The original Tomb Raider, its remake, and the loss of subtlety

[TheHeroOfTime]

The moment when you enter the Colisseum for the first time



The original Tomb raider is a very special game, with an unique atmosphere and tone. Even between the Core design games (I believe 4 is the best game of all in general, but the original is the most genuine). The remake it's a decent PS2 plataformer game and it's filled with a lot of the popular shit from that era (Cinematics, QTEs, bullet-time), but it also missunderstands a lot of the original. The T-Rex introduction and bossfight is the perfect representation of this.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

Btw here's the canceled remake from Core design

 

[HoboForEternity]

With stalker 2, the whole NFT debacle made it clear what the dev think of their own product. It seems people has forgotten but i don't. Dabble in that shit that means you're either isn't confident in it making money or in for a quick buck trends which will lilely influence design decision. If not for that whole debacle i would give them benefit of doubt and still cautiously excited.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

speaking of debacles, do you know what worries me? people stopped shitting on epic.

 

[StrongBelwas]

speaking of debacles, do you know what worries me? people stopped shitting on epic.

Epic hasn't gotten an exclusivity arrangement for anything people care about in a while, they just went into the background so there isn't a motivation to complain.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

it exists, it's enough to complain about.

 

[Faarbaute]

Real niggas are still upset about Steam.

 

[Viata]

I'm upset about digital stores killing big boxes for computer games.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i'm upset about digital stores killing low prices, yet epic is the greater evil we didn't need nor deserved.

 

[Jvegi]

Shut the fuck up. It's the tomb raider thread.

 

[Norfleet]

My first reaction was to roll my eyes, I don't know why developers keep doing that, that's lame and unoriginal, not scary, original Stalkers games are scary because they didn't have scripted sequences/cutscenes to introduce monsters, the monsters or whatever would just appear and chase you during gameplay, no introdruction needed. that gif looks looks exactly like the doom 2016 one:

It's also funny because "look at me, I am scary" behavior from a creature like that actually indicates it doesn't want to fight you. If a creature is that close to you and does that, it means it doesn't want to fight. Otherwise it would attack you outright, rather than trying to look scary and intimidate you into not fighting. You don't puff yourself up and look intimidating if you actually want to fight, because this just wastes time and cedes the initiative.

It should stand to reason that in such a situation, if the player were to back off and not attack, the creature wouldn't attack either. But that'd actually show the developers put thought into creature behavior instead of trying to look cinematic.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

It's also funny because "look at me, I am scary" behavior from a creature like that actually indicates it doesn't want to fight you. If a creature is that close to you and does that, it means it doesn't want to fight. Otherwise it would attack you outright, rather than trying to look scary and intimidate you into not fighting. You don't puff yourself up and look intimidating if you actually want to fight, because this just wastes time and cedes the initiative.

It should stand to reason that in such a situation, if the player were to back off and not attack, the creature wouldn't attack either. But that'd actually show the developers put thought into creature behavior instead of trying to look cinematic.

Gothic games does that, the creatures will roar at you first, if you back off they will leave you alone, if you keep intimidating them they will eventually attack. It's a pretty cool AI behavior.

 

[passerby]

I'm upset about digital stores killing big boxes for computer games.

I'm upset about retards fond of big empty cartoon boxes for computer games.

 

[Tweed]

The T-Rex also does the lame scream at the camera trope.

Reviving because i saw this gif from the gog page of Stalker 2:

The original STALKER did this right and I still remember it. I was heading back to the bar after finishing up with the Ecologists, it was getting dark and stormy and I was on the path that takes you through one of those radioactive warehouses. There was a lighting flash and I saw a pair of eyes closing in on me so I dumped an entire mag on the thing with just inches to spare.

 

[JarlFrank]

Some dude made a youtube video about why Anniversary fails as a remake:



He mentions a lot of the same points I did in this thread, but of course, because people are retarded, the video has a pretty bad dislike ratio (a third of its viewers clicked dislike) and the comments are filled with people saying they enjoyed playing Anniversary.
Which isn't the fucking point, I sort of enjoyed playing it too as a popamole game, but it fails to capture what made the original great. That's the point, and normie retards are too dense to get it.

Pretty good video, and the comment section shows why we can't have nice things anymore.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

i have to disagree with him saying that Legend was a great entry to the series, that game was very easy, linear and VERY SHORT, like 4 hours long, Call of Duty campaigns are longer than this, unacceptable. Shallow game, lacking content, the little content the game had it was okay at best, some memorables sequences like the shoot out in Bolivia and the Sea Serpent thing.

By comparison i beat Tomb Raider 3 last year on PS1 emulator, without save states, it took almost 30 hours, sure i died a lot and limited save crystals made me use saves conservatively, but even without replaying the parts i died, it would take around 15-20 hours. The levels are much bigger, more challenging, more atmospheric and memorable than Legend, they're not in the same tier, neither is Legend in the same tier that 1 and 2 are. I have not played much of The last Revelation or Chronicles, but from the little i did they seem to be better games than Legend as well.

So yeah i'm not a fan of this game, very mediocre entry.

 

[Machocruz]

Some dude made a youtube video about why Anniversary fails as a remake:



He mentions a lot of the same points I did in this thread, but of course, because people are retarded, the video has a pretty bad dislike ratio (a third of its viewers clicked dislike) and the comments are filled with people saying they enjoyed playing Anniversary.
Which isn't the fucking point, I sort of enjoyed playing it too as a popamole game, but it fails to capture what made the original great. That's the point, and normie retards are too dense to get it.

Pretty good video, and the comment section shows why we can't have nice things anymore.

