I spent the later part of my evening working on animating a couple goofy evil men sharing a couple drinks at The Inventory. I like to wonder what it would be like if all these game universes intermingled, like if each game universe was from another state or country, would they go on outings like this? Cortex and Eggman have shared interests; they both have a thing for certain types of bling, and their good counterparts are both furry platformers.
Ever since its release I’ve been checking into news and videos about the newly leaked/released Tomb Raider Anniversary, and it seems to be getting all kinds of love from the fans; Patches are being released every other day to make the game more playable, they got the netcode fixed for multiplayer, actual multiplayer! YouTubers have been making all kinds of videos showcasing this relic, and today I was happy to hear that the Midas Level is actually loadable now in the latest patch!
In its current state the game is a giant puzzle piece in need of being solved, and thanks to the Tomb Raider fan community they have accomplished so much and we’re barely into the new year! Imagine if they finally get this game running in full from start to finish, and it’s own splash screen instead of National Treasure. It would certainly be interesting to finally experience Core’s original vision for their anniversary, with help from those devoted to making the proper efforts!
Now if I could just run it on a keyboard, or get it to see my damn controllers…
I decided to play something a little more modern tonight. Trudged through another map and even took a tour of my own digs.
It’s always cool finding additional details added into the game world to not only make it feel more realistic and lived in, but also maintaining a sense of humour. Doomguy has quite the collection of reading material at his disposal.
Doomguy also seems to enjoy breaking the 4th wall once in awhile, as well as rock out by the looks of it:
It’s as though these guitars were crafted from the finest demon parts imaginable! I wonder what they sound like when strummed? 😛
I’ve just started into the third level, and have decided to leave off until next time. Really enjoying the game so far, much harder than the 2016 reboot even on the same difficulty setting.
I downloaded Core Design’s recently leaked Tomb Raider Anniversary, and I’m not disappointed at all in what I see. Not all of the levels are accessible, and being this is an alpha release this is nowhere near a perfect state, but diehard fans are patching the game what seems like every other day over at archive.org to make the game all the more playable. Right now the only way to play it is on your C: Drive, and the game folder has to be on the root drive (can’t be placed in a Programs Folder for organization), and as a result I can’t get the Alpha to run under Linux properly via Proton or Wine. I’m not well versed enough in Wine to figure out how to get a game to run properly, not sure how to keep the proper directory structure. I did learn that if you don’t patch the game properly you’ll be visited by 3D Nicholas Cage.
Once Core Design discovered they were not going to be able to publish their version of Tomb Raider Anniversary, they decided to recycle the assets and make a game based on the 2004 Movie National Treasure starring Nicholas Cage. This leak even includes a splash screen even after you fix it to load Tomb Raider content:
I’m not sure how much of this was converted from their original Tomb Raider idea, but trying to start the game only results in crashing.
This level shows up when I try to load The Great Abyss. From what I can tell this is part of The Lost Valley but in its own enclosed map.
Apparently in this build of the game Natla is a Nazi? There are a few nazi flags hanging about, along with the nazi eagle as you wander deeper into the mine. I’m not sure if this was in transitioning from Tomb Raider to National Treasure (did National Treasure even have nazis? I never watched the movie), or because it had something else to do with the Indiana Jones project name. Still I was taken aback by it while turning around in the level just to happen upon… that. Kind of a jarring coincidence in these jarring times.
In this build of the game Lara is fucking invincible. She can walk on lava, manages to avoid drowning, and survive boulders and spikes completely going through her.
In this stage of the game all enemies are currently incomplete. They have no loading animations and little to no texture details.
Peru is probably one of the more finished looking maps out what I’ve seen thus far. There’s this really cool effect that happens when you enter this corridor, where these stone faces roll around and begin to spit darts. It only made me wonder what the rest of this game would have looked like had Core Design been able to finish it?
To no surprise a lot of the levels use the original textures from the first Tomb Raider, and in some cases even models. It makes sense as that would save time on making any more textures than necessary. This makes it easier to focus on other aspects of the game, like level design, game mechanics, etc.
