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When did tomb raider become awful?

G

Ganondorfo

Junior Member
I say after tomb raider 2 till tomb raider angel of darkness.

Tomb raider legend was again decent, let's hope that underworld will be the best one.


I remember the days that many gamers called tomb raider a masterpiece.
 
Tomb Raider 2 was good. 3 and revelations were alright too but the formula was getting stale. The emphasis on combat over exploration from 2 onwards was contentious. Angel of Darkness was when the series hit rock bottom and Lara needed to go to rehab. It's a lot better now, probably the best it's ever been.
 
Ganondorfo said:
I say after tomb raider 2 till tomb raider angel of darkness.

Tomb raider legend was again decent, let's hope that underworld will be the best one.


I remember the days that many gamers called tomb raider a masterpiece.
Click to expand...

I'm playing Anniversary right now, been very pleased with the direction they've taken with it.
 
The first Tomb Raider sucked. Controls were too clunky and I hated having to stop and press a button to pick up items.

KevinCow said:
With the first game.

It finally became good and actually playable with Legend.
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Agree fully...Though I haven't played Legend I did play the demo and enjoyed it.
 
After Tomb Raider 3.

God, I loved the first three TR games.

TR The Last Revelation, Chronicles and Angel of Darkness are really horrible.
 
Angel of Darkness is when the series died for me (till the Legend and Anniversary)

It locked up, had crappy collision detection, horrendous story, and just stunk overall
 
Second said:
After Tomb Raider 3.

God, I loved the first three TR games.

TR The Last Revelation, Chronicles and Angel of Darkness are really horrible.
Click to expand...


agreed. I loved 3. Core lost the plot after it.
 
Keyser Soze said:
With this logic Resident Evil will suck always
Click to expand...
They kinda did but the major difference is one is a decently paced action series and the other is a slower paced horror series. I've never had an issue picking up ammo in Resident Evil. I've been crushed, shot, mauled, drowned, and impaled trying to pick up ammo in Tomb Raider.
 
I remember playing TR on a decent PC and not liking it. The rest were even worse. Legend was the first TR game I actually liked.

Anniversary did not appeal to me once again. Fingers crossed for the new game.
 
TR 2 was the last acceptable one, I believe. Everything from there to the first xbox 360 one (Legend?) was total garbage
 
The only one I haven't liked has been Angel of Darkness simply because it was just unplayable. Other than though, I've enjoyed them all.

And just for the record, I'm easily pleased. :D
 
Woah, I didn't think there would be such a range in terms of who liked which. Some people like 1-3 but not the others. Some people liked none apart from Legend (which I don't understand, legend felt barely passable in comparison to the first few games). I suppose it probably shows the difference in what people expect from an action game. I guess at least no one like angel of darkness <___<...
 
I guess at least no one like angel of darkness
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I actually enjoyed Angel of Darkness. It was a buggy, unfinished game, but there were some good ideas in there and the atmosphere was absolutely killer. I felt that Tomb Raider Legend completely lost that aspect and felt more like a hollywood adaptation of a novel or something.

Again, I would completely agree that AoD was a less than stellar game, but there really were some interesting qualities in there that were worth seeing. Unfortunately, the beginning areas of the game were the weakest (the streets of Paris with load screens around every corner). It's a shame the game wasn't finished properly.

For the record, I encountered very few bugs with the game during my first playthrough. It's simply a game that was unpolished to the point where falling off the proper path results in problems. Again, it was unfinished and you could tell, but that didn't mean its ideas weren't sound. I was able to see a gripping game beneath the tarnished exterior and could appreciate what they were trying to do.
 
Ganondorfo said:
I say after tomb raider 2 till tomb raider angel of darkness.

Tomb raider legend was again decent, let's hope that underworld will be the best one.


I remember the days that many gamers called tomb raider a masterpiece.
Click to expand...
Buy anniversay. It's the best after the original. I really appreciate it .
 
