Tomb Raider Company Founders Regroup In Circle

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."

Comments

Re:a pattern?

[AndrewHowe]

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.