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Tomb Raider Franchise Revamp Due Summer 2005?
Thanks to GameSpot for its article discussing a possible date for the relaunch of the Tomb Raider videogame franchise. According to the story: "Top Cow Productions announced they are temporarily halting production of the Tomb Raider comic book. According to the post, the comic 'will relaunch in conjunction with the release of the seventh Tomb Raider video game in the summer of 2005.'" We've previously covered news that "Crystal Dynamics is currently developing the new game with, according to some reports, the input of Ion Storm founder Warren Spector" - what changes would you like to see in a new Tomb Raider title?
What Changes would I liked to see?
Realism... in the form of a breast reduction for Lara.
"I hate quotations." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Change everything!!!!!!!!! Gameplay, graphics, controls, the works! I want it to be a sexy grand theft auto + metal gear solid combo! Get Lara some new clothes (or lack thereof)...
http://chrono.posterous.com/
Simple: that it fail to suck.
...they should be so big, they're visible from space!
...is on temporary halt as well, I'd be happy to entertain Angelina until re-release, thank you very much.
When is name-value a bad thing? When your game is called 'Tomb Raider'. While the brand is well recognized, few game players and reviewer circles have anything good to say about the quality of the product since it's second installment. I guess that Eidos never predicted that stale gameplay mechanics that were popular several years ago could ever wear out. It's only fitting now that Eidos is left with a series that is only known for it's big-breasted-heroine and not much else.
Gamers have grown considerably since the early PSX days, and people simply don't care anymore about the Tomb Raider sex-image that captured a number young gamers 7 years ago. I find it hard to imagine that anything else other than a complete overhall of every aspect of the game (including its main character) will salvage this series.
Make it a good game perhaps?
What would I like from it? How about having it designed for PC not for X-Box. *slaps Warren Spector*
Yeah, right. That'll never happen. It's so much easier to implement DRM and copy-protection and other garbage on a console, it's no wonder everyone is not-so-subtly trying to elbow the PC out of the way. We might as well forget that we once had the ability to do things like take screenshots from games without having a copyright notice splattered on them. (If you think I'm being facetious, try taking a screenshot in Final Fantasy XI)
Random and weird software I've written.
If I'm allowed to comment, since I've never actually played any.. :)
It seems the later games devolved into just being a vehicle for Lara. They accomplished their goal of making her a star, but then they didn't know what to do with her. So they dressed her up in new outfits and give her different types of 'extreme sports' to do.
(it's funny, but that's the exact same as the second movie)
If I were making a Lara game, I'd take a look at the new Prince of Persia. I'd also look at a SplinterCell2 type multiplayer, but also try to get a 4 person 'coop' thing going on with 'online' missions that are built for teamwork.
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
While developing Angel of Darkness, Core Design actually quite a lengthy story/script to span three games. Angel of Darkness was just the first part, and by their accounts (as far as you can trust them), not the best part and by no means giving away the scope of the whole. The work put into giving Angel of Darkness a real story was pretty significant, and the characterization of Lara as a person was an important step forward for the series. It's a shame that people got so hung up on the faults of Angel of Darkness that they couldn't see these truly positive things: a good story and finally a three dimensional Lara that was more than just an a pair of adventuring breasts.
So, I say they should stick to the script (or improve it, as needed) and give us the rest of the story, and continue to refine Lara as a character. After the degradation in the second through the fifth games, where Lara becomes more of a mass murderer than an adventurer, let's not lose sight the real benefits of the sixth game just because it was rushed out the door by the publisher, Eidos, in a buggy state.
And, while you're at it, how about having a vision for a series that's larger than a single game? That was part of the Angel of Darkness plan too, and I'd like to see more game developers approaching their franchises a little less like discrete, unrelated points and more like a continuum.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
The rumour is that this game is being built using the engine from Legacy of Kain: Defiance, which is really excellent for action/adventure games.
The feature I'm most hoping for from it is Soul Reaver-style controls (relative to the camera) as opposed to Tomb Raider-style (relative to the character, turn-in-place and move forward/back like a tank).
I tried playing the first couple of TR games and I couldn't get past the unintuitive control scheme. I was able to squeeze through Silent Hill 2, which used the same type, but only because its pace was so much slower.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Borrow pages from System Shock. Give lara a Shodan type adversary in the form of some sort of ancient god/goddess. Bring back tension to tomb exploration, and also make inventory manipulation interesting. (Flares, a limited number of climbing spikes, a compass, possibly even a water purifier. Limit ammo.)
-- Chapman's Observation #1: Nothing is ever simple
I know! They should re-release the old games on portable platforms. That never fails.
