around and complete quests with the necessity to conserve supplies and visit town in order to restock. After fighting a series of battles, finding that the party is tired, health running low, the game always tempts the player to see if they willing to go for one more battle without rest in order to best conserve their inventory. Unlike Baldur’s Gate, the decision of when to rest and when not to rest becomes just as much of a tactical choice then anything other combat-related decision.

Pillars of Eternity is not just a loving tribute to Baldur’s Gate. Rather, it is a modern take on the game design principles inherent to the old school cRPGs of that era. Given this lens, it is easy to see how Obsidian was able to improve upon those old systems and create something new from them. I am happy this genre is making a comeback. With all that has been learned in the time since the era of Baldur’s Gate, there is huge potential for this genre to develop more than it ever could have in its heyday.

Sam and Garrett were unable to join us for this episode for various reasons. (You know how it is with various reasons.) So, Chris and I held the fort.

Also, we still don’t have any viewer questions. If you would like to submit a question or comment to be read on the air, please send it to thetexturepop@gmail.com.

0:01:30 Gaming News
Gamespot to Experiment with Retro Games
Like most of these types of news stories, it is hard to say how good/bad it is until after the changes get implemented.

Mortal Kombat’s First Canonically Gay Character
I’m still waiting for the day that news like this is no longer a big deal. Until then, it’s always nice to be a little more inclusive.

The Unity Engine Now Supports the 3DS and 3DS XL
Given now Nintendo doesn’t often support smaller devs, so this is a good move. Considering how badly the company flubs in other areas, this is well-needed PR.

0:18:55 I got a new laptop.
The old one was about 4 years old now, so honestly I’m more than due for an upgrade. Still, that doesn’t mean that I was particularly happy about shelling out $650 for a new system. Ah well, one must make lemonade out of lemons, as they say.

0:23:50 I linked an article on Reddit, and then Kotaku linked to it.
The Reddit link is here, and the Kotaku link is here.
Needless to say, it may me really happy.

0:27:50 I finished a lot of Joss Whedon’s old TV shows this week.
I’ve been gradually chipping away and both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off, Angel, for a number of months now. Since Firefly was only 13 episodes, and my laptop was out of commission, so watching it on my PS4 was really one of the only sensible uses of my time.
I enjoyed all of those shows, and Joss Whedon’s writing is top notch. Like I said in the podcast, his dialog feels very natural. Also, he’s very self-aware of the tropes and cliches that he is both using and subverting.
As an aside, it’s funny to see Chris fumble in a conversation about TV shows.

We also talk about the act of TV watching in the general sense in this segment.

0:43:30 Chris played South Park: The Stick of Truth.
And we somehow got a full 20 minutes worth of conversation about it, despite my complete disinterest in South Park.

1:05:00 Wrapping up.
Interactive Friction: Tomb Raider (2013) is now complete. You can see the whole season here.

With this, Interactive Friction has now complete two different games. As a result, it is now the most successful Let’s Play project I have ever worked on. I hope Sam and I can continue this for years to come, especially with what we have planned for future seasons.

In this episode, Sam makes a very interesting suggestion: This game may have been better off if we cut out a lot of Lara’s supporting cast and make it a more personal tale by only having a small cast of primary characters. If we cut down the cast to Lara, Roth, Sam, and Mathias, we may have been able to better focus the tale around her personal growth.

These four characters are really the only ones that are core to the plot. Without any one of them, the game would be lesser. Unfortunately, the rest of the survivors from The Endurance do not add much to this game’s story at the very least. (Time will tell if they become more important in later games, but that’s irrelevant to our conversation.)

The other interesting thing about Roth, Sam, and Mathias is that there is a lot of interesting interplay that could come from focusing on this smaller cast. They all represent some aspect of Lara’s character. Sam is the innocent girl that Lara starts out as in the story. Mathias demonstrates the kind will and cunning required in order to survive the island and its trials. As the mentor, Roth shows how these two can be balanced to stay alive without losing one’s basic humanity. In the vein of classic Freudian psychology, they could represent the ego, id, and superego respectively.

As for the ending of the game, it lacks any sort of subtlety whatsoever. I honestly felt a little pandered to, because it felt like the didn’t trust me to understand what they were obviously going for. Still, the game did so well up to that point that it works well enough to finish out the campaign.

Then they bring up that Lara’s dad died while exploring paranormal phenomena of some kind. I’m not against that kind of sequel bait, because the story in this game does get a satisfying conclusion. However, it would have made more sense and felt less like bait if it brought up at the start and expanded throughout the game.

Thank you, listeners, for staying with us for this second season of Interactive Friction. We will be taking a brief hiatus for now, but stay tuned for Season 3. This show is far from done.

First off, I’d like to apologize for the complete lack of annotations for last week’s podcast. A lot went on last week, so I wasn’t able to get them done.

We’re also changing things up on the podcast front. Sam’s getting busier and busier with all of his side projects, so from now on Chris will be taking responsibility for the act of hosting, editing, and publishing the podcast.

