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Tomb Raider: Underworld demo released - download now!

gregor7777 said:
How can that be bad? If anything, it just means it's set up to play nicely with your 360 controller out of the box.
Yeah, and most of the time it's the only controller that works.

But this time I can actually play with another gamepad:D , so never mind that comment.
 
Blue Screen of death on the PC Demo, and my specs are above whats needed for minimum specs at least (checking @ http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/ ) =(

You Have: 2 processors running - Genuine Intel(R) CPU T2500 @ 2.00GHz
You Have: 2.00 GHz Performance Rated at 3.75 GHz

System RAM: You Have: 2.0 GB

You Have: Microsoft Windows XP Professional (Build Service Pack 32600)

You Have: ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 (ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 (0x71C5))
Video RAM: Required - 128 MB , You have - 512 MB
Video Card 3D Acceleration: Required - Yes , You have - Yes
Video HW Transform & Lighting: Required - Yes , You have - Yes
Vertex Shader Ver.: Required - 3.0 , You have - 3.0
Pixel Shader Ver.: Required - 3.0 , You have - 3.0


Code:
BSOD:

0xc0000005, 0xBFC8263D, 0xA68308A8, 0xA68305A4

ati3duag.dll, BFC8263D base at BFA8C000 datestamp 43fbdae3


Ontop of this when starting the game i get some C++ runtime error =/
 
Teetris said:
None of the screens posted do justice. This game looks LUSH when you play it. Loving the gameplay too. Too bad it's another GFW title

Being a GFW title is actually a good thing. If it was GFW Live that would be even better, as it would have things like achievements and possibly leaderboards.
 
This game is ridiculously stunning. Control is tight, the gameplay seems fun... but OMG the graphics. I'm not one to be easily swayed by gfx, but yeah... only thing I didn't like was the shadowing on Lara up close.

But this is the first TR I've played since 3, and I will definitely be picking this up. Love me some puzzle-platforming action.
 
I wanna play either the 360 demo or the PS3 final ....I honestly wasn't impressed with the PC version. Everything looked too clean and clinical =/

dark10x said:
No, it did not.

The motion blur used in the 360 demo is selective object motion blur. This hasn't been seen in any Tomb Raider title to date and looks VERY impressive. It's simply not present in the PC version. I'm using a GTX260 with the latest drivers, so I can't imagine the card would be at fault.

I must admit, however, that I actually prefer the 360 demo. The PC version IS actually too clean and DOES reveal the tricks used with the backgrounds. 60 fps is great, but I'm such a motion blur whore that it's hard to resist the 360 version. I also noticed that the water was inferior in the PC demo (in how objects below the water appeared while swimming above).

Looks like I wasn't the only one who felt this way
 
djtiesto said:
This game is ridiculously stunning. Control is tight, the gameplay seems fun... but OMG the graphics. I'm not one to be easily swayed by gfx, but yeah... only thing I didn't like was the shadowing on Lara up close.

But this is the first TR I've played since 3, and I will definitely be picking this up. Love me some puzzle-platforming action.

You should try Legend before, as it ties both game together quite well.
 
I know I will be scolded for this, but as fun as the game might be (and it seems it will be fun based off the demo), I somehow find the new Tomb Raider games (Legend and onward) to feel cheap somehow. (I'm probably alone with this opinion, I know)

Perhaps it's the combination of ugly HUDs, bad camera (and sometimes annoying controls), ugly character models (especially Lara's helpers) and iffy voice acting. Regardless, the games are really fun, but some areas are lacking.
 
djtiesto said:
This game is ridiculously stunning. Control is tight, the gameplay seems fun... but OMG the graphics. I'm not one to be easily swayed by gfx, but yeah... only thing I didn't like was the shadowing on Lara up close.
Self-shadowing, this gen's worst offender imo. There should be an option to turn this specific thing off instead off shadows as a whole
 
I'll make this short for now, at least. I'd never played a Tomb Raider game (though I own Anniversary and Legends for PC), but this was decent.

I wanted to use mouse+keyboard, but the mouselook probably would have given me a headache, so I used a 360 controller since the camera rotation on it was much slower/smoother. The camera was still pretty jerky and hard to get where you wanted it, often...it's nice to be able to zoom in on Lara, but sometimes I'd like to see other stuff, like where I'm jumping. :P Not being able to use the handheld camera OR look through Lara's eyes when you're on a wall is annoying.

Prince of Persia sands of time seemed to have a much more fluid system for jumping off stuff (you could walljump or wallrun on all KINDS of stuff), as well as multiple camera modes (through the prince's eyes, the normal camera, the really zoomed-out camera). I think having that kind of stuff could have helped this Tomb Raider.

