I Wish All Archers Looked Like This: Tomb Raider Review

I'm not going to censor myself in any means so I'm just putting out there now that this review may have some spoilers, I will be talking about several different points in the game. But I am a human being so the ending will not be covered. 

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Tomb Raider starts with a ship wreck, (not the stupid, G-rated, drawn out kind from Life of Pi) ), but a very quick vessel torn in half kind that gets you in the right place to raid some fucking tombs. Literally opening movie is Lara on a ship broken in half and Lara leaping toward this old guy named Roth who drops her ass into the sea. Lara wakes up on a beach and sees a small group of survivors from the ship. She begins to yell out to them, and gets cold cocked and passes out. Great start. I seriously was already riveted to the couch.

Lara wakes up in wrapped in a canvas upside-down hanging in a cave. To escape she has to shift her wake to swing into a corpse - that must have woken up in this same state quite a long time ago - into a fire and then back into her to light her canvas bag on fire to escape. Getting set on fire isn't the worst of her worries either (especially this early) because as she falls she lands on up-ended rebar that stabs completely thru her and I'm shocked she doesn't have a pierced liver to boot. This ain't your daddy's Lara though, by the end of the game, not including all the horrible ways she can die, she's stabbed, shot, pierced, scraped up and knocked out repeatedly. She may be a super hero.

Playing this Tomb Raider - for me - seemed like coming home again. I had the original game on Sega Saturn and other than her having triangle boobs I had no issues with the game. At the time there felt like there was nothing like it. I saw myself as exploring and learning with her. I got the same feeling again, granted there are lot of people/survivors that you are in contact with almost constantly, suffering along with Lara. I felt her need to survive and the pain was she put through.

Once you get Lara out of the cave of death, she finds a bow on another dead guy dangling upside down and you get a tutorial on shooting. Another video establishes that Lara is cold and hungry, so you start hunting the deer and rabbits in the area. There is no cold or hungry bar, so there there isn't a goal in hunting other than you get XP per kill and search of the corpse. With skills you learn thru the XP you can begin to earn salvage from the kills as well.0Ssalvage is used to upgrade your tools and weapons in the single player story. The weapons include a handgun, rifle, bow and arrows, and a shotgun. There is  a rock climbing axe that can be used to open tough doors, climb craggy rocks, slide down ropes and thru skills can become quite a formidable weapon as well.

Thru a video camera Lara finds, we see some backstory. The boat, The Endurance carried: an archeologist, Dr. Whitman, who is concerned more of striking it rich than anything else. Roth, an ex-marine treasure hunter, who is a family friend of the Croft's. Sam a friend and classmate of Lara's and filmer of the expedition and others who are made up of film crew and a bitch mechanic. The video shows us that the expedition is searching for the lost island of Yamatai, somewhere on the coast of Japan, and Dr. Whitman wants to continue the search in the same place everyone else already has. Lara's idea is to search elsewhere, which does lead them to Yamatai, but caused quite a lot of death and destruction. All of which Lara blames herself for, honestly I do feel that it is her fault, but that doesn't stop me from loving this game.

Tomb Raider does have its share of tense moments, not really scares, it tries its hand at some humor with having Lara say things like "I bloody HATE tombs!" While the humor is a pass the suspense is great and the shock value of watching the horrific ways that Lara is killed is in itself shocking, Tomb Raider succeeds on soooo many levels. The brutality that Lara must deal with both within herself and what she faces with the strange cult that inhabits Yamitai.

The cult is lead by a fanatic named Mathias, and he leads a large group of heavily armed thugs, carrying weapons ranging from dual machetes to Molotov cocktails to machine guns to dynamite. The cult is after Lara's friend Sam for some sort of ritual that will bring back the queen of Yamatai, Himiko.

