Tomb Raider – PC Vs. Xbox 360 Comparison
The reboot to the much loved Tomb Raider series is something that people have been waiting for for quite a long time now. Whether you thought it was going to be a disappointment or a bold new chapter in Lara Croft’s history, there’s no doubt that you were waiting with anticipation for the game to finally be released.
Well, that day has finally come to pass and everyone who was excited to get their hands on Lara’s latest adventure finally has their chance to get their hands dirty. We all want that experience to look as good as can be though right? Is it worth getting the game on PC, or should you just get it on the trustworthy old consoles?
Without further ado, here’s the video you’ve all been waiting to see. Please bare in mind that we seem to have been having audio issues with the PC recording, it doesn’t affect the visuals – the thing you’re all here to see – but it’s there and we’re working on fixing it for future recordings.
The first thing to mention is that both versions of the game look fantastic, the PC version does have better shadows and lighting – something that we’ve come to expect now – but when it comes down to it, they both look excellent. This biggest addition to the PC version of Tomb Raider was the brand new hair physics engine, TressFX. This is something that we decided to disable during this comparison due to the fact that it has a tendency (at least at the time of writing, although there’s always a chance that patch gets released to remedy it) to dramatically decrease the amount of frames that the PC is able to deliver. Just think about it, the game has to determine where each strand of hair is going to be, based on physics, and then render that single strand of hair into the scene. That’s a massive amount of required processing power.
The other thing that’s noticeable too, is that the lightning in the opening cutscene doesn’t flash at the same time in both versions of the game; even though the frames are in sync. This isn’t a massive deal but it does mean that the environmental effects are generated dynamically by the game, and they’re not something that is scripted into the scenario. Maybe that’s something you care about, maybe it’s not, but it’s there and I found it interesting, so I thought I’d share it.
What did you think? Does it change which format you’ll be getting the game on if you – for some reason – haven’t already bought it yet? Let us know in the comments below and don’t forget to keep coming back for more comparisons and other videos.
Tomb Raider is available now for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC.
Martin Baker
By day I play video games, test video games or just simply write about them. By night I fight crime on the streets of London as a masked vigilante known only to a select few ... damn SECRET identity. Could never get the hang of that.
I've been writing about video games for about 10 years now, and playing them for even longer, starting off with a Spectrum ZX passed down to me in about 1988. Yes, I used to play games that came on cassettes. Yes, they were AWESOME!
I've been writing for God is a Geek since October 2010 and loving every minute of it, aside from that I write for my own website and work as a video game tester for Testology. So, yeah, I'm pretty much living the life of a gamer, and I don't intend stopping anytime soon thank you very much.
Unless I run out of money, then we might have a problem.
