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

[Louis_Cypher]

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.

Something that has become apparent to me here, I think when the Codex was talking about Dino Crisis, is that the "adventure" component of gaming has declined a lot, and that it was the best part of a lot of the games. Someone in that other thread defined the formula of adventure genre as 'exploring rooms, getting keys, to explore further rooms'. That was severely diminished by handholding and objective markers. When I think about how much I loved exploring the mansion in Resident Evil 1, it was the adventure component I loved. Maybe one reason I really like Metroidvania games is they are one of the few places left where you can actually explore like that. Adventure is one of the fundamental 'ur-genres' of gaming, like 'action', but neglected badly.

 

[Machocruz]

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.

One problem is participation award mentality when it comes to language, among other things. It's now widely accepted that how someone feels about something, their truth, is as valid as a definition of that thing as anything else. To argue otherwise is to be accused of gate-keeping or not understanding that "language evolves bro", which is a half truth because it does evolve, but formal classifications, ones that stick, do not arise from the mass public (like internet randos) but come from those with some kind of authority - cultural, social, academic, etc.

 

[Ravielsk]

formal classifications, ones that stick, do not arise from the mass public (like internet randos) but come from those with some kind of authority - cultural, social, academic, etc.

Yes, exactly which is the one problem that plagued the gaming sphere since its inception. Since its been treated as basically a fad or a child's toy no real cultural authority formed around video games. The closest we got were game journalists but those turned out to be just extensions of marketing teams and these days nobody takes them seriously.

The worst part is that right now this vacuum of authority persisted for so long that now anyone trying to fill it out will be rejected by default. RPG codex could publish its own "Videogame lexicon" tomorrow and regardless of how good or bad it would be at best taken as a fun piece of pretend novel or rejected as straight up non-publication. First by the academia because they are too far up their own ass to accept anything that did not come directly from them. Second by the public because of the "you can't tell me what to do" attitude. Third would be some butthurt influencer burring it under the ground for not sufficiently jacking off his childhood xbone favorite.

 

[JarlFrank]

Second by the public because of the "you can't tell me what to do" attitude.

Normies tend to dismiss anything said by the Codex anyway because they consider us "too elitist" which is a big no-no for filthy casuals.

 

[Machocruz]

Second by the public because of the "you can't tell me what to do" attitude.

Normies tend to dismiss anything said by the Codex anyway because they consider us "too elitist" which is a big no-no for filthy casuals.

We would have to actually make an attempt first, but even here we just go along with colloquial trends. "Boomer shooter", "soulsborne", "metroidvania", etc. are accepted as legit genres by some people here, or at best sub-genres (a more accurate way to describe them, but still questionable imo). We have plenty of people who are pedantic enough to make the attempt, but yeah we already know we'd be dismissed no matter how rigorous our approach. I think even a recognized linguistic institution would fail in this age of Livin' Mah Truth. The hobby is held hostage by its unwashed masses.

 

[Rincewind]

Well first step would be to correct the dictionary so that specific genre referred to one thing and one thing only.

Like removing "blobber" from the dictionary?

:ducks:

 

[Rincewind]

Second by the public because of the "you can't tell me what to do" attitude.

Normies tend to dismiss anything said by the Codex anyway because they consider us "too elitist" which is a big no-no for filthy casuals.

We would have to actually make an attempt first, but even here we just go along with colloquial trends. "Boomer shooter", "soulsborne", "metroidvania", etc. are accepted as legit genres by some people here, or at best sub-genres (a more accurate way to describe them, but still questionable imo).

Like "blobber".

We have plenty of people who are pedantic enough to make the attempt,

Like me.

but yeah we already know we'd be dismissed no matter how rigorous our approach.

Like me when I've been trying to explain numerous times at great lengths why "blobber" is a retarded and wholly inaccurate term that means almost nothing.

 

[Ravielsk]

Like removing "blobber" from the dictionary?