For the first time in a long time this game has something lacking in a lot of games, good enemy AI. They run and hide, they flank, they destroy your cover, great stuff. There are some dumb moves where they hide behind flammable cover (only after you get flaming arrows) and will leap unto ropes that slide down to in front of you, one shot with any weapon drops them from the rope ride, to their death. Eventually the enemies vary further into Japanese soldiers in ancient samurai garb, katanas and all.

So all this said, I have told people I know (and I don't throw this around a lot) I have named this game the best game of the year so far.

Pros: Great graphics, horrifically brutal deaths for Lara, good story, and great AI.

Cons: Hunger bit not really fleshed out, collectables (every fucking game has collectables now, I can't just arrow down some deer and crows, I gotta hunt for eggs and relics and diary pages, shit I'm sick of hide and seek shit in action games) and press for the game, the developers have gone to the press and stated there will be tons of dock but no plans for story, I like multiplayer in games but charging 5, 10, 15 bucks for a different place to kill some fuckers I don't know or care about isn't worth it for me. I love story, why not have more.

In Summation: Tomb Raider is the game to beat for game of the year in 2013. Unfortunately it came out early in the year and with some stiff competition. I will be covering those new games as the are released and as I am able to play I will be covering them here.

- Your friendly neighborhood ASM

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Disclosure: This is a non-sponsored review. All product was purchased by me and the purpose of this review is based solely on my own interests. No product or monetary compensation was given to me by said company. 

Walking Dead: Arrow in the Doorpost

You should know this by now but if you don't this post contains full episode spoilers,  please enjoy at your own risk. 

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Whoo boy! Another talkie episode. 

The Ricktator and The Governor are about to throw down in this apocalypse's largest grimace-off ever. Rick's people - Hershel and Daryl - roll up on a building looking all suspicious and case the joint. Rick cowboys-up and enters the darkened building and approaches a table that is already setup in the center of the floor. As Rick waits, The Governor stalks out of the darkness towards him. Rick draws and The Governor amicably takes off his gun belt and hangs it on a post. It's time to talk.

The Governor's people show up outside and start another pissing contest with Rick's people, to see who can intimidate the others the most. Andrea shows up late to the party, surprised the meet is going down without her. She rushes in and stands there as Rick explains how he and his people want to be left alone. The Governor immediately shoots this down with a laugh. Rick wheels on Andrea, clearly the info she provided of a "kind and patient governor" was off a bit. During this discussion it's mentioned that Rick knows what kind of person The Governor is, (what with floating heads and what he did to Maggie). Andrea didn't know about Maggie.

Andrea tries to assert some modicum of power and The Governor explains to her and Rick that she really has no power to discuss or setup any agreements and actually she can leave as she is not needed. She turns to Rick who also let's her know he has no use for her and that he was planning on being only 1 of 2 people in the room anyway.

Nobody loves you Andrea, neener neener, go die in a fire.

Outside Daryl and Martinez (one of The Governor's main guys) have a zombie kill contest, that as far as I'm concerned was won by Daryl considering he killed more, got a sweet knife throw kill, and got the prize at the end: a half pack of smokes. Meanwhile there's a meeting of the minds with Hershel and Milton going over the science of the walkers, and Hershel losing the leg to save him from a zombie bite. Milton goes so far as to ask to see the stump, Hershel does not oblige.

When Andrea emerges from the barnish type building Hershel excuses himself (excuses himself in the middle of a zombie apocalypse - he's still fucking polite!) from the conversation and goes to talk to Andrea. Andrea asks what her "boyfriend" did to Maggie. After a long look Hershel just says, "The Goverenor is a bad man" and leaves it at that.

Back inside Rick and the Governor are at a stand still as Rick (thankfully) refuses to submit to the will of The Governor. The Governor even whips out some whiskey and a sob story about his dead wife and the life he had before. Boo fucking hoo man, you had heads in aquariums, you know who does that? Hannibal Lecter, that's who, you sick bastard. The Governor eventually relents and offers to let Ricks people be if they give him Michonne. Rick says he'll think on it and The Governor gives him 2 days.

