PC GAMES thread - whatcha playin'? [NO SPOILERS UNLESS TAGGED] - Page 3

Lately it's been Borderlands 2, and yesterday loaded the MaLDo mod for Crysis 2, so speedrunning through that again is pretty awesome.

Also picked up Hitman: Absolution, which got very high reviews, and it looks like a good port to PC. I've only played a couple missions, but so far the gameplay is interesting. Each level is a sandbox with an assigned goal, usually "kill this person" or "sneak to this area". There's multiple interesting ways of accomplishing that goal, and each scenario has bonuses for different methods and strategies to accomplish it, like not getting spotted, wearing a disguise, etc.. At the start of each level is the score of someone on the friends list who already completed that mission, so incentive to beat that score is nice. Thankfully, there's checkpoints in the longer missions to give the option of starting over at the checkpoint if you blow your cover or do something stupid, which gives the opportunity for experimentation. And just before the level is over, it will give you a "preview score" so you can decide if you want to end the mission and take that score, or do some more to try to increase the points, with the risk of possibly loosing bonuses. Overall, a well-executed (heh) triple-A title.

And tomorrow - Tomb Raider, with ponytail physics!


Edited by DaverJ - 3/4/13 at 7:43am

If you're playing Tomb Raider with Nvidia card(s) and experiencing lock-ups, uncheck Tessellation in the advanced video options.

Others have reported disabling "Exclusive Fullscreen" has worked too, but the above was all I needed FWIW.

Nvidia will have a driver update soon.

"We are aware of major performance and stability issues with GeForce GPUs running Tomb Raider with maximum settings. Unfortunately, NVIDIA didn’t receive final code until this past weekend which substantially decreased stability, image quality and performance over a build we were previously provided. We are working closely with Crystal Dynamics to address and resolve all game issues as quickly as possible.
In the meantime, we would like to apologize to GeForce users that are not able to have a great experience playing Tomb Raider, as they have come to expect with all of their favorite PC games. "
Edited by DaverJ - 3/5/13 at 7:58pm

This doesn't really spoil anything if you're familiar with any Crysis game, but just in case: Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

Man, it's been two days and not a single post in the PC section here on AVS. You people have lives or something?

Anyway, I'm a little over 25% through Tomb Raider, so here's some thoughts:

First, as mentioned a couple posts ago, the Nvidia support for this game is currently borked because the final code changed at the last minute, but only in favor of those with AMD GPUs. Nvidia has stated that they need Crystal Dynamics to update the game for their GPUs, and are recommending people with NVidia cards to wait to purchase it until it's patched. For those of us that pre-ordered, oh well. (Shuddup DLJ! )

With that said, unchecking tessellation and/or exclusive full-screen will fix the crashes on Nvidia GPUs, and we also should disable the "TressFX" because 1) it causes a performance hit, and b) it can look really wonky at times. Neither are big loses, and the game looks and plays great with these features off.

So the game: poor Lara, she's being put through the wringer on this one. The concept here is "survival" - how Lara Croft went from a young woman obsessed with archeology, to a kick-ass gun toting adventurer. And it's brutal. Those that play survival horror games (Resident Evil, Dead Space) know gruesome death cut-scenes, but it's a surprise to see them in a Tomb Raider game. It makes failure hit a little harder.

Fortunately for the squeamish, the game is on the easy side. At least at the beginning. Puzzles and combat offer almost no challenge in the first couple hours, and a quarter of the way through there hasn't been any game-stopping sections. Even areas where I was a little stumped, Lara muttered to herself the solution after a minute or two. Which is cool with me, I hate hard games. But I also want to feel like I accomplished something, which is a big deal in the Tomb Raider games. Certain sections have the player simply pressing a direction to move forward while Lara does her thing. So far this game is leaving me wanting a little sense of completing something. Hopefully the game's challenge is to come.

But everything looks and plays really well. QTEs are back, but they are usually passed pretty quickly. Nice story, voice acting and cut-scenes keep things moving forward and draw the player into the game. And a first for a Tomb Raider game - there's weapon and skill unlocks/upgrades, which makes it hard to stop playing once a new feature is added.

Overall, I'm really enjoying this brutal story with not-hard gameplay. Good script, nice environment/graphics, top voice acting... I'm anxious to see where they take it, and so far it seems like it's in a good direction.
Edited by DaverJ - 3/7/13 at 11:48am

A couple more AVS-related Tomb Raider musings I forget to mention:

-shaky-cam... why? Although I gotta admit, it is kinda cool.
-why does the video camera "flashbacks" say "1080i" in the upper left still have thick horizontal scanlines?
-wouldn't the Croft timeline be messed up if a young, late teens/early 20s Lara Croft carries an HD camcorder?
Edited by DaverJ - 3/7/13 at 11:08am