Ubermetalhed said:
The series started to go down hill with Angel of Darkness. Prior to this the games were still critically acclaimed and sold well.
Crystal Dynamics, made the games into what can only be described as 'casual' and soul-less.
For instance they turned the boss battles into crash bandicoot styled spot the weakness and exploit it minigames and they added quicktime events. The T-rex fight in Anniversary was horrific.
The level design went downhill not up. They removed the feeling you had in the original games that each level was in fact part of a whole area or TOMB. A tomb which to traverse was a puzzle in itself.
The controls were what made the original games, they were essentially the equivalent of the Resident evil controls which still make resident evil as great as it is today. The restrictions of the controls meant timing was crucial and also added to the intensity of climbing about and making those death defying leaps.
CD stripped the soul from the series, instead it went about trying to make as much money as they could, pandering to those who didn't have the patience or skill to play the original games. Christ they even made Lara's boobs smaller to attract a female audience.
Plus graphically there is no reason to suggest that Core would not have upgraded the graphics as much as CD.
I am an enormous Tomb Raider fangirl (been playing since I was 11) and as much as I miss the feeling of old games in the series, I still can't say that Legend, Anniversary and Underworld were that much shit. As a matter of fact, Anniversary is possibly my favourite game in the series all together. Despite all the things they dumbed down and whatnot; sometimes I was pissed at how ridiculous the earlier games were. Levels had almost no cohesion and you could end up wandering the area for weeks before stumbling upon something accidentally and finally advancing. Maybe I was just young and stupid, but as much as I loved old Tomb Raider (and still love it), the old games were really not that good for playing. Anniversary was somehow the perfect mix between the old and the new (at least for me); it was fairly long, relatively difficult at some points, but not exaggerated and confusing. I played the first game and compared to Anniversary, I like Anniversary better. Yes, the feel was different and some of the "soul" of the series was changed and/or gone, but it doesn't immediately mean the games became terrible. But to each his own. The only complaint I have is the fact that they made both Legend and Underworld ridiculously easy. Underworld didn't even have bosses. So, I'd like to see some of the difficulty from the earlier games back, but I wouldn't want the confusing level design again. I don't even remember when was the last time I played Tomb Raider 3 or 4, but to this day I still have traumas from wandering those areas, trying to find something that will point me in the right direction. I'd much rather spend that time actually playing around wonderful scenery, doing something fun, than running into dead ends.
And I don't think they made her boobs smaller to attract female audience. I think they made them smaller because they were ridiculous. I mean, seriously, it completely ruins the immersion; a person with such large boobs could barely run straight, let alone jump all over temples and do backflips in the air. But I don't know, maybe that's because I talk from the female perspective.
I'm very interested in how they'll develop Lara and her story in the new game. This teaser teased me successfully. I just hope there'll be
tombs. Tombs are, strangely, my favourite part of
Tomb Raider.
