On the way up this hill, the player is given their first taste of a real combat scenario: wolves spring forth from the brush and it's up to the player to fend them off with the bow. Two arrows should do it as far as wolf persecution goes, but an experimental player will find that the bow does more damage the longer it is drawn before being loosed, so one can be enough with a clean enough shot. For a person still new to 3D gaming, this was a major chore. Getting used to the fact that both thumbs should be on the analog sticks at almost all times was hard enough, but dual-sticks plus dual-triggers for combat was almost enough for her to throw her hands up, especially when we found that the wolves were respawning enemies if you were to wander too far back to the campfire. I would have been delighted by this, actually; an early place for me to grind out a skill level with never-ending bad guys and an equally abundant supply of weapons. But this was our time, not just mine, and after she handed me the controller when finally opening the door, she was fine giving me a much longer turn after the lupine beat down.
In fairness, I actually found this to be a pretty lousy set up to learn the combat mechanics. Yes, Lara is given the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of bow shooting with an early run in with a dear, but the confrontation with the wolves shortly thereafter has two key problems: first, the wolves will appear in the same spot every time, but blend very well into the natural surrounding of the brush within the hill. For a non-gamer unused to surveying areas like this, it was easy to be overwhelmed when they pop in and out of small shrubbery, especially when getting the hang on of adjusting the camera while aiming the bow. Luckily, only one of the wolves does fatal damage to you (triggering yet another putrid quick time event, which we'll get back to), so on the Easy combat setting Lara can take quite a bit of punishment, but I could hear audible frustration from my lady as she fumbled around the environment while trying to aim and fire at enemies that went in and out of vision.
The second problem is actually minor, but I think worth pointing out. Had this been nearly every other third-person action game, there would have been a melee option. Points for Tomb Raider for making ranged combat more of viable option (and realistic. No matter what shape LC might be in, the odds of her winning hand-to-hand in a room full of attackers is slim for anyone), but in terms of new players in a game like this, fighting up close is a better way to ease in the neophyte; you walk up to the bad guy and hit a button, then something happens. For a person still getting used to working in combinations of buttons, it was nearly the breaking point.
But things turned around. After making our way though another cave and into the ruins of what seemed like a small village, she was far more interested in her surroundings, leading me to believe that the carrot at the end of the stick is in exploration and not moment-to-moment combat. Trying to figure out minor puzzles and locations of hidden items sparked quite a bit more interaction between the two of us rather than expressions of dissatisfaction with mechanics from her, and this is what I was hoping for all along. I don't exactly think we're over the thumb dexterity hump quite yet, but watching Lara saunter into a dilapidated hut while the camera was spinning wildly in search of a key item or the next destination made me pretty happy that the controller was in my wife's hands and not mine.
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