Topic: Games you've recently beat

@FuriousMachine Shadow of the Tomb Raider is probably my favorite of the reboot trilogy. I’ve yet to get Indiana Jones. As a fan of the IP (and archaeology / exploration of ancient civilization) I need to get to it eventually.

@Th3solution Sweet, that's great to hear, makes me look forward to it even more I've enjoyed the two first games in the "Survivor" trilogy, so not quite sure why the third one has been languishing in a dark corner of my library for so long. Too much else to play, I guess, and with games being so long these days, a handful of games can easily take up a year of my time. It will have to wait a bit longer, though, as will Indy (which needs a decent sale before I'll pull the trigger).

@FuriousMachine Yeah, it’s been quite a while since I’ve played them. I believe I played each entry during the launch window. I still have the little flashlight (I think I see people across the pond calling them a ‘torch’?) that I got as part of a preorder bonus for the physical copy of SotTR, if that is any indication of how long it’s been. We don’t see cool little freebies like that anymore.

Per my memory, Shadow was a return to more of the exploration root of the series. Rise of the TR got heavier into the action and combat and although it was fun in its own way, I appreciated Shadow’s focus again on the tomb raiding. Also the themes are more in line with what I love about these games — the whole ancient Mayan apocalypse and jungle backdrop, as opposed to Rise’s Eastern European snowy setting.

I’ve thought about doing a replay of the TR Survivor trilogy, especially replaying the first game, which my only experience was playing it back on PS3 ten years ago. I don’t think the definitive edition on PS4 added much, but it’s still something that gnaws at me. Of course what I’d really prefer is a new TR game. I guess that’s something we’re going to have a wait a while for, at the very least. The unloading of the IP a couple years ago into the black hole of the Embracer Group’s cache doesn’t bode well for anything being done with it.

@Th3solution Flashlight, torch... in Norway we call it a "lommelykt", the literal translation of which would be "pocketlantern". Pretty cool name for it, now that I think about it.

I also prefer the jungle setting, so that's more good news for me that Shadow returns to it. Also, yay for more tomb exploration while raiding!

A new game in the series would be nice and I'm sure it will arrive at one point; it's pretty huge IP after all. Question is how long it will languish in limbo before anyone picks up the torch (or flashlight/pocketlantern)

@FuriousMachine Ah yes — I like that term, “pocketlantern.” It probably makes the most sense.

I couldn’t help but look it up because I’m a weirdo and curious about etymology. So apparently the device was invented by a British inventor while he was living in America in 1899. The term flashlight was first actually used by a Russian immigrant in the U.S. who coined the term flashlight, due to the early batteries having poor current that didn’t maintain evenly so the lights would flicker or flash and also have to be turned off and on a lot to conserve power. But back in the UK they called it an electric torch because of its obvious usage to replace the convention fire-lit wooden torch, and unfortunately over time they just dropped the “electric” part in the name and so now in the UK you have to wonder which torch a person is talking about, electric or fire. Of course the context makes it quite obvious in most circumstances, but in gaming we certainly have plenty of times we use both kinds of torches! 😄. In Tomb Raider you’ll see fire wooden torches and electric ones.

Anyway, yeah — hoping for more TR sooner rather than later. 😅

@FuriousMachine
@Th3solution
Having played all of the TR trilogy my favourite is Rise, mainly because of all the challenge tombs which made it feel more like a traditional tomb raider to me.
I even liked the extra card based challenges although I did have to resort to a guide in order to get a few of the golds.

Also fascinating stuff about the flashlight/pocket lanterns.

@Th3solution That's so interesting! I, too, find etymology immensely interesting, especially how the meeting of different cultures influence each other's languages (like, for example, some Scottish accents pronounce a few English words in almost the exact pronunciation of the Norwegian word: "House"/"Hus", "Cow (coo)"/"Ku", "Highland"/"Høyland" are among many words that, in a regular English accent sound very little alike, but with many Scots sounding almost Norwegian. Without knowing for certain, I assume this down to the many years of interaction between the Vikings and the northern parts of Scotland. Now, this is a massive digression, but I can't help myself when I meet a fellow word sleuth (and, as the old joke goes, "People Who Can't Tell Entomology from Etymology Bug Me in Ways I Can't Put Into Words", so always fun to meet someone who can )

@CaptD I also liked the challenge tombs, even though I'm not a huge fan of the "play a level, get a score, repeat to improve your score" type gameplay. Most of the time I lose my patience with gameplay forcing me to repeat something I've already done, but occasionally you will get the kind of challenges that doesn't rely solely on the speed with which you finish it, but requires approaching things differently for better results, and that can be quite enjoyable. I don't remember if the challenges in Rise were of the "OK, do it again, but faster" types or not, but I do remember having fun with them, so either I just played them once and was satisfied with whatever result I got or they had good enough incentives for me to do them again.