Let me just say I love when a computer game challenges me- but I want the challenge to be in the world of the game, with the traps, baddies, and level design, not the game itself, with the save system and controls. Those things should provide no challenge whatsoever.

Let me just tell a story. So, I'm playing Tomb Raider Legend, which has checkpoints. I'm in Nepal, and I get to some sort of cave, possibly. Checkpoint. Then I jump and shimmy around ledges and giant icicles, and finally I get to one ledge which Lara doesn't shimmy across quickly enough. It breaks, and she falls to her doom. (I believe this was very close to the next checkpoint.) Now, if the game had been save anywhere, it still would have provided a challenge. I would have saved right before getting to the breakable ledge, and then just attempted that part until I got it. However, because it's a checkpoint system game, it took me back to the previous checkpoint. That meant that I had to go through all that shimmy jump ledge giant icicle crap again and again. As in, all that crap that I could totally do no sweat.

That's not a challenge. That's tedium.

Adams: We need to talk about independency.
Dickinson: *Sticks his fingers in his ears* LALALALA I CAN'T HEEEEEAR YOOOOU LALALA

Hopkins: *To McNair* Get me a beer, woman!

Lee: I'm the FFV, the first fam-i-ly and can't no other delegate propose like me!

Hall: I'm here without instruction. Able to vote my own personal convictions.
Rutledge: And they are?
Hall: None of your damn business.

Hall: OMIGAHD IT'S DR. FRANKLIN OMIGAWWWWWWD! Can I have your autograph?
Franklins: Fangirls...

Dickinson: Pennsylvania, for the, um, let's see, how may times have we voted this way... *Counts on his fingers* 1, 2, 5-
Wilson: 3, sir.

Adams: Which of us will write our Declaration of Independence?
Franklin: Not me!
Adams: Not me!
Sherman: Not me!
Livingston: Not me!
Jefferson: Not- awww.

Jefferson: Mr. Adams, damn you, Mr. Adams, I think that we should just go for a role in the hay, where I'd bone you so hard that you couldn't walk away, oh, Mr. Adams, but then Congress would know I was gay!

Franklin: I thought you'd be up there, cracking the whip.
Adams: Nah, Tom's not really into that stuff.

Adams: That document is a masterful expression of the American mind!
Jefferson: Aw, John, I didn't know you cared.

Rutledge: Hurry gentlemen! Let the auction begin! *Jumps onto a desk and continues singing*
Hewes: Take your clothes off!

Rutledge: Remove the offending passage.
Jefferson: You mean the one about you having a tiny penis?

Adams: You have your slavery, little good may it do you. Now vote, damn you.
Rutledge: South Carolina says... NAY! Ha, fooled you! Now we get to keep slaves anyway!

Wilson: I'm sorry John... I'm breaking up with you. Oh, and my vote is yay.

-

P.S. Rutledge did him, and Rutledge did him, and Rutledge did some other damn guy.

So the new teaser trailer for Tomb Raider Underworld has everyone on tombraiderforums in an uproar. One popular topic of discussion is the fate of Lara's sidekicks, Zip and Alister.

Since I haven't figured out the best thread to post my opinion over there, I'll just do it here for now.

Here are five possible things Crystal Dynamics could do about Trip and Banister, and my Thoughts On Them.

1. Keep them exactly as the were in Legend, with the headset and jibber-jabber.
-No. Dear god, no. I like them, but I like chocolate, too. That doesn't mean I want to eat it all the time, and I don't want to hear Snip and Alligator all through the game.

2. Erase them from Tomb Raider history.
-Nooooo! I can't stand when this happens! I hated when it happened to just about all the Core Design characters. If Crystal pretends that Grip and Canister never existed, I will be seriously annoyed.

3. Kill them off.
-Fine, I guess. Sure, I'd miss them, but at least I'd have some sort of closure. Plus, it seems a slightly more dignifying way to go than simply being denied an existence.