The other big change was the use of Mumble. Previous episode were recorded over Skype. With Mumble, we hope that uncompressed audio will make the listening experience more pleasant. We still have some kinks to work out, but it sounds a lot better.

Lastly, we still have no viewer questions. If you would like to submit a question, comment, or something you’d like read on the air, send us an e-mail at thetexturepop@gmail.com.

0:02:15 Gaming News
New Deus Ex game: Mankind Divided.
I’m really excited for it. Human Revolution was a great game, and I have a feeling I will enjoy going back to that world.

The Tomb Raider reboot is the best-selling game in the franchise… ever.
Take that, Square-Enix circa 2013.

0:15:25 Sam played Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin
And he tells us a bit about how different it feels from the point of view of a chronic Dark Souls-player.

0:23:30 Sam played DMC: Devil May Cry: Definitive Edition
It seems like the fact that all four of us liked the reboot is a bit of an anomaly. It’s really not a bad game, and the new edition seems to address most of my complaints about the original version, including some of the more objectionable jokes.

0:39:00 Garrett attends the East Coast Gaming Conference (ECGC)
It was really to hear him talk about it. I would love to attend such a conference in the future, when finances allow.

0:50:50 Garrett purchased a Vape.
Which gets us talking about drugs and cigarettes.

0:56:55 I finished Final Fantasy 3.
I noticed as I was saying it in this episode, but there are a lot of RPGs that I loved until the ending. RPGs don’t do endings very well.

1:02:00 I played Pillars of Eternity.
I’ve really enjoyed my playthrough thus far. It does well to pay homage to old games like Baldur’s Gate, without duplicating a lot of the big problems of those games. A good fusion of old and new mechanics.

1:19:00 Chris played more Dragonball: Xenoverse
And we’re still not sure if he likes it or not.

1:34:15 Wrapping Up.
Remember to write to us at thetexturepop@gmail.com
My Dragon Age: Inquisition article is here.
Also, my new comment is unveiled, which you can interact with at the bottom of this very post, among others.
And, of course, Interactive Friction is almost finished with it’s second season, which you can see here.

In this episode, Lara is (of course), on her own against hordes of evil Japanese soldiers.

Since we’re coming up to the finale, I think it’s time to talk a little about the supernatural stuff in the game. Like its contemporaries in Indiana Jones and Uncharted, Tomb Raider incorporates the paranormal into its story.

As we have seen in the playthrough, Himiko is always an influence in the plot. She is what is preventing anyone from leaving the island, by using the storm to crash any incoming and outgoing vessels. Now, we see immortal Japanese warriors fighting to defend their queen. If any doubts still existed at this point, they will be quelled at the finale.

What I would have liked more in this story is for the existence of the supernatural to be more ambiguous. One of my favorite tropes in fiction is whether not spooky happenings are truly paranormal in nature, or a complete coincidence. As someone who watched The X-Files, my biggest criticism of the show was that there was almost never any mystery as to whether or not supernatural forces were at work. As the audience, we know that some monster is at work, which makes Scully’s skepticism seem unreasonable. It would be more interesting if there was enough leeway to allow for both interpretations, with evidence of the paranormal being easily explained away or circumstantial at best.

The same problem exists here as well. We’re given so much evidence that Himiko is real and truly the one behind everything that any skepticism from the supporting cast comes off as remarkably flimsy. It would do more for both them and Lara’s character if there was less certainty as to whether or not there were supernatural occurrences. That small room for doubt would make for some really interesting play between Lara and both her friends and the player.

To me, it seems like a missed opportunity.

In this episode, Sam reveals a startling fact that leaves me absolutely stunned.

Not much of note happened in this episode. However, we did discuss a little bit about level design. This section of the game both demonstrates an area of good level design, and of poor level design.

The first it that platforming section at the start of the episode. As Sam points out, there is a very obvious sense of progression as the player ascends. Furthermore, the camera keeps the goal in view, so that it is clear where players are supposed to go. Lastly, it gives us opportunities to take advantage of the new pulley we obtained, by letting us traverse ziplines faster and pull heavy objects toward us.

On the other hand, the arena in the middle of the video does not play to the strengths of Tomb Raider (2013)’s combat. Though it looks like a plausible area, which it should be commended for, it is not terrible fun to play in. Like most cover-based shooter, Tomb Raider’s central mechanic is taking cover and avoiding damage in order to recover from injuries. Given that the arena’s only form of cover is the staircase in the center, this makes players significantly more vulnerable than they are in other parts of the game. This is doubly confusing since we’re now in the portion of the game where Lara is supposed to feel empowered.

The other problem with that arena is that the number of enemies is not really scaled to the size and lack of cover. I felt almost claustrophobic during the ambush, because I could not get away from the fray in order to heal up.

The Tomb Raider Season will be finish this week if all goes according to plan. We already have our next season in mind. As for what that is, you’ll have to stay tuned in order to find out.
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