Poll: Lara Croft is 24 years old (redux)

[BFG10K]

There's a recently leaked image making rounds:

Spoiler

All three generations of games are listed on platforms that never had some of them, while Steam already has all of them. I'm thinking some will get a remaster for better compatibility, controls and graphics on modern systems, similar to the mobile versions. The first 5 games in particular are quite atrocious to play with their 30FPS cap and horrific control scheme.

In either case, it's time for a remastered poll, so I'll start.

OG
Finished for the first time a few years ago. It was interesting from a historical perspective. Level design was decent but too maze-y in many places. Also even by the end I still didn't feel comfortable with the controls, as even simple running jumps and swimming continued to be a chore.

2
I also played this for the first time a few years ago but quit on the third level. I wanted classic Tomb Raider not "Lara executes the Mafia population". Those hitscan enemies hiding in corners were absolute BS.

3
Also played for the first time a few years ago but quit after the temple levels. It just didn't capture my interest in any way.

Last Revelation
Played for the first time a few years ago too. Some pretty good level design until the Dead City levels, where the game took a massive dump and produced some of the worst combination of level design + vehicle navigation I've ever seen. Also some ridiculously obtuse puzzles, and you'd better have at least one bullet of the type the game expects at certain parts, or the game is unwinnable.

Chronicles & Angel of Darkness
Never played them.

Legend
Some of the levels were pretty good but on the whole the game lacked substance and depth. Too many interruptions from the wise-cracking black guy and the nerdy pom which ruined any feeling of exploration isolation that was so good in the other games. Also there was far too much combat, the vehicles sections were bad, and Next Generation content is broken on the PC.

Anniversary
This one was really good. Loaded with exploration, puzzles and acrobatic encounters. The main gripe is some of the later acrobatic sections were grossly unfair.

Underworld
Quite good. This game reached the pinnacle of Lara's acrobatic abilities and will likely remain so, and the controls are the best in the series. We got rock climbing, unscripted wall hugging/hopping and detachable poles. Mouse input lag is amazingly low and Lara performs acrobatics very quickly in response to key presses. Also swimming feels really nice, just hold forward and move the mouse to steer anywhere. Visuals still hold up really well to this day. My main gripe is that some of the secrets are ridiculously frustrating to get, and also the consoles got extra levels the PC didn't.

2013
I really enjoyed this one despite the fundamental design change. The semi-open survival sandbox worked well. Not many acrobatics but a lot of exploration for scavenging and collectables which meaningfully improved Lara's in-game effectiveness.

Rise
One of my favorite games ever. Every new location I reached I thought "this is really cool". Getting a hub near the end of the game was a pleasant surprise.

Shadow
The weakest of the new trilogy but still good overall. A lot of bad gameplay designs mired it, such as the flashback mission, the Jonah buddy sections, forced stealth, and Paititi was a bit tedious to explore, especially with outfit restrictions. The DLC challenge tombs really improved the game with awesome level design, nice puzzles and timed acrobatics, though 2 of the 7 tombs had too much setup time to reach them.

Lara Croft Go
An interesting little puzzle game, though some of the later levels required an obtuse amount of steps to solve. Games like this should never have excessive difficulty.

My Favorites
Anniversary, Underworld, 2013, Rise and Shadow.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Angel of Darkness is apparently terrible.

 

[nakedfrog]

Listed Tomb Raider Go, but not Guardian of Light or Temple of Osiris? I played those two co-op and had a good time.
I played a demo of the original, and then had #2 on the PSX, but didn't play another until the new trilogy (of which I've finished and enjoyed the first two, and will get to the third next year, maybe the year after)

 

[Zenoth]

As far as the original trilogy is concerned I'd go with #3 for overall better (or rather, preferred) gameplay. I do have a lot of nostalgia for the 2nd one though (but I do prefer the gameplay of the third). But the first one remains iconic in my book. It was - if I recall correctly - among the first 3D games I ever played. Between that and Super Mario 64, Pilotwings 64, or on PS1 maybe Bubsy 3D and some time later Assault Rigs are the only couple of 3D games I had experienced myself. However, beyond being 'iconic' I never was quite a fan of the actual gameplay nor control and very slow pace of the original.

So, for the originals I'd go with: #3, then #2 and #1.

Beyond that, The Last Revelation remained my favorite after the originals pretty much until Anniversary came out. Then Anniversary became my overall favorite. In fact I'd say Anniversary is probably my favorite Tomb Raider game today pre-2013 Reboot, even though the 2013 Reboot is - so far - my #1 favorite overall in the franchise. As far as Legend goes I don't have much memories for it. I probably rented it once, most likely never finished it. I don't think I "hated" it or I would remember that much, but it's probably neutral ground on that one. I'd have to replay it. Similarly so for Underworld. I have some vague memories of playing it just because I remember exploring underwater and finding underwater ruins and so on. But beyond that... it's been too long; that's another one I'd have to replay today.

