Tomb Raider 25th Anniversary

[Cartagia]

I've only played the new modern trilogy, which I really enjoyed, but felt that it was a victim of diminishing returns.  It just felt like it was losing focus as it went along, and had a few questionable settings and scenarios as it went on.  Still fun, but didn't grab me like the beginning did.

[telekill]

Regardless of my bit of disappointment with the third game, when they announced this one as being a full on Egyptian adventure, I was pretty excited. This one did seem a bit more difficult than the previous three but the story was better than the third. I enjoyed romping around the pyramids and fighting skeletons. I feel that Core had wanted to force Eidos to accept that they needed a break. I'd try to skip the end but it's a lead directly into the next game. At the end of the game, Lara supposedly dies as the tomb collapses. A developer killing off their main character was a clear message to the publisher.



Now, unlike my previous posts, I'm going to include the next game on this as well as it felt more like DLC than a game.



Regardless that Core killed off Lara, Eidos gave them the finger and told them to find a way to make another Tomb Raider and release it the next year anyway. Oh man... I'd have been angry if I were Core. So they decided to kill off Lara by making a horrible game in Chronicles. I had bought it well after it released and essentially it's a group of Lara's friends remembering some of her adventures over her grave. Yeah... that's the story connecting the four or five mini adventures you play through in that title. Just horrible.

[droaa]

Regardless of my bit of disappointment with the third game, when they announced this one as being a full on Egyptian adventure, I was pretty excited. This one did seem a bit more difficult than the previous three but the story was better than the third. I enjoyed romping around the pyramids and fighting skeletons. I feel that Core had wanted to force Eidos to accept that they needed a break. I'd try to skip the end but it's a lead directly into the next game. At the end of the game, Lara supposedly dies as the tomb collapses. A developer killing off their main character was a clear message to the publisher.



Now, unlike my previous posts, I'm going to include the next game on this as well as it felt more like DLC than a game.



Regardless that Core killed off Lara, Eidos gave them the finger and told them to find a way to make another Tomb Raider and release it the next year anyway. Oh man... I'd have been angry if I were Core. So they decided to kill off Lara by making a horrible game in Chronicles. I had bought it well after it released and essentially it's a group of Lara's friends remembering some of her adventures over her grave. Yeah... that's the story connecting the four or five mini adventures you play through in that title. Just horrible.

These two never played but my best friends swears by Last Revelation which I can understand given the setting itself and as stated, this was supposed to be the end of her. Unfortunately it doesnt stop with Chronicles and the jump to PS2 *le sigh*

[justin8301]

I just started up the Tomb Raider reboot after reading through this thread. I've been looking for something similar to Uncharted for a while, and while it isnt as lighthearted, it still scratching that itch for me.

[telekill]

I just started up the Tomb Raider reboot after reading through this thread. I've been looking for something similar to Uncharted for a while, and while it isnt as lighthearted, it still scratching that itch for me.

Awesome. I'm looking forward to replaying them as well but I'm holding off until I get a proper PS2 HDMI cable.

[telekill]

Finally having the time to continue on with the main series timeline....

Angel of Darkness on PS2 was a promise from Core and Eidos that they were going to make sure that the "next gen" at the time sequel to the series was going to be phenomenal. They had hyped this game up for so long and so high that pretty much any fan of the series was on board. This game also took what felt at the time as forever to develop. I believe it was 3 years which considering they were pushing out the PS1 game once a year was an immense amount of time. They showed trailers and screen shots and the graphics looked insane. The story looked incredible.

EXPECTATION:


I was an incredibly poor college student at the time and in order to afford the $50 game at launch, I ate raman noodles and mac and cheese for a month straight. I got it at launch, popped it in the PS2, and regret came shortly after. The controls were wonky. Lara moved very slowly in comparison. The environments were drab and uninspired for most the game. The story was slow to progress into anything interesting. Then when we thought it was going to get interesting... it didn't. Then the game was plagued by glitches. At one point, I had Lara literally floating up off the screen for no reason.

This was hands down the worst Tomb Raider. It was the bottom of the barrel; an unfinished game. The series was essentially dead because of this and Chronicles before it. Eidos had ran it into the ground and it was so incredibly sad.

REALITY:

[droaa]

Finally having the time to continue on with the main series timeline....

