By Fiona Li.

Twitter: @xflowerstarx (main Twitter handle) and @xCosmicStarx (back-up Twitter handle)

Fanfiction.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/758107/Flowerstar

FictionPress: https://www.fictionpress.com/u/989209/Flowerstar

Archive of Our Own Profile: http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Flowerstar/pseuds/Flowerstar

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMYpi3SrhswxT4gXw0tZ0QA

Google Plus: https://www.plus.google.com/111763026669764094799/posts

Tumblr: http://www.xflowerstarx.tumblr.com/

Sketchfab: https://www.sketchfab.com/flowerstar

Miiverse: https://miiverse.nintendo.net/users/ChoiHung?locale.lang=en-GB

PaigeeWorld: https://www.paigeeworld.com/u/flowerstar

LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/wing-see-li-a110b1116

The post [Review] A Hat In Time appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

I am a PC player but after finishing Horizon Zero Dawn I can tell that I am extremely happy that I got a PS4 back in a day. What a game! Incredible graphics, vast locations and deep narrative.

The protagonist is also very relatable not because of her vulnerability but her strength and determination. She has a lot of stuff to deal with (trying to avoid spoilers) yet she is not whiny or boring, she gets shit done! If you have a PS4 do consider buying it. I can’t recommend this game enough!

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Horizon Zero Dawn

Just pre-ordered! I loved their promo-pic of Manchester. This games looks very promising but it means I only have 28 hours to finish Mass Effect 3 with a better ending, challenge accepted!

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The day we arrived was extremely rainy, but it didn’t stop gamers to attend Reboot InfoGamer. From young children to senior citizens, the venue was packed. The VR stands were the most popular ones and queues required a lot of patience.

As true Tomb Raider fans, our first mission was to find any Tomb Raider stands. Last year one of the biggest stands (if not the biggest one) was for Rise of the Tomb Raider, promoted by Microsoft. This year it was Sony’s turn to promote ROTTR, but being a year old game it had a more modest stand. You could experience ROTTR on PS4 in all of its 4K glory.  

We managed to try out

John Wick Chronicles: An Eye for an Eye VR and being my first VR, it blew my mind. The controls were smooth and the gameplay was fun. You can move around in the game (at the beginning you’re required to walk in a lift) and you can even crouch/crouch walk to avoid getting hit or hide behind barriers. Along with the John Wick Chronicles VR, there was another extremely popular VR game made by the Croteam, the Serious Sam VR. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to try it out, but judging from the comments, it kicked ass in the usual Serious Sam way. As watching someone play VR can be quite dull, the Croteam made the experience enjoyable for everyone as they projected the entire area around the player with greenscreen on a huge screen so everyone in the audience could see what the player was seeing and even more.  

We have also tried out few indie games which we are sure will do well in the future.  

After that, we headed over to the retro part of the Expo in hope to find some classic Tomb Raider games, but sadly there were none. It was still great to play classics such as Super Mario on the NES and Sonic the Hedgehog on Sega Megadrive, but this was a real missed opportunity for celebrating Tomb Raider’s 20th anniversary. We hope that in the following years they will bring Tomb Raider to the retro area of the Reboot InfoGamer.

Overall Reboot InfoGamer is a great gaming Expo with few minor issues due to it being relatively new and still catching up with big Expos such as EGX, Gamescom,

Paris Games Week, etc.  

You can find more photos from the event HERE

The post Reboot InfoGamer 2016 appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

Reboot infoGamer 2016 is the fifth annual edition of the rapidly expanding games show in Croatia, that is once again breaking records as one of the truly biggest in Europe. The six-day show will take place at the Zagreb Fair convention grounds at even bigger expo area with a focus on the newest and upcoming video games, hardware, gaming merchandise, eSports and analogue games.

The event will take place from November 8th – November 13th

For more info visit:  http://www.rebootinfogamer.hr/en/

You can find the official facebook event here.

Last year Microsoft presented Rise of the Tomb Raider at Reboot infoGamer and it was one of the the biggest stands there. Check it out: https://www.tomb-of-ash.com/post/133495286305/my-co-admin-terenete-went-to-reboot-infogamer-expo

Hope to see you there!

Tina aka Terenete

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It was weird to play a Resident Evil game in first person mode but hopefully the main game will be in a standard 3rd person perspective. 