This the first time I heard the term and looking it up essentially revealed to me that any game with a party mechanic can be a blobber. So at best its redundant and at worst wholly retarded term.

 

[kangaxx]

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.

Thanks for the video, that sorts my commute for this week.

 

[Bad Sector]

"Boomer shooter", "soulsborne", "metroidvania", etc. are accepted as legit genres by some people here, or at best sub-genres (a more accurate way to describe them, but still questionable imo). We have plenty of people who are pedantic enough to make the attempt

People here haven't yet agreed on what an RPG is, despite a few actual efforts. But the thing is, having a clear cut definition makes it harder to exclude games, so it requires people to accept that some games they dislike will still be RPGs (or whatever genre is being defined) - and that there can actually be bad RPGs (or whatever genre is being defined).

This the first time I heard the term and looking it up essentially revealed to me that any game with a party mechanic can be a blobber.

A blobber is a game where the party's interactions with the world & combat are abstracted as if the entire party was a single entity (i.e. the party behaves as an amorphous "blob", hence the name) - think games like Wizardry, Might & Magic, Wizards & Warriors, etc. Something like Dragon Age: Origins or something like Pool of Radiance are not blobbers despite both having parties - one has clearly visible and different party members, the other has movement like a "blob" but during combat each party member is a different entity with its own position in the combat map. Also note that first person perspective is not mandatory (even though most games called blobbers are first person) - any game where the entire party is treated as a "blob" would count (e.g. imagine a top down game where the entire party still moves as a single "pawn" on the game world and in combat there are no individual entities beyond their UI representation).

 

[JarlFrank]

e.g. imagine a top down game where the entire party still moves as a single "pawn" on the game world

You don't have to imagine it:

 

[Semiurge]

Infinitron or someone - please move this current page and at least half of the previous somewhere where it belongs.

 

[bussinrounds]

So bros...what games do you think have the best climbing, mantling, etc ? And when I say that, I don't mean specifically the mechanics of the actual climbing itself, but also the level design and exploration to support it. Having to find fun & interesting ways to progress, without it being too easy and obvious of course, like in da modern popamole. I was thinking classic TR, Thief games...any other suggestions ?

I've seen the Tower FM by Lady Rowena recommended when it came to this, but haven't tried it yet.

 

[JarlFrank]

Infinitron or someone - please move this current page and at least half of the previous somewhere where it belongs.

Don't split my thread please, thanks.

So bros...what games do you think have the best climbing, mantling, etc ? And when I say that, I don't mean specifically the mechanics of the actual climbing itself, but also the level design and exploration to support it. Having to find fun & interesting ways to progress, without it being too easy and obvious of course, like in da modern popamole. I was thinking classic TR, Thief games...any other suggestions ?

I've seen the Tower FM by Lady Rowena recommended when it came to this, but haven't tried it yet.

The Tower is great. Skacky's Thief FMs are also top notch when it comes to climbing.
Another favorite of mine is DrK's Lost Among the Forsaken. It's set in a dense part of the old quarter, swarming with undead, the buildings crumbling and dilapidated, with lots of rope arrow opportunities.

Tomb Raider also has its fan mission scene. One of my favorites is Himalayan Mysteries by Titak, extremely varied multi-level campaign with mountain gorges, Tibetan temples, and underground ruins to explore. Excellent fare.

And there were two Indiana Jones games back in the day that cloned Tomb Raider, but I haven't played them yet. Should be worth checking out.

 

[JarlFrank]

https://www.trle.net/

Enjoy my nibbas

 

[Biscotti]

I went through the TRLE hall of fame, randomly downloading levels that looked appealing to me, for a period of about two weeks this summer. I must say that while there's definitely some talent in the TR mapping community, quality control seems to be lower than what I'm used to with Quake and Thief.
A sizeable chunk of the levels I played from the hall of fame (which is also absolutely massive, I might add) were so-so. Whenever I ask for recommendations 9 times out of 10 I get recommended Mists of Avalon. It's not bad despite trying to ape the LAU trilogy way too much for my liking; however, you'd expect recommendations to be a bit more varied with a hall of fame like that.

