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[En-ou]

may I remind everyone - this is video games - who the writers are does not matter...

 

[Bits N Pieces]

may I remind everyone - this is video games - who the writers are does not matter...

lol, wut?

 

[martino]

may I remind everyone - this is video games - who the writers are does not matter...

 

[MikeDown]

Sad to say it was certainly the biggest problem. Besides odd pacing due to collectibles the rest of the game is a solid improvement.

I haven't played the first Tomb Raider so I can't really compare. With that said, I came in expecting the story to be garbage so that didn't necessarily bother me as much given the game's other problems. We had issues when it came to optimization and performance, it wasn't very stable at launch either. For me probably the worst thing on that list was the level design, there isn't really any other way to describe the levels as a cluttered maze-like mess. And for a game that is about exploration and discovering tombs (which there weren't much of) there was too much of a focus on being a cover based shooter.

 

[sixteen-bit]

Amazing how OP needs to clarify she's a writer.

 

[Icolin]

may I remind everyone - this is video games - who the writers are does not matter...

 

[Icolin]

lol, wut?

He's the same guy who made this post, so it's not unsurprising: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=227412833&postcount=212

 

[J_Viper]

who the writers are does not matter...

Sure seems that way

 

[Prithee Be Careful]

may I remind everyone - this is video games - who the writers are does not matter...

As long as games have stories, characters, etc, I'd rather they have a decent one than a toe-curling one, you know?

 

[maverick40]

The story and characters were the weak part of the games so this is good news

 

[Seiryoden]

I thought she did well with what was a pretty poor mandate. As a visible female in the industry she's also had to put up with a lot of shit. I wish her all the best and look forward to the next story she has to tell.

 

[Vlaphor]

may I remind everyone - this is video games - who the writers are does not matter...

Normally, I'd agree with you, but the writing in ROTR was so god awful that I chose not to pick up the cheap season pass recently, simply because I couldn't stand the main character.

 

[hawk2025]

may I remind everyone - this is video games - who the writers are does not matter...

Then remove the cutscenes, story collectibles, and all other bloat and let me chase the McGuffin in peace.

 

[Schopenhauerian]

It's good news if Cara Ellison takes over in writing or narrative duties on a new Tomb Raider. And they bring back Toby Gard somehow.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=876611

Toby Gard should stay far away from Tomb Raider. It was reportedly his idea to make Lara's search for her parents the focus in Legend. That alone should give you a good idea of how much he didn't understand the character anymore (despite originally coming up with it).

Is there a good source on [Toby] Gard's specific contributions to the Crystal Dynamics games, in his role as an advisor? It would seem likely that he understands the character better than the folks at Crystal Dynamics (also: link), but what you've mentioned would certainly be cause for concern.

The twenty anniversary book they released

This piece of information came from Eric Lindstrom who worked at Crystal back in the LAU days. He was fired after Underworld underperformed and subsequently answered some fan questions over at TRF. Toby was merely working as a consultant on the games so he wasn't able to make any decisions but, according to Eric, he was the one who made the initial suggestion to have Lara look for her lost mother and, to me, him even thinking that that could be a good idea tells me that he doesn't understand Lara as well as someone who had such an influence on her characterisation/presentation should have. That being said, a lot of the other things Lindstrom said about how he and Toby viewed Lara (a "well-behaved psychopath") sound spot-on which makes it all-the-more surprising and disappointing that they thought the whole parents BS was a good idea. Here's a link to a Wiki article detailing Eric's TRF posts (they say that the user wasn't sufficiently verified but TRF's admin is very trustworthy - if he said it was Eric, then it was Eric): https://www.wikiraider.com/index.php/The_“Eric_Lindström”_posts

Thanks for the link! The way that Eric downplays the significance of the changes to Lara's bio is quite interesting. As I see it, the ”...rarely left her father's side... father's full-time apprentice" bit in the new bio actually occurs alongside a thoroughgoing simplification of Lara's mental life: this new Lara is compulsive, brutal, irresponsible, accomplished, we're told, but without any of the necessary indications that this compulsiveness emerges fundamentally from Lara's overwhelming enthusiasm for the hunt and for adventure, an enthusiasm which in turn emerges precisely from her admirable qualities, her greater perceptiveness, insight, understanding and so on. All of this comes across much better, from within the Core Design bio. So will definitely be looking more into this history, as well as the Meagan Marie book that FairFriend mentioned!