A Shadow Falls Over A Raided Tomb

Good morning everybody,

Last day of November... wonder how many people actually completed the No Nut November nonsense?  My guess is no on!

Anyway, last night we started up Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and boy does it tease with the whole Lara is gonna start with all her gear prologue... only for her to have just her bow at the start of the main story. At the very least it is acknowledged with in the game that Lara doesn't pack all her gear together, so there is a justified, if not silly, reasons for her to have to re-acquire all her abilities from the first two games.

In terms of scope, it does feel like Shadow of the Tomb Raider is much smaller in scale than Rise of the Tomb Raider, despite the stakes being higher, since Lara accidentally started the apocalypse, as I seem to be almost shuffled along from major story point to major story point.. Even as I'm taking my time, nothing much is drawing my attention to find tombs and crypts to knock out bonus challenges.

That said, some of the returning gimmicks from Rise and the new stuff introduced in Shadow certainly has resulted in a number of my deaths. The grapple hook swing is a bit of a pain to get right, and swimming with enemies under the way (namely the piranhas) certainly weren't needed considering the panic inducing nature of wanting to get from point and to point b as quickly as possible due to Lara's limited air supply.

I do have to say, I enjoy some of the striking while unseen, as one would expect in the good Rambo movies, there are more logical ways to deal with enemies than in Rise. Some of the puzzles are creative, even if more trial and error is involved.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how much of the story we can knock out tonight. considering the pace the game seems to be set on to get the player moving in the right directions.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to DaemonsW0lf who was playing Hunt: Showdown over at twitch.tv/daemonsw0lf! 

Shadow of the Tomb Raider Achievements

1. Path of the Stars: Decipher the Path of the Stars
2. Día de Muertos: Remove the dagger from the Temple of the Moon
3. Recipe for Disaster: Survive the flood
4. First Steps: Purchase a Skill
5. Survival Instincts: Defeat the Empress Jaguar
6. Asking Price: Buy an item from a merchant
7. Point of Interest: Learn of 5 interesting locations from civilians
8. Unwelcome Guests: Get rid of the pillagers outside of Kuwaq Yaku
9. Help thy Neighbor: Complete a Side Mission
10. Treasures from the Past: Decipher a Monolith
11. Look, Over There!: Kill 3 enemies while they are distracted
12. First Blood: Perform a Stealth Takedown from a mud-covered wall
13. Tables Turned: Kill 5 enemies while they are searching for Lara
14. Fire of Life: Enter the Temple of Life's inner chamber
15. The Hidden City: Find Paititi 

 Twitch Clip Links

• Can We Go Down The Slide?!
• First Blood... Rambo Style! 
• The Slide and The Sudden Drop
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Double Combo #1, Defensive Combo #2 and Defensive Combo #1 for a duration of 28 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 439 kcal. Also turns out only the time spent 'Daily Exercises' count towards the trainers' challenger and champion achievements, as I've only trained with Karen 177 times to close in on her challenger achievement, but with Hiro I've trained 233 times and with Karen 243 times.

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures saw surprising yet not surprising fight against Yotsuyu who regained her memory, at the behest of her step brother as part of a plot to get her to turn into the primal Tsukuyomi. A lot of these events are certainly set up for Shadowbringers, the next part of the story I'll be reaching either by the end of this week or early next. Now I will partially stand corrected in regards to Yotsuyu being redeemed, because in the trial against Tsukuyomi and in it's aftermath, it is quite clear her time with Gosetsu meant something to her.

I still have several main story quests to knock out before wrapping up everything associated with the main plot of Stormblood, and that's not counting any side quests I happen to find that will distract me

For tonight's stream as indicated earlier, we'll be resuming Shadow of the Tomb Raider! We'll try and start around 6:30 PM Eastern, but if I can start earlier I will!

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!