 

[JarlFrank]

Yeah the Tomb Raider level editing guild is a lot more of a mixed bag than what we get from the Thief, Quake, Doom, and Build Engine games communities.

I played a couple of levels, but the only one I can 100% recommend with no caveats is Himalayan Mysteries. Give that one a shot, it's genuinely great.

 

[Neuromancer]

And there were two Indiana Jones games back in the day that cloned Tomb Raider, but I haven't played them yet. Should be worth checking out.

i guess you mean "The Infernal Machine" and "The Emperor's Tomb".

Only the first one is a real classic Tomb Raider clone, though.
I liked it at the time, but it hasn't aged that well. Especially Indy's movement is very stiff and he literally moves like a tank.


The second game is more action oriented though with barely any puzzles and very linear levels.
Level design is also mostly non-sensical and the story even for Indy standard very stupid.

One level consists only of a very annoying chase sequence by a German super tank.
You make one jumping mistake and can restart the level from the beginning.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

The 90s was the perfect storm for creativity, experimentation, freshness, as well as gameplay that demands a modicum of attention and intelligence. All because of technical limitations. God bless technical limitations...for the most part; I still am not a fan of the auto-aim combat, but it is serviceable/not without value of course. It may not be as good as it should be, but it serves to provide reward for your secret hunting. Provide fear of the darkness and beyond. Add extra platforming challenge when you get surprised by a mob while there's not much room on a cliff edge. And so on.

As a kid, I explored as much of the 90s as I could, completely in love. Consoles, PC, handheld, browser-based games (ok this one not so much). Little did I know everything would change. Steep decline. In my naïve little mind things could only get better.



In some rare cases, sure an occasional modern gem comes along with such polish and lessons learnt from their example that it overtakes a classic or two, but nothing will ever overtake the 90s as a golden age of game design and game-playing on the whole. There was so many awesome games, so much creativity, real gameplay and Tomb Raider was just one series of many. And yes, TR: Anniversary is a fine example of decline, as is Legend and all the rest thereafter.

Still? The game came out in 1996. Auto-aim was the norm. Outside of The Decent, even First Person Shooters were still using auto-aim on PC back then.

Tomb Raider was nice. But from a purely gameplay perspective it did come after Super Mario 64 which had vastly better 3D platforming controls than Tomb Raider.

I wouldn’t say technological limitations were the reason for those things you mentioned when technological advancements are the whole reason the ‘90s felt like a time of freshness, experimentation, and creativity like you said. So much of the freshness came because tech was making such big pumps there was new stuff they could do you hadn’t seen before every few years, and experimentation is going to come out of that because you’ve got developers just trying to see what the fuck they can do with this new tech they’ve got.

 

[Ash]

The 90s was the perfect storm for creativity, experimentation, freshness, as well as gameplay that demands a modicum of attention and intelligence. All because of technical limitations. God bless technical limitations...for the most part; I still am not a fan of the auto-aim combat, but it is serviceable/not without value of course. It may not be as good as it should be, but it serves to provide reward for your secret hunting. Provide fear of the darkness and beyond. Add extra platforming challenge when you get surprised by a mob while there's not much room on a cliff edge. And so on.

As a kid, I explored as much of the 90s as I could, completely in love. Consoles, PC, handheld, browser-based games (ok this one not so much). Little did I know everything would change. Steep decline. In my naïve little mind things could only get better.



In some rare cases, sure an occasional modern gem comes along with such polish and lessons learnt from their example that it overtakes a classic or two, but nothing will ever overtake the 90s as a golden age of game design and game-playing on the whole. There was so many awesome games, so much creativity, real gameplay and Tomb Raider was just one series of many. And yes, TR: Anniversary is a fine example of decline, as is Legend and all the rest thereafter.