Beyond the Legend, Anniversary and Underworld trio there is one I do remember well enough and it took me by surprise, and that was Guardian of Light. I never finished it, but I actually liked it, probably because it was a refreshing isometric take on the series and I wasn't expecting it to work, but it did (at least for me). Although I never followed news or public reception on it so I don't know if it did well or if it bombed. But I enjoyed it enough. I didn't finish it but I believe I made it past half-way. I was mostly a PC gamer already back then and all I recall is that it was a rental and I played it with my cousin. He was the one owning the XBOX 360 so when I left of course I didn't get to play it again. Now I know it's on PC but I never bothered, maybe I should check it out again one day.

And, well, beyond that comes the famous 2013 reboot.

So yeah, overall, Tomb Raider 2013 is my favorite in the franchise. I think it executed pretty much everything perfectly as far as a reboot for a franchise goes. It's probably one of the best franchise reboot overall to this day really. I don't think it's a perfect game though. But it's VERY good considering indeed - and that's the main point, beyond just the gameplay - that it rebooted a massive franchise from the ground up; and they didn't fail. Impressive. However with this said, I disliked how they created this 'survival instinct' feature (or whatever it was called) where you get spoon-fed environmental "guidance" by making interactible surfaces glowing all around you. The problem with "But just disable it" is that not using it feels like the game is missing something. Weird design choice on the devs part.

The game was sort of designed with the player using it in mind, obviously, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered making it in the first place and would just let you search for things on your own. In that regard something like Breath of the Wild was superior, when it comes to "There, from this point you're on your own, find things yourself; trial and error, search for it on your own and good luck". I didn't have that impression in Tomb Raider 2013. Now yes, of course, at some point you start to spot interactible surfaces easily enough since they start to look familiar with some obvious vertical / horizontal scratches and marks patterns and thus allows the player to just "go there and try to climb" from it, and it usually works. But it doesn't make the principle in the feature itself baseless, I.E. that it spoon-feeds too much to the player and removes the sense of self-reliance to 'truly' find things on your own, which would have increased the satisfaction of getting out of a situation or location yourself.

With this said, it was actually the ONLY negative point in my book that was big enough to sort of take a point away from it. I wasn't a fan of the last boss fight but it wasn't too bad either, although I've seen much better. But as far as a Tomb Raider game goes... I suppose it was alright.

And my current 'status' with this franchise as of this typing involves me having just literally started Rise of the Tomb Raider a couple of months ago (late last year actually). I only made it past the intro, into the woods with the snow and that's it. It's literally just the beginning. I haven't touched it since but it's just because I moved on to other things and I was pretty busy during those months, not much time to play anything. But I will get back to it at some point. I've read a lot of great things about Rise so I'm confident it's going to be enjoyable at least to some extent.

But yeah so far, the 2013 reboot is the overall winner for me in this franchise. My 2nd favorite is probably still Anniversary, then maybe Tomb Raider 3. But I'd have to replay Legend and Underworld one day.

 

[mikeymikec]

Chronicles: Let down by bugginess in the final level, to a point that I have to consult a walkthrough in order to avoid the game-breaking bugs (such as "if you save during this period the game breaks"). I've completed the game maybe twice in twenty odd years.

Angel of Darkness: It has the worst control system hands down (way worse than Legend/Underworld which is annoying to say the least). It makes gameplay extremely tedious. I've completed it once.

4 (The Last Revelation) is my favourite by a long shot, followed by 2. I have an odd history with the first game: I bought an "OEM" version of it as part of a 3-pack of games which only had the first 12 levels. I then didn't look at it for years until I believe I made a concerted effort to 3D-ify it with Glidos. Now I think it's too much work to try and set up again.

TR2013 (I haven't played anything later, they showed no sign of improvement): The 'quick time events' mark it down several points in my opinion followed by the fact that it has about as much puzzle content as one TR level from the first five games. I'd class the newest games as "survival shooter" games, not puzzle-solving + light action games.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I do have a lot of nostalgia for the 2nd one though

Really? I got Tomb Raider 2, got stuck in the first Venice level, and quite permanently. I thought it was pretty bad overall.

 

[mikeymikec]

Really? I got Tomb Raider 2, got stuck in the first Venice level, and quite permanently. I thought it was pretty bad overall.

On the PC? A friend said the Playstation port was buggy, but I've probably completed TR2 about 5-6 times over the years and it's always worked fine for me.

 

[DrMrLordX]

On the PC? A friend said the Playstation port was buggy, but I've probably completed TR2 about 5-6 times over the years and it's always worked fine for me.

I just couldn't get through the level. Plus there was this dude with some uzis in the first level that was harder than 80% of the combat encounters in Tomb Raider 1 that made me instantly hate the game.

 

[mikeymikec]

I just couldn't get through the level. Plus there was this dude with some uzis in the first level that was harder than 80% of the combat encounters in Tomb Raider 1 that made me instantly hate the game.