Comment sections are always chock full of copers who can't, don't, or won't look at a thing past like-vs-dislike duality, which, like you say, isn't the point of such a critique. Like great, you liked it, thanks for giving the most superficial and least interesting response. When it's so easy to satisfy many, why would we get anything better?

 

[Ravielsk]

Some dude made a youtube video about why Anniversary fails as a remake:



He mentions a lot of the same points I did in this thread, but of course, because people are retarded, the video has a pretty bad dislike ratio (a third of its viewers clicked dislike) and the comments are filled with people saying they enjoyed playing Anniversary.
Which isn't the fucking point, I sort of enjoyed playing it too as a popamole game, but it fails to capture what made the original great. That's the point, and normie retards are too dense to get it.

Pretty good video, and the comment section shows why we can't have nice things anymore.

The one thing the guy really nails is that the original series was more of a exploratory horror game while the remake is an action adventure game with the occasional scare. The problem is that this genre division only exists in retrospect from today. Tomb Raider was always envisioned as an action adventure game but back in the 90s a tense atmosphere and players being put under pressure were just seen as normal optional elements for the adventure genre. They were not even remotely seen as horror exclusive but around 2008-2010 those elements became exclusive to horror games. Actually something very similar happened with most genres after 2005.

The end result is that you now have two generations of gamers who use the same terms for wholly different things. So when a 90s guy like the one the in video talks about action adventure he is talking about a style of game that a zoomer would describe as survival horror. The genre lines have been completely redrawn but the terminology remained the same and as a result modern teams cannot even really remake old games because they will read what the OG developers wrote about the game and interpret in a way wholly incompatible with what the OGs meant.

Spoiler

On a sidenote I suspect that this also why most remake devs are so utterly butthurt about people not kissing their asses. They subconsciously realize they fucked up but have to way to actually vocalize it and so they turn on the people pointing out the fuck up as if they are the source of it.

 

[JarlFrank]

They were not even remotely seen as horror exclusive but around 2008-2010 those elements became exclusive to horror games. Actually something very similar happened with most genres after 2005.

The end result is that you now have two generations of gamers who use the same terms for wholly different things. So when a 90s guy like the one the in video talks about action adventure he is talking about a style of game that a zoomer would describe as survival horror.

This is an interesting observation, because I'm not a fan of horror games at all. I don't care about them, just not my genre. But I love oldschool action adventures with high tension.

I think the main problem is that game design principles have changed so far that most classic genres have become inconceivable to modern designers.
Back in the day, Tomb Raider's design was very close to what other games were doing: it plays a lot like a 3D version of Prince of Persia. FPS games like Quake, released in the same year, had a similar atmosphere when it comes to level architecture and mood. This was just the way games were designed.

From the mid-00s onward, game design principles had shifted away entirely from oldschool game design. Tension and pressure were removed in favor of handholding and a guided experience. Games no longer allowed you to be alone with yourself, trying to figure things out. Instead, they led you through a cinematic experience where failure was not an acceptable consequence for bad play, but something to be avoided.

The focus on puzzles and tough platforming that requires you to figure out how to get to places also reminds of classic text and point & click adventures. Those also had long moments of letting the player analyze problems and figure them out, without handholding or other forms of intrusion.

Action adventures were genuinely adventure games, inspired by the genre of the same name. But most young people have no connection to the adventure genre anymore.

 

[Endemic]

Tension and pressure were removed in favor of handholding and a guided experience.

Short of getting rid of the publicly-listed corporations from the gaming market, I'm not sure what the solution is. Subsidizing auteur start-ups?

 

[Ravielsk]

Short of getting rid of the publicly-listed corporations from the gaming market, I'm not sure what the solution is. Subsidizing auteur start-ups?

Well first step would be to correct the dictionary so that specific genre referred to one thing and one thing only. Without that even removing all the mainstream publishers out of the picture would just result in indie devs deforming the genre boundaries in their own uniquely retarded ways. You cannot really fix a problem when you cannot properly define it let alone talk about in exact terms. It would be like trying measure out planks for your new cupboard without understanding the concept of length, width and depth.

Its really a chronic problem in gaming since the advent of the internet where the lack of a linguistic authority caused everyone to inject their own meaning thus creating a terminology with no meaning. No language can function on absolutely any level when the meanings are not concrete and clear. If you do not have that you end up in a situation like we have today where genre definitions are so messed up that even a straight up shooter as DOOM can be classified as an RPG because technically it has stats and level ups.

Worse yet its a uniquely gamer problem because while there is always some genre overlap in music, film or literature I have never experienced anyone trying to sell me a flute solo as rock metal or violent slasher as a family movie. So its borderline impossible to even define because of how unique of a problem it is.

 

[Endemic]

Not sure how you expect to do that, censor anyone who disagrees with the correct genre label? I've read perfectly good FTL guides calling it a strategy game, for example. It's plainly obvious Doom 2016 is a shooter regardless of any tacked on RPG elements. I don't care what the user-defined tags on Steam say.

Yes, indies will fuck up no doubt. But there will be a lot more room for creativity without the Activision-Blizzards of the world sucking the oxygen and funding out of the room.

 

[JamesDixon]

I like all of the old Tomb Raider games... Not the reboot ones because Lara's an insufferable cunt.

 

[Ravielsk]

Not sure how you expect to do that, censor anyone who disagrees with the correct genre label?

That is the problem I am getting at. There is no good way of doing that but without standardizing the language somewhat you will continuously have this problem where two people will talk about one genre while imagining completely opposite things.

Extra room for creatives means very little when the creative cannot even describe what he is making without over half the audience misinterpreting every other word.

 

[JarlFrank]

I have never experienced anyone trying to sell me a flute solo as rock metal