4. Keep them, toss the headset.
-Ideal.

5. Keep them, keep the headset, moderate their chat.
-Could be good if done properly. Here's what I'd want. No more jokes. They're not funny. No more unprovoked commentary. Nobody cares. If there's something I could figure out or discover by steering Lara around the level, neither Drip nor Allspice should mention it. Let Lara (and by Lara I mean the player, of course) do it herself. In other words, only talk when that talk is RELEVANT and ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.

I think if you added viacom with walmart, you'd finally get something that was about as bad as nazis.

My thoughts.

Why do the fmvs look like crap? Oh, who cares. I already downloaded them from tombraiderchronicles.com.

Okay, I am going to play this game without using savegames or walkthroughs.

Streets of Rome: Hey, what's in here? Oh, that training area. I suppose I should learn how to walk the tightrope. Huh. That was way easier than I expected. Okay, that's enough of that. Onto the level.

Trajan's Markets: Lalala, oh shit, what the hell is that? (That, being the mechanical octopus.) Maybe I need to jump to that other platform. No, nothing over here. Maybe there's something in this room back here. No, just a secret. Maybe I have to hit something specific, like hit his head with lasersight. Well, that's just impossible. No walkthroughs, eh? That sure lasted long. Okay, so I have to shoot him in the eyes. I knew it! But I have to stand in this very specific spot. Okay, there's no way I would have gotten that. And some more stuff happens and more cool bosses.

These two levels remind me of Venice and Parisian Ghetto.

The Colosseum: What? A timed thing? Screw that crap. Time for the first savegame file! Eh, the other two levels were better.

Strangely enough, this level did not remind of Colosseum, but one of the levels early in TRLR. Burial Chambers, I think. I didn't like Burial Chambers, but this was worse.

The Base: I don't like this level. It reminds me of High Security Compound (which I hate.) I think I may skip it. Also it reminds me of Strahov Fortress (which I love.) Eh, I'll give it a chance. Okay, it's cool. And Yarofev is my new favorite character. He's Russian and he has a sweet hat!

The Submarine: High Security Compound excluded, I love weaponless Lara levels. This is no exception. This was fun as heck. Especially when I got to knock out the cook in the kitchen with the lead pipe. I mean crowbar.

Deepsea Dive: This level sucks.

Sinking Sub: Sniff. Good-bye, Yarofev and your cool hat. Okay, I'm over it. Also, this level is SO GOOD. All the hazards, and it's all maze like...

Gallows Tree: Aw! Young Lara! Doo de doo... Hmm hmm hmm... AAAAAAAAAAUUUGHHH I WANNA KILL SOMETHING!

Labyrinth: Skipped this one.

Old Mill: This one too.

13th Floor: Why the hell doesn't Lara have her pistols? No, I didn't watch the fmvs or cutscenes in case they had the answer to my question, why should I? They also didn't have Pierre, Larson, or Yarofev. This new gun blows. Okay, I have to be honest here. I don't know what it is about it, but this feels like the least Tomb Raidery level of all Tomb Raider levels I've played so far. (TR1, TRUB, TR2 demo, TR3, TRLR, Times, 1/2 of TRC, TRAOD, TRL demo, TRA demo.) The only part of the level I like was taking out the one guy by using chloroform. But that has just a rehash of the crowbar bit earlier.

By this point, I got frustrated and said sod it all.

In conludination,
Good: Pierre, Larson, Yarofev, most of the Russian Sub levels, the bosses of the second level.
Bad: Second half of the game not my style. Also, I was disappointed in the graphics. I mean, I don't really care how advanced they are, just as long as I can tell what they're supposed to be. That wasn't the problem. The problem was what was done with them. TR3 and TRLR both felt far more atmospheric and immersing. With TRC, I rarely forgot that I was playing a game.

Not including gold levels or demos, this is probably my least favorite TR game so far. Still, I've played worse. One of these days I need to actually try the Ireland levels. I understand they're creepy.