Keyser Soze said:
With this logic Resident Evil will suck always
Click to expand...

Really I thought his logic was pretty sound. Controls is such an important element into what makes a game great. The invisible geometry walls that made it too hard to control where and how Laura worked made the game painstakingly hard to just even start to get into. I'm not even sure how good or bad the games were because I played the first one for awhile and gave up and never touched one after.

If the controls of a game can turn me that off to a game, that's a big deal.
 
I remember reading all the previews for Angel of Darkness in EDGE and being incredibly excited.

It sounded like a platforming point'n'click adventure without the point'n'click. It turned out to not have the platforming or the adventure either.

Legend was really good, Underworld looks to be even better.
 
Tomb Raider II is when the series became awful, Tomb Raider got away with it because it was 1996 and it was one of my first 3D games but by the time Tomb Raider II arrived I had played something called the N64 and it had a little something called a joystick which basically made Tomb Raider the most dated thing on the planet.
In terms of actual game quality, I'd say after Tomb Raider III it really went downhill up until Legend came in and saved the series. Anniversary is pretty good too and Underworld looks great.
 
Ganondorfo said:
I say after tomb raider 2 till tomb raider angel of darkness.

Tomb raider legend was again decent, let's hope that underworld will be the best one.


I remember the days that many gamers called tomb raider a masterpiece.
Click to expand...


Personally i loved the first and second.
After that the third one was too hard and dull. The fourth one was better looking and easier but i was getting tired.
I skipped all the rest until Legends, the game that me like Tomb Raider again. Now i'm buying Underworld day one. (Gotta finish Anniversary though)
 
I actually agree with the op. I loved the first tomb raider and I thought the second one was pretty good too. Then the third one came and I started to not care about the series anymore.
 
TR1 - great
TR2 - pretty ok
TR3 - awful (and buggy, on PS1 no less)
TR:C - barely started, didn't care
TRL - modestly better, never finished
TR:AoD - promising ideas, poorly implemented, two or so great levels
TRL - stealing from neo-PoP series, as original stole from original PoP, so good reboot
TRA - reasonable remix of original, but should have taken more liberties with original material (i.e. hewed too close to the original to become great)
 
The only thing I didn't like about TR3 was the difficulty. It was really unforgiving at times. And the save system made it even more frustrating.

But I still loved it very much.
 
I loved the 1st one.
Didn't like the 2nd.
Thought the 3rd one was a step in the right direction, but the controls were now unplayable.
Liked the 4th one.
Hated the 5th one.
Hated the 6th one.
Pretty much hated the 7th one.
Liked the remake quite a bit.
Am open minded towards the 8th one, but suspect it to be wank.
 
I actually somewhat enjoyed Chronicles...the concept was pretty engaging, having all of her rivals and friends reminiscing her past accomplishments over her death(translating into each level being a different timeframe and adventure in her life...even including one stage as a very young girl). It's only major fault was how obscenely buggy it was, including several progress-killing glitches.

Angel of Darkness started interesting, but devolved into just a really poor game, with bland environments and a lack of any real spelunking.

I've actually heard good things about Last Revelation, but never played.

TR1/2 I enjoyed tremendously, but I couldn't bother with TR3 after that god awful introductory jungle stage.

Legend really wasn't all THAT good. I had more fun going for 1000 achievements than I did just playing through the game.

Anniversary was fuck AWESOME!!

Underworld will hopefully be the definitive TR experience.
 
Second said:
The only thing I didn't like about TR3 was the difficulty. It was really unforgiving at times. And the save system made it even more frustrating.

But I still loved it very much.
Click to expand...


To me Tomb Raider 3 (despise being a very bad game) was having the most perfect save system i've ever seen in a game.

-You could save anywhere
-You could save anytime
-You couldn't abuse the save system

Seriously, the only people that could complain with that are lazy cheaters and pussies out there that are constantly saving in most games. :P
 
Ganondorfo said:
I say after tomb raider 2 till tomb raider angel of darkness.

