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Finally reached the end of my outward journey to Beagle Point. It's taken three months (not constant play) in real life, but I can finally turn around and start the return leg. A short visual representation of the journey, thanks to the folks over at the Elite Dangerous Astrometrics. It also includes my previous trip to Colonia, Sag A*, the Great Annihilator and a skip where I took a lift on a passing Fleet Carrier back to the Bubble, before heading out again around the eastern edge of the galaxy. Really satisfying to have done it, I will admit to being more intimidated about the trip back. Might take a break before getting stuck back in - although there's an event on in the Bubble that I want to get back for, so perhaps not.
Anyway, screenshots. Some of the (very profitable) local flora along the way:
I really like this last one, between the sunset, the lander lights, the starfield above, the ship in the background, it was a really nice lonely moment. Kinda reminded me a little, for some reason, of Anne Hathaway's character at the end of Interstellar. Just way out in the middle of nowhere on your own.
Some random ship / star shots:
I found a system with two pairs of paired suns (and another waay of away) which I thought "That's just silly" but who knows. Apparently they do exist! No planets unfortunately, or it might have made for some great shots.
A distant black hole distorting the view of the distant galactic plane.
A rather pretty looking gas giant I found later in the trip.
Finally though, I reached the carrier commemorating the first Distant Worlds voyage back in the day. A fitting half way point to my trip.
And now I power back up for the long trip home. Hoping to find some worthy sights along the way.
Post edited by Dave_The_Sheep on6 -
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Some Tomb Raider Remastered comparison shots from TR3.
I'm only showing TR3 because it's what I'm playing at the moment.
I've noticed that the comparison tool displays the game as if it was being played on a PS1 in it's retro mode rather than a period correct PC. TR1 and TR2 are very basic games in terms of what the PS1 could achieve. On PC it would have been in higher resolution but these games also supported 3D accelerators which would have added bilinear texture filtering. Lighting was pretty much baked in TR1 while TR2 added rudimentary per vertex lighting
TR3 is a far more advanced game. At the time coloured lighting was all the rage on 3D accelerators on PC. The PS1 however was quite forward thinking so could pretty much achieve all the effects PC 3D accelerator cards could other than the filtered textures. In fact the PC version of TR3 was a little lazy and some of the subtle effects, like Lara's footprints in sand, are missing. The Remake displays the all of these PS1 visual features in it's retro graphics mode.
Anyway these are from the India and Nevada stages of TR3
The remaster has some really great new texture work, some textures even have parallax occlusion mapping to give a slight 3D look. Geometry is kept exactly the same. I always felt the India level in TR3 looked awful and never captured the look and feel of the jungle it was going for. Remake adds some more foliage, it looks better and does the best it can with the limited geometry of the original.
Water and rain effects are improved greatly
The waterfalls are a big improvement in this area.
This is just to show underwater. It looks different in motion but I actually prefer how the older game looks with more over the top water caustics effects.
On to Nevada now
This shows the effect of the much improved texture work
The added shadows add a lot to the environment.
One thing to note is that readability of the game can be better in different versions depending on lighting. I find items are much easier to see and find in the modern graphics while some switches and environmental objects you interact with stand out more in the retro graphics because of the lighting.
This UFO was never going to impress anyone but I actually prefer how it's lit in the original retro graphics. The UFO has some interesting non-Euclidean spaces inside it like a tardis which is new to the Tomb Raider engine.
An example of how the new lighting isn't always for the best. Here the alien in the window is clearly visible whereas it's obscured in the original release so as not to spoil the surprise.
A good example of the original game's use of coloured lighting. It's everywhere in this Nevada stage.
The Nevada sunset is quite effective in both games.
Notice Lara's improved shadow in the modern version but the much more effective water caustics of the original.
And to finish off here is the opening of the South Pacific stage:
Quite effective in both versions.
Anyway I think the Tomb Raider remaster is exceptional. The graphics mode swapping is excellent and even though I'd have liked to see a PC graphics mode I guess most people played these on Playstation. The Playstation graphics are very authentic however.
If people are interested I could post the other stages.
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Join Date:Posts: 52505
Some more TR3, South Pacific and London now
TR3 remaster has some nice visual flourishes here like a wave affect I manage to completely not capture in the first image, you can see a bit of it to the right.
You can see some artistic differences here. More foliage in the remaster and a less pronounced fog effect.
Big difference in cutscene character models. They also have animated mouths.
Is it really TR without some dino killing.
Bit of casual racism
This river level is quite interesting. They did an awful lot here to improve the water effects in the remaster but they aren't too shabby in the old game with a nice use of animated textures
You then get a canoe and it's rotten to control.
On to London now. This is where the level design really starts to fall apart and it feels like a very rushed game.
The visual differences between the original and remaster are stark. The original is very dark, annoyingly so as you end up walking past a lot of important keys and switches. It also goes to town with coloured lighting. The remaster is mercifully a lot brighter and the coloured lighting is present but much more subtle in its use.
The first documented use of yellow paint! Naughty Dog copied Tomb Raider!
You can't really see it here but the original has an undulating mesh used here for water which looks impressive and is absent from the remaster.
