Tomb Raider

So I have resolved to actually start a site.

So here it is.

C’est tout?

Non, let’s talk Tomb Raider.

Mais à la place… c’est l’aventure qui m’a trouvée.

I’ve streamed PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate off and on, but Tomb Raider feels like the first thing I’ve finished when it comes to livestreaming (for one, I have yet to finish PixelJunk).

For the record though, this was playthrough #4, but hey, I finished it on difficult which is some sort of achievement since I play almost everything on easy.

See, I’m a tourist, and I generally cherish playing through new things more than I cherish playing through the same fight again and again until I can finally pass it. Back when I played on PC all the time, I used god mode. In retrospect, it seems kind of silly, but it really does drive home my point about being in it for the tourism. On single player anyway.

Here are my previous Tomb Raider playthroughs:

• PS3 - Spanish (first and on easy)
• PS3 - French
• PC - French
• PS4 - French (hard)

What struck me most about this time through frankly was how much I wasn’t enjoying it. Since I can’t rewind and try again, I can’t know how much of it was just nerves about livestreaming. Or maybe it’s just the fact that between the time I played it last (fall of ‘13) and now, I’ve just seen far too many speedruns.

yeah, put speedrunner on my resume

I managed to get three of the glitchy tricks I had learned through watching others (mostly TheArtisticBallistic who speedruns on PC). I attempted many more than that.

To clarify, I definitely wasn’t speedrunning, this was just the first time I had the opportunity to try some of these glitches.

glitches I got

falling through a campfire

I actually accidentally glitched myself into the “floor” by somehow falling into a campfire, about 20 minutes into the game (basically your first campfire).

It threw me under the world and I could move super fast, but I had never seen this happen before so I didn’t know if there was an actual point. Eventually, I apparently ran into something under the floor (or perhaps the floor’s floor gave way) and I died. It was amusing at the least.

Perhaps I can figure out how to use it for good… if I can ever figure out how to do that again.

shortcut to the wolf’s den

My first pseudo-glitch was when you need to get to the wolf’s den (je veux juste récupérer le sac!) and you’re basically supposed to go the long way to the right. But if you know how to get up on the roof of own of the buildings, you can basically head straight for the wolf’s den without having to take the detour

jumping through a wall

Next would be in the base type of thing before you get to the snowy area. If I remember the proper way of getting through, I believe you open up a gas main and then throw a lit lantern into the area to get the room to explode. This will pin an enemy under a concrete block and is where you get your next weapon.

Well, basically the door in the room with the gas main has a hollow area above it where you can jump through. I’m not sure how difficult this glitch is. I swear I tried it a bunch of times on PC and never got it but somehow magically glitched through the door on my second attempt on the PS4.

And if you’re curious, the gun will be there, but the dying guy will not.

elevator puzzle skip

Next is the elevator puzzle. Oh god the elevator puzzle. I’ve seen others get stuck there for ages and I myself got stuck there on my second playthrough (I guess because it had been too many months since the first playthrough and I couldn’t remember where everything was).

Well, eff that.

Instead, just glitch through the door. I got this one on the first try once I actually went back and rewatched a video that demonstrated it (some of these I was just trying from memory). Basically, you can aim a grenade at like the 3rd step from the bottom (when you’re higher up than it), then run down to the door, and keep trying to roll through the door (whatever the circle button does).

If you get it, as soon as the grenade explodes, it will clip you through the door and voilà, no damn elevator puzzle.

glitches I tried and didn’t get

the skip on the way to the radio tower

Basically with this one, you can skip a whole bunch of fights by ending up out of bounds and taking a shortcut to go direct to the radio tower.

massive bidonville skip

You run into Grim and you’re supposed to climb the ladder that gets destroyed. Then you’re supposed to have a big battle and end up meeting back up with Grim like 5-10 minutes of gameplay later (or more if you’re exploring Bidonville).

Instead, there is a huge skip in this area. I’ll have to find a clip because it’s absolutely insane.

caves “friendship” skip

I think that was the nickname for it. Basically, three of your friends are in the suspended cage of sorts. Well, if you can manage to jump up on to this railing, you can skip the puzzle.

research base fight skip

You’ll find a guy who’s committed seppuku and then end up in a massive fight.

Or, you could skip the entire fight if you can glitch your way up onto a platform.

end boss skip

I tried this a bunch of times. In fact, I even made a save in a different slot so that I could keep trying it to my heart’s content.

Basically, when you end up in the final area, instead of moving forward and commencing several fights before the final fight with the big guy, you can skip it all by turning around and making two just right jumps that get you into the area with the, um, “quicktime event boss fight”.

thoughts on livestreaming

This was actually what I was intending to write about and now I’ve left it for last when I’m no longer interested in writing about it. Har.

I had a love/hate thing with the lack of viewers. Zero viewers meant I could freely run off to take breaks (apparently I’m “out of shape” when it comes to gaming, so my eyes were hurting fairly often). But it was depressing too obviously.

I still “fondly” remember when I got my first viewer and I just kind of froze. I had been doing running commentary because apparently I’m a little too good at talking to myself. The first person happened to show up in the middle of a cutscene, so I wasn’t midstream with my babble. And when the cutscene ended I just felt kind of paralyzed.

Luckily, it didn’t last forever.

All in all, my weeklong stream netted a grand total of zero new followers, a metric ton of people who came into the stream and left a “die” comment and took off, and a few random people who actually talked to me.

In some ways the most depressing part came a few days after I finished the stream. I was messing around with my elgato and trying to get it to pick up the mic that was connected to the PS4 (still haven’t figured that one out) and then I did a quick stream of the end part so that I could see how well the elgato worked.

I got a grand total of eight viewers. For me, that was a record. Not only that, but they were actually chatting. But it basically happened right at the end boss fight and it was too late at night for me to start a brand new game to see if I could keep some of them around. Such is the transient nature of livestreaming.

I have to say, I love that livestreaming on the PS4 is frictionless. But I hate the fact that the quality isn’t great if your upload sucks. That and things glitch (either twitch, the ps4, or my internet) leaving gaps in the video.

I was hoping for a frictionless solution for something where I could go back and make a proper let’s play video if I wanted to, but apparently that ain’t gonna happen if I’m only streaming to twitch.

Frankly, my biggest motivation with trying the livestreaming was just to have records of playing certain things. It becomes an odd memory device when you get to take a trip down memory lane… in a freaking game.

But my motivation for continuing to livestream is simply that I just want to get better at it.

I want to be someone who’s good at speaking off the cuff and better yet, can actually make an audience feel welcome.

I’m often amazed at some of the streamers who just really seem to have this knack to make everyone feel part of something. I don’t necessarily crave to be at the center of that something that everyone’s a part of, but I would love to be able to reach out to people on that level.

Plus, I really need to learn how to deal with trolls mostly because of some of the areas I hold myself back in because I’m afraid of the negative criticism/outright hate speech.

And if my experience with watching other people’s twitch streams means anything, if I build even the smallest of audiences, the trolls are sure to follow.