In the first report of the reviewer interview series, we have berndler7476, who with his 198 reviews to date is one of the Top 20 reviewers at Laras Levelbase. He’ll be answering our questions about TR in general, his preferences and criteria when playing and about his reviews. As already mentioned in the introduction, the series is only about players that do not yet have a record as a level builder. Answers to the personal questions at the end were optional.
q.: How did you learn about TR and custom levels? berndler7476: Since the release of the editor I have always been looking for custom levels, but initially found only bad ones. Almost exactly six years ago in summer 2002, I received a CD, and on it there were, among others, The Last Crusade and Miss Kroft’s Tomb Survivor. These were the first real quality levels and I was hooked. Back then I did not know that I would become friends with the author at the forum.
q.: What do you especially like about TR? berndler7476: I find it to be a unique gaming concept, a unique idea. Using a woman as the heroine and the combination of some puzzles and action, “ego adventure”, but still viewing the heroine on the screen, that was totally new back then.
Dear reader, the Games Convention 2008 is history and has sprung numerous surprises and a lot of new information this year. I will try to showcase some of the upcoming games. It is a matter of my little, private must-have list, of course! Well, let’s go!
Fable 2
Set 500 years after the first episode, Fable 2 gives you even more freedom than the first episode. Fable 2 also relies upon the basic game element, its almost unlimited interactivity permitting you to make any decision so that you effectively can lead your life as you like to.
Minerva of Lara’s Generation made New Tribune debut with an investigative interview series about the Webmasters of the TR scene. Today she’s providing us with a report on the Games Convention, which we unfortunately were not able to attend ourselves. Both websites look forward to more opportunities for collaboration in the future.
Level 1 - Conquer the Eidos booth
Our fifth Lara’s Generation Meeting took place in Leipzig this year, where we took the unique opportunity to play Tomb Raider Underworld at the Games Convention. The users of our forum had met for the first time back in 2004 in Thuringia. Since then we meet annually with a handful of participants. Watching trailers and reports is one thing, playing by yourself something else entirely. Our verdict: Underworld rocks! Read the rest of this entry »
In September, Ms Croft appears to have moved into more southern areas. You cannot blame her, looking at the lousy summer that we have had this year As always, a Big Thank You! to Micky!
It’s one of those forum rituals, occurring both at regular intervals and most superb irregularities, first about one thing, then about another - level designers complaining directly or indirectly, bashfully or even aggressively about the players. Yes, the curious, unknown species of player who doesn’t appreciate this or that level because they’re too dumb or too inexperienced or too hardened or too biased. Because they don’t appreciate level designers’ work properly. Because they don’t know anything anyway. Because they don’t build themselves. Because they even dare to criticize (in reviews) and to rate what a howsoever challenged Lara Croft has to accomplish in a more or less classical Tomb Raider custom level.
So, what player/critic does suit? A nobody, awestruck right on starting the level, who, uncritical above his orgiastic shivering, has himself manoeuvred through the more or less pleasant game events? And who, purified, finally bows to the level designer’s sheer godlike power, or, if it isn’t possible for this or that reason, at least puts on a clement mask of silence? Read the rest of this entry »
The impressions from the Games Convention don’t fade so fast. From jeuxvidéo, seen also on YouTube, there’s a video of 10 minutes to marvel at that has caught the xbox version presented at the GC.
Got the feeling of being on vacation? The idyllic setting in Thailand doesn’t suggest a dark underworld. Probably, the commercial game will offer a lot of variety at least in graphical respects. Some rough edges must be polished however.
Hence, the impression of the acutely smooth and manifold motion sequences are still muddied by little faults that can easily be cleared up by November. Examples are Lara climbing off the water, shown at the beginning of the video, or her snatchy shifts in direction on the climbing wall. With every minute you’ll marvel at the portrayal of nature and Lara’s flexibility more.
How freely Lara can move in huge areas, as well as on slender planks, is a feast for the eyes. As in the past, Lara’s acrobatics might set new standards in the game world.
The Games Convention, as wikipedia says, is the most significant games event in the world along with the Tokyo Game Show. Aside from trade visitors, the exhibitors from 31 countries show not only the newest games, but also initiated projects and coming publications to the common folk as well since Thursday. By the end of Saturday, CNET registered an emerging record attendance. A total of more than 170,500 interested gamers is supposed to have viewed the stands of 547 exhibitors on a surface area of 115,000 square meters to date. So the run of 185,000 people last year might be scantily outstripped.
The Games Convention in Leipzig (August 21-24) is taking place right now, and just before the event tombraider.com had announced a teaser on its Underworld Portal on August 14 - namely the official Underworld trailer, which should be presented to the visitors of the Games Convention for their viewing pleasure. They reported that the exclusive rights for it would be with gamespot.com. It was this version that the Underworld subforums linked to on August 16. Therefore, everybody who is interested in Underworld has probably viewed this trailer by now. At trle.net you can also find the link to the YouTube version. This version is covered by advertising text for the second half of the trailer. tombraider.com had announced that as of last Monday we would be able to find the full trailer as a download, but so far that has apparently not happened. Instead, I found this download yesterday at Chip Online.
At our partner site, Tomb Raider Game, I found out about all this in the first place. They reported on August 16 about the trailer and the fantastic new screenshots from the Thailand level. These can be found on Tomb Raider Chronicles. They are really very impressive and I recommend that you go and have a look at them!
Other than that, we are looking forward to news from the Games Convention! Lots of exciting things are bound to happen there and we will tell you all about it afterwards.
It seems that both of the above-mentioned phenomena have had very few touch points in the past. The new Tomb Raider game is almost on our doorstep with its announced release date of November 21, er, November 18, or well, we’ll see… – and the Levelbase Tribune apparently has not yet noticed due to its busy schedule in reporting mainly about the custom levels.
But it’s not all bad. The hot news that I’ve been receiving over the past few days via the RSS feeds of the Eidos Tomb Raider Underworld Portal (in six languages!), were about the interview with Concept Artist Joel Boucquemont, which we had featured already back in May. I am glad I just had the opportunity to read through it again. The New Tribune really does offer interviews which are fun to read! The guy is really entertaining in the way he describes his work on Underworld. And the way we just had one of our chief satirists review the arrival of the new Lara model was quite refreshing too, at least for me. Read the rest of this entry »
… officially the new model! Henceforth, she will be representing Lara Croft at promotional events for “Tomb Raider: Underworld” when the latter stays in bed for too long. Alison Carroll has abrogated her work as a receptionist immediately to devotedly mime the kicking Lara for us. Therewith, she displaces Karima Adebibe who was on tour for promoting Legend and Anniversary. Uncommon that a model has survived two episodes of the game. No other model has given Lara her body due to PR incarnations for more than one episode yet. How long will Carroll play the jumping jackdaw? She’s very motivated as you can see from the recently published pictures. One pro: her long lasting gym lessons. Read the rest of this entry »
As always, a Big Thank You! to Micky!
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