The objective was to make your way to this cathedral which was the next level but it was cut from the main game for being too tough but still present as a secret if you get all secrets in the game. The next cutscene was obviously supposed to take place on the top as the bell is very out of place.
The next stage is an abandoned subway
Brilliant level design here with one of these booths needing to be used to get a ticket to progress but there is no visual signifier which one actually works
This level is one of the better looking ones in the game and the original manages to nail the look and feel of the London Underground.
Some pretty gross graphics here on the PS1 version. This area also has a key i walked past 3 times because it's hidden by the camera, well done with the play testing core!
I put these three in to show a quirk with modern renderers. Most modern renderers use deferred rendering which allows a massive amount of dynamic lights to be added to a scene but adds input lag. It also plays havoc with transparent alpha textures. This is why you can't see the fire behind the window in the remaster. The mighty PlayStation has no such issues with it's enormous banks of VRAM and architecture suited to sorting transparencies (not joking here, for the time the PS was a beast in this area and gave it a massive edge over the Saturn and other consoles.
(You will notice some modern games using checkerboarding instead of alphas to avoid this, an effect I think looks really ugly and was employed by the sega saturn of all consoles.
On to Lud's Gate, an infamously tough Tomb Raider stage. I didn't mind it too much. There's a water maze near the end which quite tough but doable. The biggest issue is that it's by far the longest stage in the game, it took me an hour and 40 minutes to beat.
It's also tonally a total mess which has you navigate sewers before breaking into a museum where they have a sphinx and then ending up at the top of a skyscraper after the water maze. It's some real Dark Souls 2 stage design.
The goal is to get embalming flood to the gang that lives in the subway but you can beat the stage without giving it to them.
Sewers to the Sphinx. I suppose it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the British Museum would have a whole sphinx hidden away.
Once thing to not is that Lara is gunning down security guards here. She really has a sociopathic streak in this game as she murders a whole heap of US military personnel and innocent security guards.
An example of the bad game design in TR3. Try to spot the lever in the darker original game.
The dreaded water maze. It has underwater sections and stealth which barely works. It also features the common or garden british crocodile 🙄
This is the reason people hate this level. The UDV. It goes about the same speed you can swim at, doesn't lock on to enemies when firing and gets caught up in scenery. You are faster without it. Leave it behind.
Boss fight time with two… babes???
Boss fights are pretty terrible. Jump to the top and shoot the fuse box to electrocute her.
Antarctica next!
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Join Date:Posts: 52505
More TR3, finally finished it.
This first level of antartica was actually pretty great. Good level design and a jump scare that got me. Felt very like "The Thing".
The dinghy controls nicely.
I do like the game trying it's best to make an area look lived in. This is a lot more convincing than the really poor attempts by TR2.
The main bad guy gets the upper hand on us.
Now for the mines which is where my PS1 memory card I got free with a PS magazine gave up:
There's some nasty enemies here, particularly this guy that can poison you.
This is where my PS1 playthrough ended.
The mine carts are a pain in the ass. You can lean, hit the break or duck. Other than the minecarts this stage is a lot of fun
Easter Island heads!
Now for the Lost City of Tinnos, regarded as one of the hardest Tomb Raider level ever. It's not too bad, it just takes a long time to beat and has a lot of puzzles.
This is one of the more annoying thing about the level, these flying insect enemies respawn infinitely.
Once you get here the level starts to resemble one of the all time best pieces of level design, St. Francis's Folly from TR1. There's four trials that all lead back to this area which you can't advance from until you beat them all. They are based on different elements. It's a decent stage but can't hold a candle to St. Francis's Folly.
It's final boss time. There's some nonsense about evolution so the main bad guy turns himself into some spider freak.
Big pain in the ass. You just have to stay away from him, if he gets too close you will get hit by an unavoidable insta kill attack. Take him down and steal the artifacts while he recovers. Once you have them all take him down for a final time. Another poor boss fight to cap the game off.
Thought I was finished but there's a little bit to go. You can see the bottom of the skybox in the original, Dev team thought it was good enough obviously!
Thought I was done but these dick heads set me on fire. Make your way to the helicopter and toll credits, you are done… unless you got all the secrets like me. (I used a guide admittedly). This lets you play All Hallows, a cut level from the London area of the game.
Some gorgeous new textures used here and no where else.
The stage feels a little under baked. It's quite short and there's a lot of places where you have to take damage to proceed. Also plenty of dick moves and insta kill traps.
Really creepy area here with the dead bodies floating in the water. Not sure why this wasn't used in the main game. The effect is more startling on the original game due to the water caustics being so much darker.
Look at all these goodies! Unfortunately walking towards them triggers the level end screen.
I might go back and play the TR expansions. I have already finished the TR1 one, unfinished business, which was excellent, but I never played the TR2 and TR3 expansions. Both seem quite substantial, clocking in at about half the size of the main games.
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Join Date:Posts: 52505
Dragon Quest HD 2D Remake is kind of pretty:
Some Battle scenes
The World Map has a day/night cycle
I love how the dungeons and towns are scaled down versions of their layouts when on the world map:
Some more pretty areas:
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