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Tomb Raider Company Founders Regroup In Circle

Posted by simoniker on from the beware-of-natives-with-sharp-sticks dept.

Thanks to Gamesindustry.biz for its article discussing the formation of a new game developer called Circle Studio, set up by Jeremy Heath Smith and his brother Adrian Smith, the founders of Tomb Raider developers Core Design. The piece explains that "the problems surrounding last year's critically derided Tomb Raider: Angel Of Darkness led to [Jeremy] Heath-Smith's resignation from the Eidos board, and the franchise being dramatically handed over to US developer Crystal Dynamics", and so the UK-based duo "have hired 35 former Core Design employees to work on two prototype titles." The article goes on to explore Core's history, pointing out that, while "[the company's] achievements during an amazing four year period between 1996 and 2000 were breathtaking, with five annual Tomb Raider incarnations all global multi-million sellers", problems with the franchise started early, when "the game's original creator Toby Gard left Core Design after the release of the first (and some would say the best) Tomb Raider to set up Confounding Factor."

24 comments

  1. a pattern? by Hythlodaeus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This seems to be a recurring pattern:

    1. Game company makes a popular franchise
    2. Publisher/parent company decides too much profit is at stake to leave the franchise in the hands of the people who created it.
    3. Quality goes down due to publisher interference.
    4. Original talent quits in frustration.

    Tomb Raider, Civilization, Ultima...

    Maybe one day publishers will stop thinking they know how to develop games.

    --
    For great justice.
    1. Re:a pattern? by blincoln · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't know if that's really true in this case. I'm not a TR fan, but Eidos seemed to give Core a *lot* of leeway to make this one. Angel of Darkness was something like two years overdue - how many developers get that much extra time to finish a game?

      What seemed to be the problem as far as I could see was a combination of not abandoning the archaic control scheme of the previous games while simultaneously trying to incorporate every possible style of gameplay into AoD.

      The controls are the worst. Someone needs to go back in time and assassinate whoever invented the RE-style controls (where left/right turns your character in place, and forward/back makes them walk backwards or forwards relative to their current orientation - not the camera) for the good of all humanity. I can't believe *anyone* is still using them, especially for an action/adventure title. It's okay when the cam is hard-locked behind the player's head (although this makes for a boring way of looking at the game world), but in one like TR or RE or SH where there are a variety of camera angles it's incredibly unintuitive and clunky.

      --
      "...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
    2. Re:a pattern? by Stormwatch · · Score: 1

      Well, yeah, but Tomb Raider had been an awful game since the very first one... -_-''

      --
      Circumcision is child abuse.
    3. Re:a pattern? by alphaseven · · Score: 2, Interesting
      For comparison, a lot of Japanese developers are still with their same company since the 8-bit days (Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideo Kajima, Hironobu Sakaguchi). The loyalty to employees marks the difference between US and Japanese corporate structure.

      Still you could make the case for both sides, since a lot of American companies order around the original talent and still remain profitable, while a lot of Japanese corporations have been accused of being too loyal to employees and afraid of firing underperformers.

    4. Re:a pattern? by Dot.Com.CEO · · Score: 1

      Civilization? Beg your pardon there, but all three civ games were amazing. Granted, they all play the same but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Expansion packs were crap but, then again, I never really was a fan of campaigns nor of multi-player Civ.

      --
      Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
    5. Re:a pattern? by Ataru · · Score: 1

      Actually they did change the control system in AoD. It went Mario-style, i.e. Lara went in the direction you pointed the stick, relative to the camera. Frankly I think that's worse than the previous system. The problem is that when the camera moves, you have to adjust your stick appropriately. Ugh.

    6. Re:a pattern? by JFMulder · · Score: 2, Funny

      how many developers get that much extra time to finish a game?
      <insert oblibatory Duke Nukem Forever joke>

    7. Re:a pattern? by NonSequor · · Score: 1

      I don't know about everyone else, but I can adjust the direction of the stick without even thinking about it. I never found that control scheme to be that hard to get used to.

      --
      My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
    8. Re:a pattern? by AndrewHowe · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The problem is that you don't know when the camera is going to suddenly move. So however l33t you reckon you are, there is going to be a delay before you have adjusted for it. It's the "Mario effect", from Mario 64 where you were legging it along a thin platform, doing fine, only for the bleeding camera to suddenly move, making you fall off.
      This type of control system also makes it almost impossible to face in a desired direction without moving (not to mention the fact that it looks so shit, the character suddenly flipping 180 degrees).
      I played AoD for about an hour before I threw down the controller with disgust. Sure, you probably get used to it, like I would maybe get used to being reamed in the arse with a broken bottle.

    9. Re:a pattern? by NonSequor · · Score: 1

      In those situations you just change the camera mode. If the game doesn't have such a feature, then it is indeed broken.

      --
      My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
  2. Anyone see this as a good thing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tomb Raider was getting boring as a series.

    Hopefully, now circle will be able to come up with something new and original,

  3. Re:4 p4773rn? by Deraj+DeZine · · Score: 0

    Do game publishers remind anyone else of the RIAA? They keep releasing rehashes of popular concepts, they go after pirates (well, they pay others to do so), nobody likes them, they impose a rating system that apparently no one pays attention to, their mothers smell of elderberries, etc.

    --
    True story.
  4. Why Tombraider I is the best by Flyboy+Connor · · Score: 1

    Having played the first five Tombraiders (although only the first to the very end), I can say that for me personally the problem with all the games except the first is that they are riddled with situations, which you can't skip, in which you die 9 times out of 10, unless you are a twitch gamer. I am sure there are many people who enjoy such game situations, but it goes to show that the first Tomraider has an appeal to a much wider public than the others. The loss of the lead designer for the first one may therefore very well be the explanation for the decline of the series.

  5. Re:Slashdot is not liberal! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ceren?

    Post a link?!?

  6. Jeez do I feel like a dino now by nutsy · · Score: 1

    ... because I remember playing and enjoying what may have been Core's first game (or at least oldest game in this list here), an entertaining Indiana Jones pastiche side-scroller called Rick Dangerous. Tomb Raider? What's that?