Angel of Darkness on PS2 was a promise from Core and Eidos that they were going to make sure that the "next gen" at the time sequel to the series was going to be phenomenal. They had hyped this game up for so long and so high that pretty much any fan of the series was on board. This game also took what felt at the time as forever to develop. I believe it was 3 years which considering they were pushing out the PS1 game once a year was an immense amount of time. They showed trailers and screen shots and the graphics looked insane. The story looked incredible.

EXPECTATION:


I was an incredibly poor college student at the time and in order to afford the $50 game at launch, I ate raman noodles and mac and cheese for a month straight. I got it at launch, popped it in the PS2, and regret came shortly after. The controls were wonky. Lara moved very slowly in comparison. The environments were drab and uninspired for most the game. The story was slow to progress into anything interesting. Then when we thought it was going to get interesting... it didn't. Then the game was plagued by glitches. At one point, I had Lara literally floating up off the screen for no reason.

This was hands down the worst Tomb Raider. It was the bottom of the barrel; an unfinished game. The series was essentially dead because of this and Chronicles before it. Eidos had ran it into the ground and it was so incredibly sad.

REALITY:

Being young and naive was what got me to go through the game from start to finish despite the incomplete nature of it all. To this day I remember a section of the game I was having a hard time involving getting over a fence of sorts cuz I couldn't get the jump right and on my last attempt, I didnt make it but rather glitched myself through said fence which was awesome but at the same time was something that shouldn't have happened. What makes this game's development even worst from what I've heard was that because they were working on this and Chronicles at the same time, they split the teams giving the Angle of Darkness team less experienced members among other things like user feedback that by all accounts was BS because one of the pieces of feedback given to them was that players were sick of exploring tombs which again BS because that was one of the major complaints about this game. All in all, it was a mess. One piece of praise I will give this game is in the music department. I thought they did really well with it especially the theme to the game. Also I didnt like the fact that they kind of glossed over Lara's death in Last Revelation.

[telekill]

When Eidos announced that they had removed the Tomb Raider IP from Core, I was a bit shocked at first, but not surprised given the last two games to have released. Legend was the first outing with the series made by Crystal Dynamics and while I was a bit skeptical, I watched the trailers and was impressed with what I saw. I decided this was the make or break title in the series for me and picked it up day one. Luckily, I was far more financially stable and didn't have to eat ramen and mac and cheese to afford it.



When I started playing the game, I was excited to feel a difference in the controls. They were modernized for the time and Lara didn't feel like a sloth anymore. She could maneuver with ease and even better were the environments. She was back in the tombs and searching for ancient artifacts. Legend was the Tomb Raider game that Angel of Darkness should have been and I believe a majority of the fanbase agreed. Crystal Dynamics had brought the series back from the brink.

Now, it's been quite a while since I played this one but I'm thinking I'll have to replay once I finally get a good HDMI converter for my PS2. I believe that Lara was after King Author's Sword of Excalibur. I can't remember all the fine details but I remember she had a "crew" of helpers that felt loosely based on the crew Lara has in the original live action movies. They weren't bad, but were kind of "meh".



Lara also sported a new grappling hook that she could use to help pull things down for puzzles or to swing around. It was pretty nifty. Yeah... I said nifty, but the game itself simply felt like a great Tomb Raider adventure built from the ground up for the current gen of the time. It was great to see the series on track again. This would also mark the first Tomb Raider released on a Nintendo system via Gamecube and the first Xbox Tomb Raider game as Xbox was now a thing. It would also be the first time that a full port of a Tomb Raider game made it onto a handheld via PSP as the PSP was essentially a portable version of the PS2 but of course, slightly less powerful. Tomb Raider was out there and you could now play it on almost anything you wanted. Lara was back in a big way.

[telekill]

One of the first remakes that I can remember after RE Remake on Gamecube.... TR Anniversary is a complete remake from the ground up of the first Tomb Raider adventure. It implemented the same control scheme as Legend which was great and the graphical overhaul after only a single generation of gaming was pretty impressive.



My most memorable portion of this was the redone T-Rex boss fight. They actually had it as a boss normal boss fight instead of just another "animal" to kill and I really enjoyed the hell out of it. Everything was nailed down perfectly in this game.