Tomb raider legend was again decent, let's hope that underworld will be the best one.


I remember the days that many gamers called tomb raider a masterpiece.
Click to expand...
pretty much
 
Ranger X said:
To me Tomb Raider 3 (despise being a very bad game) was having the most perfect save system i've ever seen in a game.

-You could save anywhere
-You could save anytime
-You couldn't abuse the save system

Seriously, the only people that could complain with that are lazy cheaters and pussies out there that are constantly saving in most games. :P
Click to expand...

You needed those stupid crystals to save. And you had to collect them!
So stupid. You were really owned if you saved at the wrong place and the wrong time with no save crystal left.

To me it was frustrating and it made the game a trial and error galore.
 
Ahem. :D

The games didn't really change as time continued on. Grid based movement was cool in 1996 (though Mario showed at the same time the wonder of free 3d movement), but not in 2000. The games don't change much over time, though there are definite exceptions. When people say Tomb Raider got bad, I think the vast majority mean something like Tomb Raider didn't improve in quality relative to everything else (it did in some ways, but it lagged in probably the most important ways). Tomb Raider III added nonlinearity, which was probably the series' first substantive change, though Tomb Raider II did take the game out of tombs.

So I think Tomb Raider kept chugging along while everyone else was driving a ferrari.

Angel of Darkness is really a disaster. I can understand what dark sees in it but the fundamentals just aren't there.

Ranger X said:
To me Tomb Raider 3 (despise being a very bad game) was having the most perfect save system i've ever seen in a game.

-You could save anywhere
-You could save anytime
-You couldn't abuse the save system

Seriously, the only people that could complain with that are lazy cheaters and pussies out there that are constantly saving in most games. :P
Click to expand...

Pretty sure PC gamers never had to put up with this.

I played Tomb Raider 1 on the Saturn and PC, 2 on the PlayStation (absolutely had to have it after the OPM demo), 3 on the PlayStation, Last Revelation on the DC, and Chronicles on the DC. I don't think any of them are necessarily "bad" games. The formula was just super stale. If you liked the formula, you didn't necessarily mind that though CORE taking Lara out of tombs was an issue (not for me, I don't mind that-- Legend is one of my favorites and some of the best levels are not in tombs proper).
 
I've always found it to be quite awful. Hated the controls in the original games. It does look like the series has improved significantly as of late though.
 
Just wanted to throw this in there:

The one redeeming quality of the tank/grid controls of the old engine was the preciseness. You almost always knew whether a jump was possible or not, and you always knew how to prep for it (remember the "walk to edge, jump back once, then run forward holding the jump button" thing?). That kind of turned the gameplay into a chess platformer or something.

That's the only thing I miss from the old controls, as with the new games you have no fucking clue what's gonna happen until you try it.
 
Xdrive05 said:
The one redeeming quality of the tank/grid controls of the old engine was the preciseness.
Click to expand...
1201594852990.gif
 
Y2Kev said:
Pretty sure PC gamers never had to put up with this.
Click to expand...

Yeah i suppose you could save whatever how many you wanted on PC. On console you were collecting crystals (was contributing to make the exploration even more rewarding) and then you use a crystal anywhere anytime to save. There were plenty of them and not too far from the beaten path. I LOVED that system. Just the right amount of effort, right amount of management + liberty to save whenever i had to.
 
III had great environments. I loved the Indian temple in the jungle, I'm glad they're revisiting that vibe (though not Indian) with Underworld.

I also thought AoD had a great vibe (love that arcane/gothic atmosphere), it was too bad the actual game sucked huge balls.
 
When the Saturn version of Tomb Raider 2 was cancelled until Legend arrived.

That made me a sad panda...

RE2 being cancelled made me cry

Legend rocked, Anniversary was cool and I can't wait for Underworld.
 
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