This game requires a controller for it to work properly, with the best one being a Dualshock 4. I do own a DS4, but no matter what I did the game couldn’t read any one of my controllers. The game doesn’t really have a keyboard and mouse setup since this was originally designed for a PSP, and the release is new enough that I don’t know of a solution. I’ll be keeping an eye out for patches or any more information I can get my hands on, I really wanted to livestream this, but at the moment my controls are quite limited. Still, what I’ve been able to see so far has been an adventure in itself! I might try installing this on my laptop to see if I can get different results.
It was a calm day, got off work early, had some granola for breakfast, tidied up a tiny bit, was disappointed by missing packages I’m still waiting on for late Christmas packages… got my mind off of it by building a new SFM scene:
This one is actually complete. I’ll continue working on the other scenes on Monday probably; the weekend approaches and I have other things in store to do. One of those things might possibly be what I blogged about yesterday. 🙂
I always like finding early builds of games just to see how things have changed and progressed from the time of creation all the way to the final product, and for many years I often wondered what the Core Design version of Tomb Raider Anniversary would have been like if Eidos didn’t fire them and go with Crystal Dynamics.
Thanks to archive.org and Core Design, we now can! I’m sure it’s riddled with bugs galore, being this is an unreleased released game and all, but there’s just something cool about seeings things that could have been, what could have changed, and from what I’ve read the Core Design version was more faithful to the original rather than the Crystal Dynamics version, not to say it was a terrible game (though I could have done with fewer QTE’s and a less annoying puzzle for climbing Natla’s Pyramid). I have the files downloaded, might have to check a look into this time capsule during my weekend downtime.
I was originally going to make beer brats for dinner tonight, but the rain changed my appetite to something a little more warm and brothy. I bought some chicken tenders, red bell pepper, a carrot, onion, garlic, and baby portabellos, all seasoned with pepper, lime chili seasoning and some soy sauce, served over some rice noodles and topped with dumplings! I also threw in some cilantro, green onion, and leftover quinoa. If I can utilize leftovers into a new dish I always make an attempt.
First SFM status of the new year! Spent the evening animating this microscene, and brainstorming a little for another one. Still a ways to go before I’m finished, but it progresses, slowly but surely. I have some more time tomorrow, meaning I stand a good chance of wiping away a bunch of work…. in theory. I also have a few other things I need to take care of first.
Ever have one of those mornings where the weather is dreary enough that you just end up in accidental hibernation? I practically had to drag my ass out of bed this morning with a mental reminder of all the stuff I had to get done today. Not all brunches are big fabulous events, they can be small and modest. I had one Hawaiian bun staring me in the face this morning, and the idea of bacon and eggs stuffed in between with a mayo seasoned with chili lime seasoning and some pineapple salsa, and a little feta cheese sounded nom. I also had enough Greek honey yogurt and tons of fruit and juice to make my own colourful healthy shake. It mainly consists of yogurt, a banana, frozen dragonfruit, and orange juice.
It might be a rainy day, but that doesn’t mean I can conjure the taste of summer to add some colour on what would otherwise be a quiet gray afternoon.
Some bacon and eggs sounded nice this morning. I stuffed an omelette with some feta cheese, and made a tomato garlic sauce with the remaining bacon grease, a little cilantro and some lime chili seasoning. The jam is homemade strawberry pineapple, and the bacon is just bacon as bacon is perfect just the way it is. Twas good comfort food for a rainy day.
I have played a bit more with the Canon EOS T7i Rebel as a webcam, and it works quite nicely! It still runs at 30fps via USB, but if I ever wanted to I could plug it into my computer via HDMI to my Elgato HD60 Pro Capture Card for full 60FPS, but for now I think I’ll just experiment with the camera as is. It’s actually kinda cool having professonal looking DSLR features with the power of a webcam! Assuming I ever show my face to the world they would be able to see every single pore! O_o