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Here’s the official synopsis:

As a man or woman stranded, naked, freezing, and starving on the unforgiving shores of a mysterious island called ARK, use your skill and cunning to kill or tame and ride the plethora
of leviathan dinosaurs and other primeval creatures roaming the land. Hunt, harvest resources, craft items, grow crops, research technologies, and build shelters to withstand the elements and store valuables, all while teaming up with (or preying upon) hundreds of other players to survive, dominate… and escape!

So yes, one can simply describe ARK as a sandbox game but what makes ARK different is the presence of dinosaurs that can either kill you or, once tamed, help you.

You start off with no resources, tools or clothes and your initial task is to gather stones, wood and thatch to create a stone pickaxe. With that tool you can then mine flint which is essential to
build a stone hatchet. More tools and technologies become available to the player as they level up and also, as the game is still in early access stage, as the game receives updates. Wildcard provides regular updates where they
tweak game mechanics, optimisations and add new dinosaurs and technologies.

I started playing ARK last year and I have an excellent gaming PC, but even that could not run ARK on medium-high details without a drop in FPS. Wildcard has optimised the game since and if you, like myself, played the game before and had issues with performance, do give it another go as soon as possible.

ARK is more than just a sandbox; it is a massive living world with its own rules. Animals and dinosaurs have specific behaviour and spawning patterns. The spawning system is quite sophisticated, for example I never had issues with dinosaurs being spawned at random behind my back as I walk but now there’s this nasty Alpha raptor running around the island, across the river from my base since about a week!

Aside from gathering resources, crafting, building, farming you can also tame dinosaurs who can help you with a variety of tasks. Some of them can’t be ridden, but every single one of them will try to protect you from enemies, unless you will set them to “passive” mode. The variety of creatures you can tame is impressive: there are goofy dodos, quick and fierce raptors, mighty brontosauruses and tens of others that rule the land, with peaceful Ichtyosauruses, blood-thirsty Megalodons and cowardly pteranodons and fierceful argentavises – plus others that rule water and air respectfully.

As your character levels up you can choose which attribute to improve and which new engram to learn and eventually you will be able to craft things like generators and machine gun turrets.

Even though there’s currently only one map available to play, it is big enough for you to explore and it has a variety of locations with different weather conditions. The game in fact pushes you to explore the island, as you won’t be able to harvest some resources close to your base (wherever you are.) The game also has massive caves for the player to explore and this is where my inner Tomb Raider fan goes crazy; caves were a huge part of the classic Tomb Raider games, notably the first three games in particular, and all three had dinosaurs in them.

Surely it is not a platformer game and even though you can switch to a 3rd person view the game mechanics are completely different to a Tomb Raider game, but nevertheless I can’t help but draw some heart-warming similarities. There are also some underwater caves, but I haven’t been able to explore them just yet.

The main problem with the game in my opinion is optimisation: it runs fine on medium-high details but I do want to play it on higher details so I can enjoy this beautiful world to the fullest. Most say that even on medium-high details the game looks absolutely stunning. Sometimes I just walk around my base at night and enjoy looking at the moon.

Another problem is a lack of character customisation. You can adjust various body parameters and even the colour of the character’s hair and eyes, but you can’t change facial features or hairdos. Nevertheless, the game offers you a variety of wearables that you can either unlock or earn from killing an Alpha Raptor for example. You can also craft a painting brush and paint your clothes or equipment, dinosaurs and buildings just the way you want to.

In fact, you can also craft a painting canvas and draw whatever you want, here’s a masterpiece that I have on the wall:

Players can create tribes, tribes can go on war on one another or trade and help eachother, creating a very interesting social component. If you are playing this game or plan to buy it, do join our dedicated “South Pacific Islands” server, we are a friendly bunch

ARK is so huge that it has its own Wiki website, where you can learn about every single creature and resource.

With the game being in the early access it’s clear that there are some bugs, but the game is totally playable already. You may find it a bit expensive for an early access game but do consider that you are sponsoring an independently produced game that will capture you for many weeks or months! The full version of the game is set to be released later this year so you have a chance to learn how to play and level up your character
before the release, though you still may find that there are lots of players playing the game already.

ARK: Survival Evolved was released last year and is available now as an Early Access game on Steam and Xbox One with a PS4 version being in development.