Once again, there were quite a few releases of this one ranging from PSP to the newly released at the time Xbox 360. They even later ported it to the Wii (with motion controls *vomit*) which I think was the last Tomb Raider game on a Nintendo. I still have my PS2 copy and plan to replay it once I get a decent HDMI adapter for my system. I'm also going to buy a second complete copy to frame up in my next shadowbox that I'm going to design based on the series.

[telekill]

First off, apologies for the super massive photo of the box art. I couldn't find a decent one that was smaller in size. It was either "go big" or you get a crappy discolored version. But let's talk about the box art shall we? There's no denying that Lara has a great body; most fictional heroines do. However, who thought it was a good idea to cut off the top of Lara's head? Seriously? She's the star of the entire series and they go and cut off the top of her head for the main box art on this. Very odd design decision. Then the icon on the front saying Dualshock 3 compatible.... well duh! You're playing this on a PS3! What else would it be compatible with? 

Next up, this was my first HD outing with Tomb Raider. As I recall, there was a decent amount of time between Anniversary and Underworld so I was ready for the new adventure in all it's HD glory. I had even gotten myself an HDTV shortly after PS3 launched. At the time, the graphics were incredible.



Those HD visuals paled in comparison to the wallpapers that Eidos and Crystal Dynamics released to sell the game though. In most of the action shots of the wallpapers for the game, Lara is stunning. I always thought it would be funny to just once see her have a face of "oh crap" as she misses a jump as was so often in the PS1 days.

As for the story... I can't barely remember it. I haven't played this one in forever. I remember bits and pieces of it. There was a great start to the game where you're on a boat and have to dive pretty far down to investigate something. Then there's some great temples. One point where there was a massive octopus that I think was a boss of sorts. It honestly felt a bit disjointed at times like it was a bunch of ideas thrown out at a development meeting and everyone got to add something. Anywhere from various animals that Lara could get mauled by to giant spiders crawling around. It was an odd mix bag of things to play through.



Regardless of the oddities though, the game still looked great and had the similar controls we were now used too since Crystal Dynamics had taken over. It was their worst game so far but it wasn't bad. It wasn't anywhere near Chronicles or Angel of Darkness bad, but it was getting to feel boring and they knew something had to change. They knew it and so they started plotting a reboot.

[droaa]

First off, apologies for the super massive photo of the box art. I couldn't find a decent one that was smaller in size. It was either "go big" or you get a crappy discolored version. But let's talk about the box art shall we? There's no denying that Lara has a great body; most fictional heroines do. However, who thought it was a good idea to cut off the top of Lara's head? Seriously? She's the star of the entire series and they go and cut off the top of her head for the main box art on this. Very odd design decision. Then the icon on the front saying Dualshock 3 compatible.... well duh! You're playing this on a PS3! What else would it be compatible with? 

Next up, this was my first HD outing with Tomb Raider. As I recall, there was a decent amount of time between Anniversary and Underworld so I was ready for the new adventure in all it's HD glory. I had even gotten myself an HDTV shortly after PS3 launched. At the time, the graphics were incredible.



Those HD visuals paled in comparison to the wallpapers that Eidos and Crystal Dynamics released to sell the game though. In most of the action shots of the wallpapers for the game, Lara is stunning. I always thought it would be funny to just once see her have a face of "oh crap" as she misses a jump as was so often in the PS1 days.

As for the story... I can't barely remember it. I haven't played this one in forever. I remember bits and pieces of it. There was a great start to the game where you're on a boat and have to dive pretty far down to investigate something. Then there's some great temples. One point where there was a massive octopus that I think was a boss of sorts. It honestly felt a bit disjointed at times like it was a bunch of ideas thrown out at a development meeting and everyone got to add something. Anywhere from various animals that Lara could get mauled by to giant spiders crawling around. It was an odd mix bag of things to play through.



Regardless of the oddities though, the game still looked great and had the similar controls we were now used too since Crystal Dynamics had taken over. It was their worst game so far but it wasn't bad. It wasn't anywhere near Chronicles or Angel of Darkness bad, but it was getting to feel boring and they knew something had to change. They knew it and so they started plotting a reboot.

The Dualshock 3 compatible logo was used due to Sony reintroducing rumble to the PS3 controller after initially launching without rumble as a result of the Sixaxis and I guess it was a selling point for them to include in their games since the earlier PS3 games lacked it.

