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

[levelworm]

Nowadays people tried to put a film into a game. This is not surprising.

 

[Ezekiel]

While not understanding film at all. Confused amateurs.

 

[Ezekiel]

Like, do they think a good film director doesn't want the viewer to feel a sense of danger for the character as they walk along a ledge or whatever? The kind of automation, magnetic walking and invisible walls protecting the player nowadays are completely antithetical to what a movie scene with that same scenario tries to convey. Canned animations of the character squeezing between two walls again and again just make the thing feel more artificial and make you feel less like the adventurer in that movie you like, because of how the control is taken away from you.

 

[kangaxx]

It's because the danger hairs at Kotaku et al bitch and whine about the "toxicity of gayming" whenever the difficulty is set too high for them. Seeing as a pigeon has been proven to be able to out-think the modern Kotaku paedo, of course real gamers suffer.

 

[Neuromancer]

Akin to this old image:

What is the game on the left?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

one of the worst games ever. shitting all over any modern fallout.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I've never played the original TR. Which version should I play? PS1, Saturn, or PC?

 

[Lemming42]

PC, it has save-anywhere which most people find better than the PS1's save crystal system. Runs fine at 1920x1080 in DOSBox too, and I always liked the keyboard controls more than the controller.

There's some fan patch with a few fixes which also resotres the original music, which you'll probably want to get since the soundtrack is a big part of the fun.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

PC, it has save-anywhere which most people find better than the PS1's save crystal system.

Save-anywhere is popamole, I'll play the PS1 version.

 

[Viata]

PC, it has save-anywhere which most people find better than the PS1's save crystal system.

Save-anywhere is popamole, I'll play the PS1 version.

Then he starts using saving state

Spoiler

I'm replaying the PS1 version too because that is the only version I've played

 

[Ezekiel]

"severe problem: opengl gl_ext_packed_pixels extension is required for openglide"

Trying to play TR 1. Don't remember how I got TR 2 and 3 to work. But I don't remember it taking as many steps as the people on GOG say.

 

[Rincewind]

Started out as a really good thread about why games in the 90s were great... before people started posting bell curves, "controversial" quotes attributed to the Buddha that he himself had revised later (generally in a 180-degree turn fashion), and their expert opinions on gender.

Having checked out of gaming from the mid-90s onwards until about 2008 or so, I'm having the time of my life (re-)experiencing the classics from the golden age of gaming.

That 2013 Tomb Raider reboot was garbage; the best parts of those games were the optional (!) puzzle-tombs that retained most of the excellent atmosphere of the originals. Otherwise, the constant melodrama, cover-shooting, "RPG elements" and cut-scenes bored me to death (I distinctly remember catching up on my email during one of the "more dramatic" cutscenes that just never wanted to end... I had to do something interesting with my time!)

Nu-Lara also struck me as someone suffering from a bipolar disorder—crying in the corner one minute, cold-blooded murderous psychopath in the next.

 

[Hace El Oso]

Like, do they think a good film director doesn't want the viewer to feel a sense of danger for the character as they walk along a ledge or whatever? The kind of automation, magnetic walking and invisible walls protecting the player nowadays are completely antithetical to what a movie scene with that same scenario tries to convey. Canned animations of the character squeezing between two walls again and again just make the thing feel more artificial and make you feel less like the adventurer in that movie you like, because of how the control is taken away from you.

But this is what modern film offers. Canned ‘animations’ and CGI, and everyone knows that there’s no risk to the actors and actresses whatsoever. People expect it all to be fake.

This may sound like a silly example, but it isn’t. I just recently watched a few interviews with Rowan Atkinson about the ‘Mr. Bean’ series. One scene in particular comes to mind, where he can’t fit a new armchair in his car, so he puts it on the roof and drives home sitting on it. This one:

It’s all real, he actually was just sitting in the chair as they drove around. Only in a few parts did they put the mini (with him still in the chair) on top of a flatbed truck and drive him around that way. And the shots where the car is driving right at the camera, were them just driving right at a camera man. None of this would ever be allowed today, because ‘what if the brakes don’t work?’. But of course they will! ‘Too risky, not allowed!’. By current day standards ‘Mr. Bean’ was a total cowboy production.
That doesn’t even address something like this:



Just analog reality, so pure you can taste it.
The truth is that faking everything has profound consequences for how people perceive their relation to the world around them. And so, yes, you get audiences that want to, expect to, see only set-piece cutscenes with no thrill of danger and only the alienation of CGI.