Special Thanks:

A. Croft

The post [REVIEW] ARK: Survival Evolved appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

Two days ago, a royal shitstorm has hit the internet regarding the (timed) “Xbox One Exclusive” Tomb Raider game, due to be released next year. I, as everyone had a sad reaction at first though I did restrain myself from posting death threats online, since I read the game is due for release in 18 months (that’s a lot of time for things to alter).

Either way even the Xbox One owners (at least the mature/intelligent ones) were disappointed with this decision, as no one wants any fellow fans to be left out (let alone that Tomb Raider always was a simultaneously released multi-platform game, and the exclusivity sounds somewhat strange). It was very nice to read how people stick with each other. Which (how I think) fans should behave towards each other. 

Obviously not every XB1 gamer was sympathetic. The Internet is full of 12-16 years olds who just love to start their console wars. I as a specimen of “the Master PC Race” normally just spectate this puberty war of consoles with a bucket of popcorn and some Pepsi.

But on forums, I read the likes of: “You guys aren’t fans if you won’t buy console for one game, because this is TOMB RAIDERRRR” directed at me and fans with alike thinking ( as in “why buying another console because of ONE game?”).

Well excuse me for breathing, but I’d like to know who gave said people the right to talk about this game, when they are far younger than its 18+ rating.

That’s firstly. Secondly what actually makes a Tomb Raider fan?

I personally learned the English language, 3DS Max, Photoshop, Delphi only because I wanted to become a game designer when I was 16 (inspired by playing Core Design’s Tomb Raider games). I later was making renders with Lara and Kurtis (that was before XNA). And even though I’m now on Media/Journalism/Film career path I still use those skills that I got because of Tomb Raider.

Eventually I even moved country because of this game. I made friends worldwide who visit me every year (even I myself am going to Croatia next week to visit my fellow Tomb Raider fan-friend who I met online in 2007).

Everytime they visit – I take them on a “Tomb Raider Pilgrimage”. Speaking of which… I visited so many places – ex Core design offices in Derby, Lara Croft way, Kedleston Hall and other buildings that were an inspiration for the series.

I managed to meet the actual developers from Crystal Dynamics and some awesome people from Square Enix Europe (and no I won’t be blaming separate people for company’s decisions either). Let alone I was blessed to interview some people from Core Design (hopefully will interview a few more later, more on this soon).

The list can go on and on! Lara Croft indeed changed my life starting from my crazy teenage years where I was even bullied in school for avidly playing a game with a female protagonist.

However, I am indeed terribly sorry that I am not “fanly enough” (or “fan at all”?) to downgrade from my gaming laptop to some console.

This is like telling me to get an Iphone because you can play Tomb Raider I on it even though my Galaxy Note III can emulate any PS1 game with a full gamepad support; BUT HEY YOU MUST GET AN IPHONE COZ IT HAS AN OFFICIAL PORT YOU AINT FAN OTHERWISE!!!! I wonder if you guys got all the games for gameboy (and gameboy itself just to play those Tomb Raider games for it)?

On pictures is me with Rhianna Pratchett, Darrel Galagher, fellow fan Athora on Eurogamer Expo and in Square Enix offices. 

Sincerely, Ash. (not a) tomb raider fan.

As a solidarity with our readers who have PC and PS4 we will be avoiding publishing spoilers here and on our Facebook page. There will be two exceptions:
1 a completely impartial (as always, duh) review
2 a Let’s Play video on Xbox 360
In the meantime, we will continue our work mostly as a TR classics oriented fansite (as we always were tbh). We also will be hosting many more competitions and giveaways in 2016.

The post My personal Reaction to Tomb Raider being an Xbox exclusive appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

“Yes, Microsoft will be publishing Rise of the Tomb Raider on Xbox. Microsoft has always seen huge potential in Tomb Raider and they will get behind this game with more support across development, marketing and retail than ever before, which we believe will be a step in continuing to build the Tomb Raider franchise as one of the biggest in gaming.”

No details on PS4 or PC release and this statement is also as vague as it gets (only blind, deaf and completely brainless squirrel wouldn’t know that Microsoft would be publishing the game on its own console!). Personally I think it will be out on all the platforms in time

However people are still expressing their concerns over the “exclusive” announce last Summer. Here are some comments from the official Tomb Raider website. 

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