Now, onto the real reason why I bought this game:

To watch the cutscene where Pierre offers to buy Larson a milkshake over and over and over!

...

And use the level editor.

Inspired by all those others on the tubes, here's my take. These are the ones that stuck with me.

4. The Freakin' FCC Song. This is the greatest song I have ever heard on Family, even more than the one on "Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater" and that is saying something.

9. Peter buys a replica of Michelangelo's David, but the penis breaks off. He throws it in a random directions. It lands in Mr. Weed's house, who takes it and names it Eduardo.

2. Stewie and Brian are having a conversation in a restaurant when a couple of prostitutes walk by. Stewie chases after them, shouting, "Where's my money?"

5. Peter has a tendency to fall in with the wrong crowd. Cut to a flashback type scene of Peter, who has joined the Cavity Creeps, complete with greyish tan costume. "We! Make! Holes in teeth!"

1. Peter tries to capture James Wood, so he places pieces of candy on the ground, leading to the trap. James takes each piece, every time saying, "Ooh! Piece of candy!"

10. Peter finds out that because he is retarded, he can get away with anything. He starts a "Bible fight" in church.

7. This one is a little longer, so bear with me. Chris idenitifies a criminal, who later escapes jail and proclaims revenge against him. The Griffins move to "the deep south" as part of a Witness Protection Program. However, the guy still manages to track them down. He grabs Chris on a bridge, but is thwarted when one of the townsfolk shoots him dead. The shooter proceeds to shove him off the bridge with his foot.

3. After Peter becomes blind, he accidentally climbs in bed Chris and begins romancing him for an uncomfortably long time. At last, he realizes his mistake and slips off into another room to repeat the process. We hear Stewie's unmistakeable, "What the deuce?" In Family Guy, there is a tendency to put the viewer through extended periods of almost funny/almost not funny scenes, and then reward them. This is one great example.

6. The trailer for The Passion of the Christ 2, found and then stolen by Peter and Lois. The tagline? "Let he who is without sin kick the first ass."

8. Anything Mayor West does. Anything.

Edit- Bonus: The scene in "Petarded" where Peter is shown where he is on the chart of intelligence. Creationists are shown to be underneath him.

Why are you doing this?

Well, a little while back I finished the Legend demo. I've been reading lots of commentary about Tomb Raider, and I just feel like adding my two cents. I've just got a lot to say.

No, why the demo of Legend? Legend, heck, Anniversary has been out for some time.

I'm slow. Okay?

Before I start, I'd like to say that I am a Core fangirl, I'm not really a gamer, and I'm playing on the PC. I don't know why, but it just seems like I should mention those things. I have no idea how to give reviews, so I'm going to do something completely different. I'll talk about various topics which I figured would suck/many other people disliked/both. If nothing else, I hope you derive some amusement from this, either through my wit (psh!) or my n00bishness. So, in the words of Strong Bad,

"Let's get this train wreck a-rollin'!"

Zip and Alister
Not long ago I downloaded the scenes from Chronicles, and when Zip came on, I just thought "This is the worst character ever." Plus, I had heard nothing but bad stuff about Zip and Alister, so I expected the worst. Honestly, they didn't bother me. I guess it's because I talk to the bad guys when I'm playing, so having other characters talk to Lara didn't feel strange. I can't quite remember how helpful they were, as I didn't pay attention to them. I would agree that it feels out of place, so I am in the camp that says to either get rid of their conversations in game, or make it possible to turn them off.

Controls
Let me just say, I looove the new controls. I'm not talking q for grapple, space for jump, etc. That's of no consequence to me, as I could change that stuff around if I desired. I'm talking about the button combinations you'd have to press in order to get Lara to do things. There are two main reasons why I don't just like them, but prefer them to the old controls. First, camera aside, they are generally simpler. Before, when you wanted Lara to climb onto something, you had to press jump (maybe) and immediately press and hold action. While holding action, press up. Now? Press jump, press jump again. That's all. The second thing I appreciated was how I rarely had to hold down buttons. Before, it seemed like I was holding the action button down for so many things. Now, I can leave Lara hanging from a rope whilst I go do something else and she won't fall off.