P.S What didn’t load?

 

[Faarbaute]

P.S What didn’t load?

The Youtube video.

 

[kangaxx]

I've never played the original TR. Which version should I play? PS1, Saturn, or PC?

I played it on Saturn with save crystals in '97 or whenever it came out. I highly recommend this way of playing because it ramps up the tension and the stakes a hell of a lot. It also forces you to think, even if just a little bit.

More games should use this system today, or have it as a difficulty option.

 

[index.php]

I've never played the original TR. Which version should I play? PS1, Saturn, or PC?

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...and-other-pc-games.90431/page-17#post-7888986

 

[Baron Dupek]

this way of playing [...] ramps up the tension and the stakes a hell of a lot. It also forces you to think, even if just a little bit.

sounds a bit like Soulslikes, which triggers modern audience pretty hard if they don't make popamole game that plays itself and won't let you spam buttons till the credits rolls
Some devs have hard time making different games (hard and/or requiring thinking) because AAA brains drain spreads fast and relentless and thus - not feasable to make.
Also modern engines can be quite limiting, old game engines could be build from the ground. With features in mind that requires a lot of workarounds in modern engines or red light from the leader.

 

[kangaxx]

It's arguably harder-core than Souls-likes because you can technically screw yourself on certain levels if you use a crystal at the wrong time. Some levels have a couple dotted in a central hub area and lots of offshoots with things that need doing, adding a measure of planning requirement. In Souls it's a no brainer to light a fire every time you see one (if I'm not mistaken... not an expert in those games).

(Edit: just talking about the save mechanic rather than the gameplay, which I'm sure is a bit harder in Souls-like).

 

[Ash]

The combat is less hardcore than souls, nearly everything else is much more (platforming, navigation, puzzle elements, saving). But let's not compare eveything to Souls. Real gamers know that Souls is not unique in its level of difficulty at all as that was once a golden standard (console gaming 1995-2005 or so, and before that shit was even harder but simpler. Too hard and too simple in a lot of cases), but rather it is unique for pretty much two things:

1. persistent world where only the challenges are reset when you die; constant autosaving while retaining most of the challenge.
2. It's a Japanese game with a 100% serious tone and zero cringe. Very rare.

Both of these things are not objectively superior than all other methods though, just different. I like a little bit of Japanese weirdness (specifically from the 90s), it was unique and cool. And persistent world is generally very good design, but it often means having to be written into the lore as to why you keep respawning, and it is less consequences for failure as opposed to reloading your old save point. Can be good or bad depending on the game and how it is implemented. For example if Resident Evil 1 had this instead of typewriters it'd a) be weird setting & realism-wise, b) take some fear and tension out of it as death is slightly less consequential and therefore less like real life.

Edit: I also forgot it's Multiplayer components, e.g invasions and leaving each other messages.

 

[Viata]

Video game industry is beyond salvation when people talk about old games and someone says "sounds like souls-like".

 

[Melcar]

Anyone who uses the phrase "souls-like" in a conversation is fucking gay and deserves to have his opinion discarded.

 

[JarlFrank]

That 2013 Tomb Raider reboot was garbage; the best parts of those games were the optional (!) puzzle-tombs that retained most of the excellent atmosphere of the originals. Otherwise, the constant melodrama, cover-shooting, "RPG elements" and cut-scenes bored me to death (I distinctly remember catching up on my email during one of the "more dramatic" cutscenes that just never wanted to end... I had to do something interesting with my time!)

