The controls aren't clunky, they are actually very precise and function incredibly well with how the game is constructed.
Translation: The controls are clunky because the game is clunky.
Also, tank-like controls to move a person aren't clunky? Get out of here. Tomb Raider created the absurd notion that tank controls could be applied to other games than those actually featuring tanks, such as adventure games like Grim Fandango and Escape from Monkey Island. What's the first thing about those two games that people hate?
It's only because they had to dumb the game down to consoles that Tomb Raider has tank controls in the first place!
You always have complete control of Lara and her movements are very predictable
Translation: You have complete control of Lara except when the game takes it away from you (see: sliding platforms and monsters purposefully kept out of view who ambush and stun-lock you) and her movements are very predictable because they are pre-defined, there is no such thing as tapping the button lightly for a small jump/holding it down for a longer jump, there is just the one jump, and the game's not-so-successful efforts to integrate that one jump.
The "problem" isn't the controls themselves, it's the grid-like structure of the game and its levels, and how the controls respond to that.
you never have to guess whether she can make a jump or not, it becomes second nature very fast.
Trial and error, ad nauseum, do not a good game make.
I'll admit here right and now, 3rd-person platformers are not my cup of tea. Besides the Tomb Raider games, I think it's only the Psychonauts-games in this genre that I like and have played extensively... otherwise I avoid them. Especially the older ones.
The camera can be a bit annoying when you're backed against corners and such, but otherwise it's completely functional.
Considering the amount of precision platforming you have to do in this game, the times the player is backed against corners is roughly ALL THE TIME.
Next you'll be telling me Earthworm Jim 3D is a perfectly fine game with a perfectly functional camera.
You can control the camera directly with numpad zero too.
And the absolute shit-state this game was in if this wasn't in place would be even too much for you guys. It's not even near an acceptable solution, but it's better than nothing.
Complaints about clunkiness usually seem to come from people who are failing jumps because they didn't do the tutorial section. Hold shift to walk to edges without falling, release shift and tap back once to give yourself full running jump distance. If you master that, which takes approximately four seconds, you can clear every single part of the first two games.
Did you miss the part where I said I beat the games a long time ago? How do you think I did that if I skipped the gym in the ball room?
The reason I'm missing jumps is a mixture of the following:
# I can't see where I'm jumping to.
# I can't see properly when I'm supposed to jump.
Those are not faults of the controls, but the camera angles being shit.
The combination of the two, clunky controls and a stupid camera, is what drags these games down.
It is generally accepted that 3rd-person 3D games in the 90s had crap camera controls. For some reason I'm arguing with people who are defending that like the black eye they're nursing after talking with their spouse last night.
Mouthbreathing mammary-worshipping mongoloids, the lot of you.
(Thanks for giving me a venue to vent some rage, I feel much better after this.)