I also would have liked some more detailed graphics options like low/medium/high, instead of just on/off, but I'm probably spoiled on graphics from stuff like Crysis Warhead. I don't know what fps I was getting (that would have been nice as an option on PC too...and motion blur could have helped some stuff probably), but I felt like 2xAA and 2xFSAA ran quite well on an e8400+ATI 4850 512MB, but 4xAA+4xFSAA didn't run as well. I left triple buffering off and everything else, including vsync, on (I don't know details on triple buffering). Ran at 1680x1050 fullscreen.

The environment was pretty, and I really liked the sound, though. I turned off all the hint text and button press cues, and it was fun to try to figure out the puzzle. I fell into the giant pit, though, so now I'm going to have to look up how to get further than that in the demo, via that video posted earlier...

Want to get the game. :)

*edit* Oh, one more positive note: Ran very smoothly on Vista 4GB RAM, and I alt-tabbed back and forth a BUNCH...never had any problems or crashes changing graphics options and switching around. There are graphics issues like objects clipping, and unrealistic stuff like Lara bouncing when she hits the ground, but it's overall decent.
 
Damn, usually I avoid demos of games I really want. But it looks like I will have to check out the pc and 360 demo to see if this motion blur is a big deal to me.

Edit: There isn't no motion blur. The reason there is such a jarring difference between the 2D background stuff and 3D is because it seems as if the 2D images are lower res and meant for 720P. When you are running at a higher resolution on the pc version, you have higher res 3D environments clashing with lower res 2D backgrounds.
 
Eh .. yea the game looks stunning on my kuro plasma but im more of a gameplay / control / fun factor guy, I mean nice graphics are great but its gotta have the rest of the ingredients for me to care..

I wasnt to impressed with the demo.
 
What do the people who claim they don't like the demo not like? Aside from some funky animation issues every once-in-a-while, I don't see what's not to like about the game. Looks gorgeous, animates fluidly (for the most part), plays very well, and is a blast to go through. The platforming is more methodical and I love it!

Also, does anyone know if this demo was made from a near-final build of the game? Just curious, as I'm crossing my fingers that they've ironed out the few animation kinks that blemish an otherwise extraordinary experience.
 
dirtmonkey37 said:
What do the people who claim they don't like the demo not like? Aside from some funky animation issues every once-in-a-while EDIT: and some infrequent awkward camera angles during platforming segments, I don't see what's not to like about the game. Looks gorgeous, animates fluidly (for the most part), plays very well, and is a blast to go through. The platforming is more methodical and I love it!

Also, does anyone know if this demo was made from a near-final build of the game? Just curious, as I'm crossing my fingers that they've ironed out the few animation kinks that blemish an otherwise extraordinary experience.

Anyone?
 
The animations really do get under your skin after a while. They lack weight and when Lara jumps from one ledge to another it looks like she's flying (and there's a slight pause before she grabs onto the ledge she jumps to). Any idea if the demo is from an older build?
 
I didnt have an issue with the animation. Seemed the same as Legend and Anniversary to me.

There was one part where the camera was poorly placed and i needed to make a jump but other than that i loved the demo. I love traveling to exotic locations in TR games.
 
~Kinggi~ said:
I didnt have an issue with the animation. Seemed the same as Legend and Anniversary to me.

It's definitely not. In those games, Lara jumped in an arc, and would hang in the air for a moment at the apex of the leap. In Underworld, she just kind of launches directly from ledge to ledge in a straight line, which seriously hurts the feeling of weight. There's just a general floatiness to all of her actions; the new total commitment to blended mo-cap (using an "olympic caliber" gymnast! Wow!) has resulted in less believable movements overall.

The devs boast that Lara has over 2,000 animations, but none of that really matters when the results are inferior in so many ways to the previous keyframed animation - they attempted to fix what wasn't broken, which is a shame. Her swan dive animation, which has looked great even from very first game, is now stiff as hell.

I still enjoyed the demo and plan on purchasing the full version based on the gameplay, but man the new animation bothers the hell out of me.
 
eshwaaz said:
It's definitely not. In those games, Lara jumped in an arc, and would hang in the air for a moment at the apex of the leap. In Underworld, she just kind of launches directly from ledge to ledge in a straight line, which seriously hurts the feeling of weight. There's just a general floatiness to all of her actions; the new total commitment to blended mo-cap (using an "olympic caliber" gymnast! Wow!) has resulted in less believable movements overall.

The devs boast that Lara has over 2,000 animations, but none of that really matters when the results are inferior in so many ways to the previous keyframed animation - they attempted to fix what wasn't broken, which is a shame. Her swan dive animation, which has looked great even from very first game, is now stiff as hell.

I still enjoyed the demo and plan on purchasing the full version based on the gameplay, but man the new animation bothers the hell out of me.

Yeah, it's definitely weird in some places (although I'll admit that it doesn't bug me quite as much as it bugs you, based on your comments).

I'm surprised the developers don't see the difference between the hand-animated movements and the mo-capped ones. It's like night and day.

Let's hope the demo's from an older build--at the very least they could clean up the transition animation problems.
 
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