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%.)."

Comments

Oh gee I wonder why?

[jayhawk88]

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.