Are you sure you've got the right game?

There's the first level. I don't think there is any actual person you have to kill on the first level, some tigers, a vulture, some spiders, I think that's about it (there is a t-rex too but that's entirely optional and you'd only find it if you went looking for secrets). The level ends in a cut scene showing a guy trying to ambush Lara, but that's all.

The second level is Venice true enough.

I wonder whether you actually got past the Venice level and encountered a harder opponent (the one you describe) far later in the game.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Are you sure you've got the right game?

It's been awhile. There was a canal level, with some puzzle where you had to drive a motorboat through some mines which I found janky and nearly impossible to complete. And some jackass in sunglasses with an uzi who was an aimbot.

 

[BFG10K]

It's been awhile. There was a canal level, with some puzzle where you had to drive a motorboat through some mines which I found janky and nearly impossible to complete. And some jackass in sunglasses with an uzi who was an aimbot.

That's just a little before I stopped playing. Hard to believe Tomb Raider fans liked it back in the day. It's nothing like the first game; has virtually no tomb raiding.

Maybe it was the vehicles, which were pretty ground breaking in 1997.

 

[Magic Carpet]

TR1. It was one of the those games that I played with my Diamond Monster 3D graphics card, so I had it in full 3dfx glory back in 1997. But... except for the awesome graphics that I liked, sadly, I never really got into it, the gameplay was kind of slow to my liking, at the time I was a huge fan of all the Build/Quake games. The only other Tomb Raider game that I ever played was Rise of the Tomb Raider two decades later and that game was superb, but I will admit it was nothing like the original. Oh well, to each their own.

 

[Stuka87]

TR2013 (I haven't played anything later, they showed no sign of improvement): The 'quick time events' mark it down several points in my opinion followed by the fact that it has about as much puzzle content as one TR level from the first five games. I'd class the newest games as "survival shooter" games, not puzzle-solving + light action games.

This was a major complaint when it came out, so when the next one came out, they made sure to not repeat that issue. I think you would like the second one a lot more than 2013.

 

[BFG10K]

The image shows Aug 27 so we should soon know if it's fake or there's indeed a new Tomb Raider bundle.

 

[Igo69]

You forgot about the Doom Raider

 

[shortylickens]

I still remember Yahtzees stonking great tits.

 

[mikeymikec]

Ok, having got halfway through this video I'm going to have to say this:

(Disclaimer, I've only played TR 1-5 on the PC with a keyboard) What's with the complaints about the control system in TR 1-5? I've never been a particularly proficient gamer. I grew up on platform games on say the Amiga and previous (Philips G-7000, Coleco), and I wasn't good at them. To get Lara to do a running jump, you just watch her feet, get a feel for the speed of her running and jump at the logical moment; I'd say 90% of the time I pull off the jump I intended. Bear in mind, most modern games I'm playing on either standard difficulty, or maybe with lots of experience, one or two difficulty settings above that.

I've never felt any frustration about getting the timing of jumps just right. Older platform games were far more frustrating because there would usually be a running animation or maybe 2-5 frames and if you didn't push in the right direction at just the right moment, you may as well have not bothered trying and the character runs straight off the edge like an idiot... and again 5 more times because I haven't figured out when the optimal time to jump

The only two things I'll add are these:

1: In TR1-5, changing the control set to the standard 'user keys' layout (which heavily uses the numeric keypad) has worked well for me since pretty much day 1.
2: I've stayed with the keyboard I've had since about 1998 because other cheap keyboards I've tried couldn't handle a few keys being held down at the same time (e.g. one key to make Lara run forward, one key for the jump, one key to grab hold), but in my experience it's obvious when that's a problem because it causes the system to beep as if it's saying "WTF are you doing with the keyboard, falling asleep on it?".

PS: Most of TR 1-5 have a training level that's either accessible from the main menu or the first level includes it. TR1 doesn't.

PPS: About that video though - I realise it's not about TR 1-5, and I hated Legend and so therefore Anniversary too because its control system sucked. Oh jesus, 02:10 in that video. I admit nothing! <facepalm>

 

[DrMrLordX]

PS: Most of TR 1-5 have a training level that's either accessible from the main menu or the first level includes it. TR1 doesn't.

I thought the original Tomb Raider had a training level of Lara at her home with an obstacle course and a pool? I remember deliberately making Lara drown herself in the pool and dying in the tutorial level. Oh yeah, here it is:

 

[mikeymikec]

I thought the original Tomb Raider had a training level of Lara at her home with an obstacle course and a pool? I remember deliberately making Lara drown herself in the pool and dying in the tutorial level. Oh yeah, here it is:

Huh. I stand corrected! I think when playing it this time around I was spending a lot of time trying out different Glidos 3D settings, then moved on to testing TombATI (which is a heck of a lot better), that I didn't notice the option.