Game Discussion of The Week: Tomb Raider

Added to the review list.

This is one of the games my dad and I used to play together. Really fun, but also very difficult. The mythology and treasure in these games are really something. Unfortunately the controls for this game have not aged very well, they are clunky and awkward at times. Nevertheless a strong 4/5.

I had a really busy week, so only now could comment on it!

Tomb Raider (Saturn version) was one of the first polygonal 3D action-adventure games I ever played, and the first one I've beaten. I had played a few minutes of Super Mario 64 at a store that was demoing it, but not enough to really grasp the concept of moving around in a 3d world; then I had played Virtua Fighter 2, which is a fighting game; I also played Panzer Dragoon Zwei and, although this one really sold me on the concept of 3d action games, it was on-rails, so the actual movement in 3d was rather limited. I also played Bug Too! and Alien Trilogy, but both of those use sprites instead of 3d models. Then I finally rented Tomb Raider, and man, I loved every bit of it. I remember the entire thing being really confusing at first because of the tank controls (my first experience with them). I pressed left, Lara kept spinning around and the camera was going crazy because of the wall. My cousin was with me and kept saying that we should really have rented anything else, as this one seemed to be shitty.

Well, we finally got the grasp of the controls and it just felt so real and atmospheric! The initial tunnels felt absolutely terryfying with all the ambient sound and the darkness - mostly result of the low draw distance, but it worked wonders for this game! As we got used to one kind of enemy/obstacle, the game introduced new things and concepts - by the second level, you have to swim and fight against the first bear, which appears out of nowhere. I rented the game a few times before finally beating it; most of the time, my father and my cousin were also playing, as it was on a vacation month. I remember most of it feeling almost like an horror game, and I was definitely terrified by two levels: The Cistern (I'm always terrified by water levels since then) and The Colosseum, as the arena felt huge - it was this great open area that seemed even bigger because you couldn't see the other side of it, another result of the low draw distance working for ambience. Also, the dinossaurs in the Lost Valley were a huge surprise.

I only played TR2 for a few minutes, as I didn't have a PS1. It felt amazing, and was definitely a reason why I even thought about trading my Saturn (luckily I didn't do it, as nowadays I greatly prefer my Saturn library!). I also played TR4 a few years later, but I thought it was an absurdly dificult game (it is), so I only played a few levels of it.

I got into the series again after playing a demo for Anniversary (pc version). I bought it through Steam, and I have to say: this is pretty much a perfect remake. This is the game (besides the 2013 Reboot) that I recommend for anyone trying to get into the series. It mostly keeps the same locations, enemies and puzzles from the original, but expands the levels and updates the controls: it uses standard 3rd person controls with a fully controlable camera. Also, the jumps are very forgiving, as you don't have to do the same running start before jumping from the original. There's only one thing I don't like about it: it turned the very few bosses of the game into QTEs, which just destroys the T-Rex of this version.

After Anniversary, I of course bought Legend and, later, Underworld, and both of them are great games, although Anniversary is still the best one.

Last year I bought and played almost the entire classic series on pc (1 through 4; I still have to finish 5 and Angel of Darkness), and the 1st one is still the best in my eyes. The Last Revelation is also great, but the levels are just too long, which coupled with some asinine puzzles make it almost impossible to beat without a walkthrough). The thing I love the most about the 1st and its remake is the sense of isolation: it has very little combat and almost no human enemies (only around 4 of them, all bosses). It's mostly an horror game. Also, the puzzles are very clear on what you have to do, you just have to find the best way to go around the obstacles to solve them: that means you solve everything through exploration, and I don't remember ever being stuck in any puzzle. The later games in the series, especially 3 and 4, used a "pc adventure game" logic towards puzzles, which means you might get stuck often, so not even the interesting story and setting of the 4th one makes up for it.

About the different versions of the original, the pc one is clearly the best, being more detailed and having the best framerate and draw distance. Between the PS1 and Saturn versions, I do prefer the Saturn one. The PS1 runs at a higher resolution and more stable framerate, but the Saturn version has a longer draw distance and has a stronger contrast of colors, with the game looking generally darker/grittier (the PS1 version looks slightly washed up with less contrast). I think the palette used in the Saturn version is much more fitting and makes the game scarier.