[telekill]

The Dualshock 3 compatible logo was used due to Sony reintroducing rumble to the PS3 controller after initially launching without rumble as a result of the Sixaxis and I guess it was a selling point for them to include in their games since the earlier PS3 games lacked it.

Fair enough. I appreciate the reminder. 

[telekill]

When Crystal Dynamics stated they were rebooting the franchise, I was skeptical at best. When it released, I waited on buying it to hear what everyone else really had to say about it. I even bought it used for a deal because I had no confidence that the game would be any good. It totally blew me away when I played it. It wasn't really a reboot per-se but an origin story of how Lara became the Tomb Raider we all knew and CD did an incredible job on it.



Aside from the great graphics and camera angel that brought you into the action more, CD had focused on a new mechanic for the game in the bow. The bow was a great addition to the series and it was so well executed that it actually made me want to learn how to shoot a bow myself. I actually ended up buying a recurve bow. Back to the game though, it was so satisfying to take down enemies with the bow.

The story bringing everything together was pretty well done too. Finding out that Lara had a father figure that she had learned so much from coupled with other friends on her wrecked ship was an interesting story to be told. The cult that you end up going up against was interesting as well. Then you tie in the supernatural conclusion of the game and you could tell what CD was going for on how you get to watch Lara go from an average person to an adventure driven person with the ability to take on the odds.



The one critique that many had with this game is that it didn't really have any tombs. The island in which you're running around on has various secluded areas that were deemed to be tombs that if you figure out the puzzle, you got to open a chest at the end with some goodies. It wasn't really until near the end of the game that we get to the tomb aspect of the island with an ancient Japanese Goddess temple.

You do end up going into various areas on the island that look more a kin to a WW2 bunker where I believe some experimentation on the weather patterns on the island were taking place. The weather patterns were what was keeping all that came to the island from leaving. The weather would destroy or crash any vehicle which is what crashed Lara's ship at the start of the game. You don't find out why until near the end so I won't ruin it here in case you're still planning to play and haven't yet.

As a quick note, this came out at a time when multiplayer gaming was being half-assed thrown into every game and this was no different. There was a very much forgettable multiplayer mode thrown into this that I think a few played for a while but it was all pretty boring and the modes were much better implemented in other games.



The game quickly became a favorite of mine and I couldn't wait to see more of this new aspect of Tomb Raider as it was now stated that the full story arc of Lara becoming the Tomb Raider we all knew, was now going to be trilogy.

[telekill]

The sequel to the successful reboot was a disaster in terms of how the fanbase was treated due to Square taking a deal with Microsoft. You didn't feel the punch in the gut if you were an Xbox gamer, but for those of us on Playstation and PC that had always had Tomb Raider on our platforms... well, we got f**ked. Lord knows how many millions Microsoft handed to Square to ensure it was exclusive to their platform for a year. It was stated that the funds helped to develop the game because Square was being cheap as hell. I think I did the math at the time and cutting out both the Playstation and PC fanbase from the series was something like 72% of who had bought the 2013 reboot. A ridiculously high number. Then Square wonders why the sequel didn't sell as many copies as they were hoping. I did eventually get to play the game though.



The great gameplay was still intact but the rest of the game felt boring in comparison to the previous. The levels you're running around in felt very much the same with little diverse terrane. Then the story was boring and predictable. Every plot twist was seen coming a mile away. I was able to know exactly how each character would play out as t hey were introduced and it was horrible. I think it was the let down of the story that was the final peg in the coffin for this game for me. I only bothered playing it once where-as I had played the previous game a dozen times.

What they did a good job on this time is add in a bunch of new animals. I say "new" but many if not all of these animals were in the series at some point during the PS1-PS2 days. For example, they made a big deal out of bears being added into the series when bears were in the original Tomb Raider that released in 1996. Still, with modern graphics the bears in Rise were far more scary to take on than in the original.



While I was forced to wait to play Rise, it was how Rise played out that made me choose to wait on playing the next game in the series; Shadow.

[droaa]

The Dualshock 3 compatible logo was used due to Sony reintroducing rumble to the PS3 controller after initially launching without rumble as a result of the Sixaxis and I guess it was a selling point for them to include in their games since the earlier PS3 games lacked it.

Fair enough. I appreciate the reminder. 

No problem