I also liked the new swimming controls. I'm still not very good at using them, but it took me a long time to get to the old swimming controls also. Anyway, I like them because they just make sense to me- there are buttons to account for up, down, left, right, and backwards and forwards. With the old one, I often found myself pressing both up and down in order to get Lara to swim in a relatively straight line. That kind of got annoying.

Finally, the combat controls. I was really apprehensive about the whole "One button that both makes Lara pull out her guns and fire them" business, but it ended up being really helpful. I had a bad habit in the old ones of pulling out the guns in preparation for possible bad guys. Then I'd put the guns away, thinking I was doing the opposite. And then I'd wondering why I was getting pwned so badly.

Movements
I have heard of complaints that Lara moves like a monkey on crack in this game. Heck, I'll take crack monkey over the snail speed she uses in the old games any day. People, I've got things to do. Okaynotreally.

Camera
This camera is pure evil, and if it were a person I'd call its mother a dirty name. There is absolutely no good reason why it should be like this. I want to meet the person who came up with this, so I can smack their nose with a rolled up newspaper, then point to the game they ruined, and say, "See what you did there? NO! Bad!" Someone please try to convince I'm wrong about the demon camera so I'll stop hating it so much. So, I did eventually get used to it. I also got used to broccoli, but that still tastes terrible to me. On a good note, at least it never spontaneously changed and then refuse to move from that position, which is more than I can say for that stupid Anniversary demo camera.

Checkpoints
Saving anywhere pwns checkpoints; there, I said it. I'm a save freak, so I was not looking forward to this. However, fortunately there were enough checkpoints that it didn't really cause any problems for me. Except for this one time. It was near the end, after Lara has to slide the three boxes onto specific locations. She died sometime shortly after that, forcing me to go through all that nonsense over again.

Linearity
That is a word, right? Eh, it sounds good enough. I was pretty worried about this, as I prefer levels in which I can get totally butt lost. After playing, however, I decided it wasn't as bad considering the graphics. Linear levels wouldn't have worked with the old games. The simplistic, blocky style of the graphics made parts of the environment you were supposed to interact with stick with stick out like a sore thumb. Therefore, it is crucial that they not be linear. On the other hand, Legend has such comparatively advanced graphics that nothing was quite as obvious for me. Even if I wasn't guiding Lara all over the place, I did end up looking around a lot for the next path, so it almost felt like I was exploring.

There are a few more supposedly crappy elements to this, such as the change to Lara's biography and the addition of interactive cutscenes. I did not discuss the former, as I feel demo alone can't give me a feel for that. And of course, there were no ics in there.

I get this feeling that Legend is a game I would enjoy, but I'm not entirely sure how much. Therefore, I plan on buying it for cheap via Amazon. Like, way in the future. I want to get AoD and Chronicles first.

I've fallen in love with this funderful site called Pictaps. Go, and so will you.

More importantly, see what I did there. It is truly beautiful. I even included Lara's red laces.

o hay since Dumbldore was hangin around Harry all teh time he wanted to bang him, right???? hurr hurr hurr

Sigh.

Hey! Out there! You people who automatically assume gay is synonomous with paedophile! Yeah, you suck! You suck royally. You're horrible people and I hope I never meet one of you in real life. Everytime I read your bullshit online, I want to stab my brain with a rusty fork. Not that it would matter, as the sheer idiocy of what you say probably causes me to lose brain cells. Thanks a lot, jackasses.

I won't tell you why you suck so bad in doing this. If you can't figure it out, it's likely you won't even understand when I tell you. This sort of shit should be common sense, but clearly it eludes you.

I hope I've offended you all with that, because it's no less than you deserve.

ETA: Godfuckingdammit I promised myself I wouldn't wank.