I also quite like the 2013 reboot, altough it's in an entirely different genre (very little exploration and no sense of isolation, a lot of action and shooting). I've heard Rise of the Tomb Raider dials back the action and goes more for exploration, but I still haven't bought it. I also quite like the first "Lara Croft and..." game, which is an awesome twin-stick arcade shooter and has an excellent multiplayer. While I want to play the sequel, it seems to have a lot of bugs that were never fixed, including lost save files, so I'm wary - it's on my wishlist anyway, so I hope I don't get any game-breaking bugs.

Well, that's a lot of text! This series just has a very important meaning to me, as it reminds me of some very fun weeks with my father and cousin. By the way, neither of us knew english at the time, so the story was completely obscure, which just added to the strangeness of it (although it was easy to generally understand what was going on by the cutscenes). Also, the intro cutscene shows a magazine with the text "Lara Stamps!" in the cover; as I had no manual and didn't know what 'stamps' meant, I just assumed it was her full name. Lara Stamps. Yeah, I was a very stupid kid.

TL:DR - Really atmospheric horror game about isolation and exploration that sold me on the concept of 3d action-adventure games and got an almost perfect remake a decade later.

It's funny, I never really played the first one, I just played 2 and 4. I loved 2 back in the day, but when I tried to play it recently it hasn't aged that well, seriously the controls work against you the entire game and grabbing ledges and/or ladders (Vines in 4) is always a gamble as to whether or not the game will just kill you because the hitreg doesn't feel like putting up with your nonsense.

I would say that I would like the series to be remade in the spirit of the original series instead of the action-oriented modern reboot which I have no interest in but wow, this series really isn't lacking in the remakes and re-imagening departments.

I haven't really played the old ones besides a few minutes each so I can't really compare, but I really love the new ones. The 2013 is great just to see her die, and I also appreciate the presentation as well.

Just today it was leaked that there may be coming another Tomb Raider game called Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The series is alive and well I see.

I love the original Tomb Raider, it's a fantastic timeless game and I still play my original copy regularly to this day. I don't have any complaints about it and it's one of my top favorite games of all time together with the equally flawless Tomb Raider III and the unfortunately imperfect but still amazing Angel of Darkness.

I'm not a fan of Crystal Dynamics' horribly failed attempts at making games that live up to the legendary Tomb Raider name nor their equally horribly failed attempts at making a character that lives up to the legendary name of Lara Croft.
Anniversary is the worst of their first trilogy but it's infinitely better than the 2013 reboot and everything that came after that, I'll give it that much any day.

So I'm split about how to score this, a 5/5 and a 1/5 game with one score to give between the two, but I still opted to give it 5/5 because no matter how much Crystal Dynamics piss all over the legacy I hold so dear to my heart they simply lack the power to go back in time and ruin the real games by Core Design, much like Square Enix can never ruin Final Fantasy VII, From Software can never ruin Armored Core, Capcom can never ruin Devil May Cry, Resident Evil or Mega Man/Mega Man X, Namco can never ruin SoulCalibur, Nintendo can never ruin Super Mario Bros. or Metroid and Sega can never ruin Sonic The Hedgehog for example.

I'll admit that Legend and Underworld were pretty good though, especially Underworld I enjoyed a great deal out of, I just had to do mental gymnastics and pretend what I was playing had nothing to do with Tomb Raider and Lara Croft etc., that the names were just unlucky coincidences and there were no actual connections, and because they are original titles with everything but the names in common with Core Design's games it was doable after only a few years, I hated Legend and everything Crystal Dynamics under that time but after I was able to get past it I could enjoy at least those two games with no real problems.

Unfortunately for Anniversary however, which purely objectively speaking is as solid a game and even slightly better than Legend being a newer game with slightly improved coding, it simply reminds me too much of the real Tomb Raider due to the inspired environments and such that I can't get over what it fails so hard to accomplish, it is no anniversary, it's a mockery.