Still? The game came out in 1996. Auto-aim was the norm. Outside of The Decent, even First Person Shooters were still using auto-aim on PC back then.

Tomb Raider was nice. But from a purely gameplay perspective it did come after Super Mario 64 which had vastly better 3D platforming controls than Tomb Raider.

I wouldn’t say technological limitations were the reason for those things you mentioned when technological advancements are the whole reason the ‘90s felt like a time of freshness, experimentation, and creativity like you said. So much of the freshness came because tech was making such big pumps there was new stuff they could do you hadn’t seen before every few years, and experimentation is going to come out of that because you’ve got developers just trying to see what the fuck they can do with this new tech they’ve got.

Fairly common yeah, yet most often it was some form of aim assistance like z-axis only, or some kind of rule that complicates things e.g hold lock-on button and accuracy changes dynamically based on line of sight, movement etc, can manually target switch and so on. TR was full lock-on from the moment you drew your guns, even through walls, and if I recall you couldn't even manually switch target. Infinite ammo pistols were gay. Oftentimes combat involved spamming said pistols from above on enemies below that are melee-only and completely incapable. It sucks. That said as I mentioned before combat is still valuable and important to give relevance to resource management and secret-hunting, fear what is in the darkness beyond, and the times where it's acrobatics combat while watching your footing was engaging. But it just could have been better as any other FPS or TPS of the time will show. It's not the end of the world as they're solid games despite shit combat, but imagine just how legendary the original trilogy could be with real combat.

Tech limitations are by far the biggest factor that kept the decline in check as it kept budgets grounded, and kept the focus on gameplay, story, art design & sound. Not millions of polys. The difference is 1 million dollars VS 100 million dollars budget for a modest shooter. It by far all stems from graphics whoring. The better the graphics, the increased demand for overall realism. Now the presentation is high detail, but the voice actor is cheap or middle-range? No we must hire A-listers and slap their name on the box, further ensure success of this multi-million dollar project. All decline is because of graphics. The faster we can get AI automating this shit the better.

Yes, Tech advancements of the 90s were glorious; namely the introduction of proper 3D. But it is the tech advancements that came after that (2000s) where the decline set in and fast.

 

[Bad Sector]

from a purely gameplay perspective it did come after Super Mario 64 which had vastly better 3D platforming controls than Tomb Raider.

They are different types of platformers, you can't really compare them as they are meant to be played differently - and a good way to understand this is to see their inspirations: Tomb Raider has a more methodical slow paced platforming style that relies on aligning your character with the environment to make (close to) "perfect" jumps and was inspired by "cinematic platformers" like Prince of Persia, Flashback, Another World, etc whereas Super Mario 64 was inspired by more fluid platformers like... Super Mario :-P.

Super Mario 64 does feel and control better than Core's Tomb Raider and in fact i'd say that the same is also true for Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider games. However in Core'sTomb Raider games you have much more control over how Lara will move and jump than you have in Super Mario 64 or Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raiders - and you are expected to learn and use that control to progress.

 

[JarlFrank]

Super Mario 64 does feel and control better than Core's Tomb Raider and in fact i'd say that the same is also true for Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider games. However in Core'sTomb Raider games you have much more control over how Lara will move and jump than you have in Super Mario 64 or Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raiders - and you are expected to learn and use that control to progress.

Yeah and it's why I prefer Tomb Raider to more fluid platformers, it's an action adventure game in the truest sense - you have to figure out environmental puzzles based on Lara's moveset. Analyze the environment and figure out how to get from A to B. And due to how precise the controls are, level traversal becomes a logical puzzle.

 

[Tehdagah]

 

[catfood]

Good to hear that they are adding the expansions as well. Too bad it's console only at this point.

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

Finally something good, usually I'm aversed to remasters, but this one really need one and it looks great! Plus they included the option to keep the original look. An absolute win!