Seriously, Lara Croft is an overdone character thats around simply because of the 'boob' factor. Take the series down a new path and watch the money roll in. Worst case scenario they pull a MGS3 and choose another character (maybe Lara Croft's father?) and make it a pre-Tomb Raider series game.
It's a shame that people got so hung up on the faults of Angel of Darkness that they couldn't see these truly positive things...
...how about having a vision for a series that's larger than a single game?
Huge faults, we should say. No pulitzer winning novel would shine with that poor gameplay & graphics.
They should focus on delivering one single highly polished game. IMHO, if they can't make one good game, they shouldn't even try to make a trilogy.
Come on, it's the perfect time for Rick Dangerous to come back and take the role of the true Tomb Raider. Retro is big now isn't it?
I played through the series and they just were not creative enough to make me want the next installment. All you had to do was pull switches, find keys, and spend the rest of the time aligning jumps. The bad, bad camera angles made the challenge, not creative and innovative gameplay. They would add one new move for Lara per game and force you to use it once or twice during your adventure. I dont even remember the story line yet I can clearly recall every scene in Resident Evil 2 (a contemporary game with 10x the variety of puzzles and thrills..with no jumping). I dont know what they were intending for the series. The story lines did not follow the previous games, sending Lara on unrelated missions each time. It was clear games were rushed out anually in November for christmas sales. What do I want for the next Tomb Raider? Make it as easy to play pirated copies as it was on the PS1!! And then maybe I'll consider it.
I would like to see the ORIGINAL Tomb Raider, done with an engine as advanced as say.. Doom3. The original Tomb Raider was JUST difficult enough to keep me completely enthralled, but not NEARLY as fucking PUZZLERIFFIC as the second or third ones (i didn't even know there WERE 3 others after TR3) .. I finished the first one, after a VERY long time playing with it... the second one, i got most of the way through, before I got stuck in places that were just too difficult.. and the third one, I got about 2 levels into before I was like "ok, fuck this. this is too crazy."
(Return to Castle Wolfenstein single player also was like that, once you got into the super-natural beast levels, it was too fuckin crazy to even think about completeing at a normal difficulty level)
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
The first part being a clear prince of persia rip off, the game play only has changed to the worse (more shooting) in the sequels. There has to be a significant change in gameplay. First of all reduce the lever puzzles, add real puzzles. Add more stealth instead of acrobacy. I think a Thief approach could work for Tomb Raider as well. Add a decent storyline and NPCs which are more than cannon fodder, and you are set. I think Tomb Raider could be developed into something like a present deus ex, thief, if done well.
Look at you, Laura. A pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you run through my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect, immortal god?
In my talons I shape clay,
crafting lifeforms as I please.
Around me is a burgeoning empire of clay.
From my thrown room,
lines of power careen into the skies of Earth.
My whims will become lightening bolts,
which will devastate the mounds of Humanity.
Out of the chaos, they will run and whimper,
praying to me to end their tedious anarchy.
I am drunk with this vision;
GOD(dess), THE TITLE SUITS ME WELL!"
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I agree, I don't see how giving development to Crystal Dynamics will change the fact that Eidos are the ones who forced Core to release Angel of Darkness before it was finished. Surely they'll do the same thing to Crystal Dynamics and we'll end up with another unfinished product.
The trouble with Eidos is their only decent franchise is Tomb Raider and they only make money when there's a new sequel on the shelves, as evidenced by the big hit their shares took when AoD was first delayed.
It's a shame Core weren't given the freedom that developers like Nintendo, Valve or id have, they can afford to set deadlines of "when it's done" and get away with it (and create fantastic games too).
I wouldn't have wanted to be one of the poor developers at Core when Eidos were insisting on their unrealistic deadlines.
Same goes for tomeraider, remember the orginal. THe last tombraider was total suck. I want guns, jumps, and hot ass Lara. I could care less about the story and playing as other characters...and forget swimming....and the 800 controllers of the last one. And no choose your own fate kinda story like the last one either....it aint Dirk Croft. Simple Lara, is better complex Lara anyday.
Deserving got nothing to do with it.....shuffle
...to make people forget the bad entries in the Tomb Raider series. Why not just let this one go and try to resurrect it when late 90's computer nostalgia kicks in (much like Prince of Persia or Ninja Gaiden is now)?
dp's, facials, and anything else that would make me want to watch another PoS TR game for how much??? 50 bucks???
whatever.
What Changes would everyone like to see? Realism... in the form of a breast enlargement for Lara
That's the sort of Tomb Raider game that I'd like to play.
How about not having Top Cow work on the Art design, that'd be a good start.
