Rise of the Tomb Raider [XO, XOX, X360, PS4, P4Pro]

That's certainly true, but I would bet that if they released a new Tomb Raider based on the same gameplay as the first Tomb Raider, it wouldn't have done nearly as well as the reboot. It likely would have done better in the first few months but interest would have tailed off much faster.

Puzzle platformers just don't do as well as they did in the past. And other than that, the series up until the reboot had rather simplistic combat.

Myself I liked the first Tomb Raider far more than the reboot (I don't like the Uncharted formula) but the general public sees things differently than I do. And I think Crystal Dynamics, looking back in hindsight, were correct in changing the formula and not going with yet another evolution of the Tomb Raider series up until that point. That said, I still wish they'd have put in more tombs.

Regards,
SB

 

I dont think anyone's point was to copy paste the previous Tomb Raider formula

 

Only the controls are crappy, TR anniversary is a quality game and it's pretty much the first TR with improved mechanics/movement controls and pretty graphics.

 

Were they crappy? I still prefer them to many modern games. The problem is; most games now days adopt a control scheme where pressing left moves the player left according to the camera, which is freely movable. So left, is always left from the cameras point of position. In the old Tomb Raiders and older games, left/right was rotate, front always front etc irregardless where the camera was facing. The camera was usually always centered at the back of the character. I think this sort of controls were much better suited to the game that Tomb Raider was back then; Essentially a platforming game built around some crazy adventure with action elements. They were also very precise controls and the game required this. Make one wrong move and you fall off a cliff - time the jumps bad (which was just a matter of correct distance) and you'd fall to your death etc.

If you move away from this control scheme and to something like we see in modern games, you can forget the precise nature of platforming. Then you end up with something like Uncharted where jumping is all a bit mushy and the character (the engine) does most of the work for you. Then you have something with huge tolerances, as it's practically impossible to accurately make your character move precise enough because the movement of the character is always dependent on the variable camera.

I guess if you are building something like an adventure game, it's okay, as the focus isn't on the platforming challenging level design anymore, but more on the story and the scenery you built for your game. I guess the original Tomb Raider games don't really work from that angle in a modern incarnation anymore. I think it has evolved well as a game and the Uncharted-style is probably best suited to a game like Tomb Raider. My only criticism in regards to the new games isn't the engine, or the control scheme, but that they effectively made it an incoherent action game. I would have rather had a more atmospheric adventuring game with more wildlife and less enemy foes. Focus on puzzling, adventuring, a bit of platforming, exploration and use enemies as a means for distinct parts during the game.

 

I see no advantage on tank-like controls, they slow down gameplay and make it boring. Plus, they translate very poorly to an analog stick. The best 3D platformers from the old Tomb Raider's era ( Mario 64, Banjo, Spyro ...) all controled relative to the camera, which alows for much more dinamic and agile movement, and they all required precision nonetheless. The diference, is thanks to better agility, they could mix moments of precision with others of quick thinking and improvisation, which is close to impossible within the carefull set-up and execute scheme of Tomb Raider. They had much more varied platforming, and nintendo can still find new interesting situations to put their players in to this day on their 3d mario games. Old Tomb Raider's platforming was an exercise in repeating the same procedures to no end. It was a game of leaping cliffs with a different texture in each level. Yay fun! I sincerely didn't understand how people kept finding those games fun even back then. How many times can aliging your character to a edge and pressing jump as late as possible before falling remain fun after doing it the exact same way in every level, in every game?

 

Actually, Croc had the same tank-like controls, and it was fun. But it did that through the use of all sorts of moving platform combinations and all unrealistic clock-work-like situations its designers could think of. No level in a Tomb Raider ever aproached that amount of dynamism.

 

I think you are forgetting that essentially, every ego-shooter has "tank-like controls". Yes. Forward is forward, back is back, left/right are rotating your POV either clock-wise or anti-clock-wise. It's the same thing. The only difference to the old Tomb Raider games is that it wasn't from the first-person-perspective, but a "behind the character 3rd person view" - but the camera was always centered directly behind the character so it wasn't a big deal.

If you go to the more modern 3rd person controls, that being that you are simply dictating in which direction a character moves relative to the position of the camera, it becomes rather imprecise because the camera is usually at an angle and you have to program the character to apply the movement (e.g. turn the character in the direction you want it to move, then make a step forward - and that all has to come across in a coordinated plausible way in conjunction to her feet and the steps). But in reality, we are so used to these controls that we tend to play it the same as we used to during the old "tank like controls". We usually center the camera behind the camera and then we push forward to move the character forward and when we want the character to take turns, we use the camera to rotate the angle of view which will lead to the character taking turns. Same thing. But it's still more imprecise for what started out as an adventure-platforming game with action elements.

 

You are basically saying with modern double analog sheme, you can play in both the old shooter way, AND the platformer way. How is that bad? The loss in precision is pretty much negligible to any good player (if not non-existent actually) while the gain in agility is HUGE.