Nu-Lara also struck me as someone suffering from a bipolar disorder—crying in the corner one minute, cold-blooded murderous psychopath in the next.

The puzzle tombs were so disappointingly tiny. One room, one puzzle, that's it. Nothing even remotely approaching the cool levels of the original games. It felt like they only implemented them out of a sense of obligation towards the old fans rather than because they wanted to.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is my favorite of the reboot series (but commonly regarded as the worst by the mainstream) because it has more of these tombs, and generally a bigger focus on puzzle platforming than the other games in the reboot trilogy. Still, all the cinematic bullshit between the cool tombs is annoying.

The classic games never had this problem of "ludonarrative dissonance" where Lara acts differently in gameplay and cutscenes, because they didn't have more cutscenes than necessary and they gave Lara a personality appropriate to an action hero.
Modern "cinematic" game design with "emotional" protagonists is such a fucking disgrace.

 

[kangaxx]

That 2013 Tomb Raider reboot was garbage; the best parts of those games were the optional (!) puzzle-tombs that retained most of the excellent atmosphere of the originals. Otherwise, the constant melodrama, cover-shooting, "RPG elements" and cut-scenes bored me to death (I distinctly remember catching up on my email during one of the "more dramatic" cutscenes that just never wanted to end... I had to do something interesting with my time!)

Nu-Lara also struck me as someone suffering from a bipolar disorder—crying in the corner one minute, cold-blooded murderous psychopath in the next.

The puzzle tombs were so disappointingly tiny. One room, one puzzle, that's it. Nothing even remotely approaching the cool levels of the original games. It felt like they only implemented them out of a sense of obligation towards the old fans rather than because they wanted to.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is my favorite of the reboot series (but commonly regarded as the worst by the mainstream) because it has more of these tombs, and generally a bigger focus on puzzle platforming than the other games in the reboot trilogy. Still, all the cinematic bullshit between the cool tombs is annoying.

The classic games never had this problem of "ludonarrative dissonance" where Lara acts differently in gameplay and cutscenes, because they didn't have more cutscenes than necessary and they gave Lara a personality appropriate to an action hero.
Modern "cinematic" game design with "emotional" protagonists is such a fucking disgrace.

I agree with everything except the Shadow thing. IMO Rise was better, but I judge and consider those games in a completely different way to the originals, just as pure shooters with a bit of fake platforming. All three are bad shooters with an annoying protagonist.

 

[Rincewind]

The classic games never had this problem of "ludonarrative dissonance" where Lara acts differently in gameplay and cutscenes, because they didn't have more cutscenes than necessary and they gave Lara a personality appropriate to an action hero.
Modern "cinematic" game design with "emotional" protagonists is such a fucking disgrace.

That's a very good way to put it. In the old games, there was neither melodrama, not over-the-top-violence present (although I remember people had issues with the Lara death-scenes even back then, to be fair). Anyway, I'm very much against and disgusted by the gratuitous "realistic" portrayal of violence and gore in modern games, and the nu-Lara series definitely jumped on that bandwagon.

In the old games you were just simply in control of a hero, nothing was overexplained or overexposed (neither visually nor in text form), and your mind filled in the blanks.

 

[Derringer]

The classic games never had this problem of "ludonarrative dissonance" where Lara acts differently in gameplay and cutscenes, because they didn't have more cutscenes than necessary and they gave Lara a personality appropriate to an action hero.
Modern "cinematic" game design with "emotional" protagonists is such a fucking disgrace.

That's a very good way to put it. In the old games, there was neither melodrama, not over-the-top-violence present (although I remember people had issues with the Lara death-scenes even back then, to be fair). Anyway, I'm very much against and disgusted by the gratuitous "realistic" portrayal of violence and gore in modern games, and the nu-Lara series definitely jumped on that bandwagon.

In the old games you were just simply in control of a hero, nothing was overexplained or overexposed (neither visually nor in text form), and your mind filled in the blanks.

Games are funner when they're not forced to explained as much and guides/manuals are given to figure out how to play them, handholding cinematic bullshit had a good part in ruining games.