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Tomb Raider - A Tarnished Legend
An anonymous reader writes "1UP.com has posted a fantastic piece on the Tomb Raider series that examines how the franchise has been tarnished over the past few years -- and questions whether Lara can still win back the hearts of gamers. What's especially amusing is the inclusion of GameRankings scores, demonstrating the series' consistent drop in quality (Tomb Raider 1 averaged an 89%, while the latest installment, Angel of Darkness, came in at 54%.)."
Lara doesn't have to win back the hearts of gamers. She'd do well to win back the pants of gamers.
Not saying that that objective is what makes a good game, but it surely fits the target audience of the series...
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde
What's been the Tomb Raider formula?
Step 1: Produce decent quality platformer (which incidently is helped greatly by people wanting a game that looks great on all those new hot-shit 3D accelerated cards they were buying), that features a unique character and finds a market.
Step 2: Churn out the same damn game every year for the next 5 years.
Step 3: Where's the profit?
You know, if you've got a groundbreaking game with insane depth and/or replay value like Civ or the Sims, or are able to cultivate a massive fanbase like Everquest or Mario, you can get away with this sort of thing, but come on, it's Tomb Raider. Tomb Raider 1 was nice, but nothing really more than your standard platformer. If it had been Lars Croft instead of Laura, Tomb Raider 1 would have still been successful, it might have had one sequel, and that would have been it. Laura's tits are the only thing that kept that franchise going beyond the second one, and even that wears thin eventually.
Please tell us you meant this list as examples of bad movies, not the few exceptions. What ever merits some of those movies may have, they are all completely overwhelmed by the pile of crap that is Pitch Black.
Pitch Black deserves nothing higher than utter disdain. It is one of the worst movies ever made. The set-up is moronic, the cliches are insulting, the dialog is awful. The muslim family is going to space Mecca.
Space. Mecca. WTF is space Mecca? I could go on with the dozens of other problems with this movie, but really, what more did you need to know?
If you are in any way responsible for anyone associated with this movie continuing in the film industry, especially the making of the sequel, you deserve to get your ass kicked by Sean Penn.
Seriously. It's not a 'turn the brain off and just watch the action' movie. It's not campy. It's not a so-bad-it's-good. It's just bad. Shame on you for even mentioning it by name. If you think this movie has any redeeming value, there is something seriously wrong with you.