 

I'd like an old school Tomb Raider with Infamous SS controls and tech that allows you to climb anything that should be climbable. And dinosaurs - the only good Tomb Raider was the one with Dino's.

 

I think my point was rather that both controls suit a certain type of game. For instance what I've always disliked about the modern controls is that they are dependent on the camera. If the camera shifts, so does the function of the directional thumb-stick. On the tank-like-controls, this isn't a problem. A generic example to illustrate the point; In Tomb Raider 2 in one of the first levels (Peru), but pretty much present in every older Tomb Raider game, you might have Lara having to dodge some crazy trap/mechanism. In that Peru level, a boulder would come smashing down the corridor and you'd have to maneuver her through obstacles jumping or avoid them. In this scene of the game, the camera would shift to the back to show what is happening behind her (the boulder comes crashing down) in one fluid cinematic motion. This is not a problem at all, because due to the tank-like-controls, it's entirely detached from the camera; E.g. pressing front is still running forward, irregardless where the camera is pointing in that instance.

To do that in a modern game is very difficult, because once you shift the camera for 'cinematic' purposes, you are altering the meaning of pressing "forward". You would constantly have to re-adjust to keep the character moving in the direction relative to the camera. Most modern games simply add a cinematographic non-interactive scene with perhaps a QTE-press-button-in-the-right time (which there are many in the Tomb Raider remake).

I'm not saying I prefer the old Tank-like-Controls. I just liked them for what they were; A precise instrument and control scheme for the type of game Tomb Raider used to be; A platformer with complex maneuvering of obstacles etc. At the same time, the modern controls is something I've always disliked about the latest Tomb Raider remake and even the Uncharted games too - the platforming just feels rather dumbed down. Like in Uncharted, pressing the button in the right 2 second time-frame (ok, I'm exaggerating a little) will result in the perfect jump irregardless, because the game knows that the controls are not suited for split-second timing and perfect movement in the right direction when the camera, for cinematographic reasons, is in a less optimal angle. Uncharted works, because it's mainly story driven and it's essentially a shooter at heart with lots of variety of gameplay chucked in.

Tomb Raider however has been, at least for me, a game rooted in the adventuring, puzzle-solving and perhaps even platforming genre. Most of the puzzles in the older Tomb Raider games wasn't in solving complex wall puzzles - they were about finding missing pieces or attempting to figure out how to get from A to B - and questioning if there even was a way to get to that ledge. Getting there usually involved complex platforming, climbing, moving blocks, jumping from one to the next until you might reach the destination you thought might lead you to a secret tomb, maybe a hidden statue.. or indeed further into the complex cave and progress the game. That was what Tomb Raider was about. Exploring, adventuring, feeling like a little curious boy what might lie behind the next obstacle.

Which is perhaps my biggest criticism to these new modern Tomb Raider games; They're just too dumbed down, they pretty much lay out where you need to go and getting there proposes absolutely no challenge at all, since the engine is designed to help and guide you. It's a glorified shooter in my opinion, just like Uncharted, but masked by the story of Lara and that background mandating that there are a few tombs built around the game so that people recognize it as a Tomb Raider game...

I miss the old Tomb Raider games for what they were and what they used to represent. I never bought Tomb Raider because I wanted to shoot things. I actually liked the complex maneuvering and exploring using tank-like-controls, because the element of curiosity and exploration it resulted in was grande in my opinion. Sure, it probably is difficult to combine all these things in a modern reincarnation of that game, and I'm happy to admit modern controls are a must, but I still think the exploration should get a front seat in such a game. I love Uncharted, for what it is, and I used to love Tomb Raider for different reasons. I don't want a hybrid of both games.

 

I don't see how a modern engine couldn't do what you described with the boulder example.

I never played the old tomb raiders that much but I really liked the last game. I agree it's really dumbed down and making it a bit more challenging wouldn't hurt but in general I like the formula.

Now if crystal dynamics would only do a remake of legacy of kain: soul reaver then I would be so happy.

 

1 Hr of Xbox 360 footage, I gotta say I'm really impressed in what Nixxes accomplished with this version.

 

I really wouldn't mind it if CD gave an option to turn off their expensive hair (guess that's where the Windows version comes in...). The 360 hair really isn't that bad although it still has the floatiness.

 

I see. You are right. That is indeed an advantage of that control sheme. But its funny how, since my introduction to 3d character games was through Mario 64, and his other relatives, I think I can handle the imprecisions of camera-relative movement so well i pretty much rarely even notice it. And a lot of those games require a lot of precision jumping too, so it's not the control style that is responsible for the over-forgivingness of uncharted, its a design choice related to keeping pacing, and creating a less arcadey/gamey experience and something more organic and fun to watch.

 

Gone but here is another. As you say very impressive given the conaole age. Gets me excited to know what the now current gen will achieve.

 

Any opinions about the Deluxe version vs. Standard?

 

So has anyone picked this up yet?
Looks like it's getting great reviews and impressions.

I will probably pick it up this weekend.

 

If you ever want to play some co-op let me know.