All in all nothing is solved. Both parties leave the parley and tell their people lies about what took place at the meeting of "the dead wives club" and have used the secret meeting as reasons for declaring war on the other group. Rick doesn't tell the group about the offer to give up Michonne.

Rick does meet with Hershel and tells him The Governor wants them to surrender Michonne, and he shows he's not stupid in telling Hershel that he knows if they show up to The Governors drop off, Govvys gonna kill them all. Rick tells Hershel that he's filling him in because he hopes that Hershel will talk him out of declaring war. The episode ends with Hershel saying nothing.

I've decided to add a section to my reviews/ recaps where I will give my favorite moments:

Favorite Line: "Pussy," said by Daryl in response to Martinez declining a cigarette because he prefers menthol.  

Favorite Kill: Martinez pops a zombie's head like an overripe grape with a bat up against a silo.  

Character of the Episode: Rick. Despite his not killing The Governor on sight, he is an unmitigated bad-ass in this episode. Nobody fucks with Rick Grimes.

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Please feel free to chime in in the comments below.

If you agree, good. If you disagree I'd love to hear why.

Walking Dead: Clear

You should know this by now but if you don't this post contains full episode spoilers,  please enjoy at your own risk. 

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I had a hard time thinking about what to really write about for this episode. To begin, I really liked "Clear" despite it seeming like a reprieve from the tenseness that is The Governor. At the end of the last episode Rick did say Michonne and Carl would be hanging out with him on a road trip. But didn't say where.

This episode makes Atlanta and the surrounding areas in Goergia seem really close together. What with all the time spent in episodes on the road and at the farm and searching for the prison, it looked they were travelling for a long time, but now it seems like they're only an hour away from Rick's house. I can't be the only one that noticed that Rick's posse left during the day, and got to Rick's old hood while it was still light out. Everything that happens in the episode is in the same light, and they leave again all within what seems like 2 hours.

That gripe aside I was a big fan of this episode. Basically it was filler, but really good filler. It starts out like I was saying; a proposed road trip back to Rick's stomping ground to check for the guns he left in the sheriff's office, which are now gone. This leads to the group going down the central road of their once idyllic town to find the street littered with pointy things that are very clearly zombie traps. As they approach an open building they are drawn upon by a crazy person on the roof who wants them to drop their guns and walk away. They don't. The group sets up a quick plan of attack and take down the crazy guy, (well at least knock him out).

Now there was probably a great reveal planned here that the crazy guy is Morgan from season 1 episode 1, however this was ruined by the "last time on" clip at the beginning of the episode that showed scenes of the first episode with Morgan ruining the moment. Oh well.

The group carries Morgan in to his "bat-shit-crazy-cave" where the walls are covered in writing, proving something I've said before about this show and season: it's dangerous to go alone. Morgan has clearly spent a lot of time alone and doesn't even recognize Rick, the man he saved all those months ago. Morgan has set up his own arsenal here as well. Morgan attacks Rick and gets a stab in but Rick snaps him out of it and they quickly bond again. Morgan reveals that his son, Duane died at the hands of his zombie mother no less. Morgan couldn't take it upon himself to kill his zombified wife, making Duane's death his fault.

Through the writing-covered walls and the conversation with Morgan, we see and hear a recurring word: "Clear," but it's never really discussed. Rick decides to ski-daddle and leaves.

This whole time Carl and Michonne have their own little subplot which just equates to Carl risking life and limb to rescue a photo - taken from before the walkers - of their family from a restaurant, and Michonne gets an ugly art cat outta the whole deal. Win-win.

As Rick's little group leaves, they see Morgan killing his trapped zombies, piling them up and burning them. "Clearing" them. It appears Morgan's lot in life is now to clear as many zombies as he can.

I'm a bit on the fence on this. I feel like if you're safe where you are, having zombies at your gate happen to be a good deterrent for those trying to get in.

Let me know in the comments below what you thought of the episode.