Go back to the sense of adventure and exploration that was so inspiring in the original. Huge caverns, booby traps, something more than the typical Eidos "block puzzle". Slower gameplay that can speed up in a heart beat and then calm back down. Watch the Indiana Jones movies again to see what "adventure" feels like.
And a nude code.
Upgrade your grey matter, cause one day it may matter
"what changes would you like to see in a new Tomb Raider title?"
Something done by Warren Spector that wasn't totally fucked up.
Consider: How did the original manage to spawn four sequels, even though they all sucked? Because the first one was incredible. Tomb Raider 1 was one of the best gaming experiences of the early polygon days.
What made it so goddamn good? Not the fact that it was a polygonal adventure in the early days of fully-polygonal environment games (1996 - Quake had only been out for a year), and it could stand out as such in a way that it couldn't today. That wasn't the point.
The point was this: It had atmosphere. Specifically:
- It had the thrill of getting swept over a waterfall into a pool filled with unknown inhabitants.
- It had the dizzying climb to the top of a Roman tomb, in such a way that it gave you goddamn vertigo to look over the edge. That may be one of its defining traits: that leap over a gut-wrenching drop, saved by a last-second grab onto a ledge.
- It had an awesome hugeness that has been oddly missing from all later games. The sheer volume of the Roman coliseum - the height and length of a three-tier aqueduct - the awesome visage of an enormous sphinx appearing out of gloomy darkness. The Tomb Raider 1 levels made excellent use of vast space in buried caverns.
- It had puzzles that were not only clever, but visceral. How neat is it to have a huge cavern with very high entrances that you can only reach by flooding the whole cavern with water? And its setup was golden: you run around a corner and pull a lever, then hear a tremendous rush of water behind you... you know what's happened, but seeing this change is still marvelous. Commanding 100,000 gallons of water tends to convey a strong sense of power.
- Of utmost importance, Tomb Raider 1 was chock-full of decaying-tomb creepiness. You peer down a hole and see a dark pool of water far below. Jumping in almost took an act of willpower, because you didn't know what lurked beneath the surface that might suck you under. Whistling wind in the Inca level; the shock of a tyrannosaur shaking the trees while running after you; the sudden leap of a wolf from behind a rocky pillar. 95% of the game was silent except for your echoey footsteps, which made the sudden roar of an attacking bear downright galvanic. In some ways, it was creepier than even Half-Life, which kind of deadened you to nasty pouncing headcrabs after a while.
In short, the first game delivered so deftly that it continues to have market appeal, even after many crappy sequels and two awful popcorn movies. The developers forgot everything that made TR1 cool. A submarine? High-tech headquarters? Venice? Jet skis? What the fuck do these things have to do with raiding tombs? And why did Lara have to turn into goddamn Rambo, taking out soldiers with bazookas? If I wanted to play a Metal Gear game, I'd play a Metal Gear game.In short - Tomb Raider suffered from mission slip of the worst kind. The series lost its ancient-tomb-of-mystery roots, and it slid into the overcrowded field of generic third-person games. The Lost Artifact was a small step in the right direction, but it was far too puzzle-y: rather than solving clever puzzles while exploring, it felt like just a string of really lame puzzles. No gusto whatsoever. It didn't help that it was a really awful PC port with the feel of an old Playstation game.
I'd love to see the Tomb Raider series resurrected with a game true to its roots. But I think it has only one last chance to redeem itself - after five bad sequels and two crap movies, one more failure will crush the fading embers of interest.
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
Hm, that's actually a great idea. The franchise has to go back to its roots: climbing around in old caves. For some reason the developers think Lara needs to visit exotic new locations in every level and kill dozens of other humans, which just feels contrived and wrong - but trapping Lara in some ancient Mayan complex with an elder god/demon or whatnot trying to kill her is a perfect Tomb Raider setting. A little darker, a little more claustrophobic than the previous games, fewer but harder encounters and supernatural elements here and there, none or very few outdoors levels... it's a winner. Not all-out survival horror, but IMO making Lara the hunted rather than the hunter is just what the series needs.
Actually, I can see it now: left-over climbing ropes, who left them? And finally! some more ammo for the guns, they almost ran out back there... wait, the radio squawks. Did they get the SOS I tried to send, is that from the helicopter? No, there's no way radio waves could get in here... this is coming from inside the cave somewhere... a strange, tortured voice, you can just barely make out the words... whoa, is that a shadow moving over by the wall?
..just to be able to have a version WITH THE F**KING SOUNDTRACK!!! I've yet to find a CD on the planet with the original wavs so I can hear the dialogue! (Yes I bought the reissue and discovered they'd replaced the wav tracks with silence).
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer