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Tomb Raider
- Animats 3y agoWell, it made Angelina Jolie a superstar. Few remember her films before Tomb Raider. Who sees "Gia" or "Pushing Tin" any more?
- atherton33 3y agoHackers.
- ketamine 3y ago[flagged]
- api 3y agoIt’s 2023 and I’m on an ARM laptop so RISC technology did change everything.
- nmfisher 3y agoRISC is good.
- mcphage 3y agoYeah, but how fast is your modem?
- trustingtrust 3y ago56kbps
- mk_stjames 3y agoTriple the speed of the Pentium. It's not just the chip... it has a PCI bus.
- rvense 3y agoWas Hackers actually a hit at the time or did it grow into one?
- doublerabbit 3y agoI don't think so, even after time it was never a hit but more a cult-classic. Shame really, you can't replace the quality of hovering over circuity and giant glass towers throwing out I/O.
- fragmede 3y agoit wasn't originally a hit but it grew into a cult classic.
- Findecanor 3y agoI'd say she was already a superstar. She had got an Oscar for Girl Interrupted. Gone in Sixty Seconds was a huge hit at the time.
- jimbob45 3y agoThe TR movie completed the cycle of movie to movie. Tomb Raider the game was just a gender-swapped Raiders of the Lost Ark. The movie translated that back into movie form.
- neffo 3y agoThe first of the rebooted series is more of a gender-swapped Rick Dangerous. (Lots of deaths.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddj8zZXmFl4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddj8zZXmFl4
- tedunangst 3y agoTrue she was known, but not the protagonist before Tomb Raider.
- raspyberr 3y agoFelt like the ending might've had a bit more oomph if the newest games were any good and not just generic Ubishit.
- odd_perfect_num 3y agoThey are good. Can you name a better game in the same genre? The only competition I can think of is Uncharted 4. The older Tomb Raider games are too many generations behind to run on modern consoles. Tomb Raider has become a major movie franchise, so it's not too surprising that the new games from the last decade are essentially movies.
- wiseowise 3y ago> They are good. Can you name a better game in the same genre? Original Assasins, The Saboteur.
- esperent 3y agoThe newer TR games are actually pretty great. Not perfect but it's unfair to label them as generic. The only other games I know that are similar are the Uncharted series.
- jibe 3y agoNot only have they been pretty good, they weren’t made by Ubisoft. Crystal Dynamics & Eidos Montréal did the last few, published by Square.
- badsectoracula 3y agoIt is very common to use "generic Ubisoft open world game" to refer to any game regardless of developer that follows Ubisoft's open word formula of having an open world with ton of pointless random collectables, lots of icons in the world map for them, the world being separated in areas/regions you "conquer", kitchensink gameplay where everythings is thrown together with shooting, hunting, crafting, skill trees, quest markers/GPS, etc. If that describes "most AAA games nowadays" that is because it does :-P. Ubisoft games were successful after all. As an example this was the first hit when i searched for "generic ubisoft open game": https://www.thegamer.com/best-ubisoft-games-open-world/ https://www.thegamer.com/best-ubisoft-games-open-world/
- userbinator 3y agoI suspect Lara also started the previous trend of advertising GPUs with 3D-rendered fantasy females. https://playkey.medium.com/nvidia-and-amd-queens-how-virtual-girls-promoted-video-cards-3dd14e1c9b72 https://playkey.medium.com/nvidia-and-amd-queens-how-virtual...
- x3874 3y agoLove this guys' posts. If only he would spice them up with diagrams, more screenshots, etc., so typically i read these during travel hours. Edit: Any idea how his (WP-based?) site's TOC works? Having a hard time continuosly reading associated posts if you don't use his links he inserts in the footer, but instead try to search f.e. for 'Lucasarts'.
- mcphage 3y agoThe first Tomb Raider game really was that good. Just this morning I watched someone on YouTube walking through the levels (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiToc0SYkds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiToc0SYkds), and it was impressive how memorable they were. Even the ones that I didn't remember before watching, once I saw them on the screen I was like "oh yeah, that place!".
- siddiqi123 3y agoThese were rather direct descendants of 8-bit games like Bounder: fast-paced, colorful, modest in size and ambition […]” Whoa… I could call “Corporation ” many things… a proto-FPS, a quasi-RPG, a precursory attempt at something like System Shock… But it definitely wasn’t your typical run-of-the-mill platformer or standard action title. It may have failed at what it set out to do, but it definitely was very ambitious!
- rgoulter 3y agoRelated to "the 2013 Lara Croft is more feminist than the old Lara Croft", I liked Liana Kerzner's discussion on the topic (with a cute pseudo-dialectic at about 11:00 in). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJMj3B1BFko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJMj3B1BFko
- jackmott 3y ago[dead]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ycombinete 3y agoYou almost lost me at pseudo-dialectic. But so far I’m really enjoying this!
- billfruit 3y agoAlso Lara Croft Relic Run, is one of the better infinite runner games on mobile, with smooth controls and graphics.
- cubefox 3y agoMy problem with the Tomb Raider design is that they swapped out Lara Croft for someone else. Lara used to have the same consistent design till Tomb Raider 6 (The Angel of Darkness). Her iconic face, known from countless magazine covers, posters, ads, and even music videos (in German speaking countries she appeared in a Die Ärzte music video which topped the charts for weeks [1]). Her trade mark braid hair style, too. It was never just the boobs. Unfortunately Tomb Raider 6 was a medium flop (due to poor gameplay). The next title, Legend, was a reboot, and they decided to change Lara's face. In subsequent titles they changed her more and more. By the time of Tomb Raider (2013) she was replaced with a completely different person. Not even her signature braid was preserved. It was just some generic looking woman of a similar age. That's like Nintendo deciding, after the 6th Super Mario title, that Mario should now look like a more realistic man and lose his big nose and his outdated hat. Or as if Capcom had decided, for Metal Gear Solid 3, to swap out Solid Snake for some other guy with the same name. I would have been okay with changing Lara Croft's not-very-realistic body proportions to something which fits the zeitgeist better. If it is so important for those people who love to complain about such stuff. Though I suspect most of the people complaining about her proportions didn't even play the games themselves. But please at least keep her face and don't change her into a completely different person. (And in my opinion, keep her braid. No other character has it. Without it she is like Mario without hat, or Sonic without his red/white shoes.) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=404oPn6tudE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=404oPn6tudE
- Apocryphon 3y agoI have absolute no interest in any of the new Tomb Raider games nor the franchise in general other than as a retro curio, but that decision seems little more controversial than say, recasting James Bond. It’s far from the only case of developers doubling down on a rebooted character redesign. Kratos didn’t get a physical image shift but isn’t he like a responsible dad now or something?
- cubefox 3y agoBond had to be recasted, there was no physical way around it. But recasting Lara Croft is as unnecessary as recasting Homer Simpson.
- jmorenoamor 3y agoFor those who played Tomb Raider when it was released, you know it was a hit because the game was great, movement was smooth and the sense of freedom felt amazing. Lara as a sex symbol was the cherry on top and free marketing for the game, all the media talked about the game and made more or less obvious jokes about Lara's chest (90s jokes, you know).
- okeuro49 3y agoFor interest, I think it's in this documentary: https://youtu.be/eeMFdrIrdZY https://youtu.be/eeMFdrIrdZY where the creator of Croft, Toby Gard, hated how Croft was turned by the marketing department into a sex symbol.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- wetmore 3y agoThis is discussed in the posted article too.
- lowbloodsugar 3y agoI can’t really agree about the controls. Tank controls suck, especially for an acrobatic character. Remember Tomb Raider came out just after Super Mario 64 which essentially redefined how 3D games should be controlled. Even Resident Evil eventually relented on tank controls.
- cubefox 3y agoThe tank controls in Tomb Raider were more acceptable then in Resident Evil, since the camera was generally behind Lara. So turning to the right on the screen meant pressing right, since this would turn Lara to the right both from her perspective (tank controls) and from the camera perspective (because it was behind her). Of course she still "stears" like a car.
- wodenokoto 3y ago
- IshKebab 3y ago> But how many copies of Tomb Raider do you think they’d have sold if they’d made Lara Croft flat-chested? Probably lots? It helped with publicity for sure, so they would have sold fewer but it was successful because it was a great game, not because of triangular boobs.
- hnlmorg 3y agoI can’t speak for everyone but I never played the games because of her shape. Frankly, I never found her character design that attractive (the low polygon count probably didn’t help) but even if I did, the vast majority of the game is spent from behind her anyway.
- teddyh 3y agoAny discussion of classic Tomb Raider is incomplete without mentioning that the first Tomb Raider games are essentially exact copies of the original Prince of Persia game, translated to 3D. Not the level layout or story, but the control scheme – very distinct and not used by any other games – is identical. Also the standard traps are replicated, like collapsing tiles and spikes emerging from tiles. Tomb Raider does add some flourishes, like the swan dive and hand standing ascent, and some necessary additions for 3D, like the ability to turn and jump sideways, but the rest is straight up Prince of Persia (the original 1989 one).
- whoopdedo 3y agoTo add to this, an important feature is the ability to safely pass by spikes if you walk slowly. Very useful in both games. > Tomb Raider does add some flourishes, like the swan dive and hand standing ascent, The handstand is absent from the Saturn version.
- teddyh 3y agoThat’s right! A very distinct similarity.
- nsbk 3y agoSpot on. I think it's one of the reasons why I enjoyed playing the first Tomb Raider so much
- nsxwolf 3y agoThank you for noticing this. This was obvious to me the moment I first played it, but it has always gone totally unmentioned. The later 3D games are often branded Tomb Raider clones, which is backwards.
- bloqs 3y agoArent all games derivative? Or is this uncorking that "inspiration vs plagirism" discussion that resolves in everyone having a contest to see who can smugly name what the earliest derivation is... eventually going back to cave paintings
- imiric 3y agoLoved the article, and replying again as a top-level comment to point out something else I just learned about. The last TR game after Shadow of the TR was a mobile one: TR Reloaded[1]. It looks like a lazy cash grab infested with microtransactions. It's a damn shame seeing yet another franchise tarnished like this. It's great when an IP experiments with different game genres and mechanics. Guardian of Light and Temple of Osiris were beautifully done, and there should be more of that. But these lazy mobile ports do a disservice to the IP. I'm looking forward to the next proper release in the franchise. We need a good current-gen title to fill the void of Uncharted. :) [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsoVCxbxTN0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsoVCxbxTN0
- cornfutes 3y ago> 100 million copies combined and three feature films whose box-office receipts approach $1 billion, everybody not living under a proverbial rock has heard of Lara Croft. Meh, that’s only a small percentage of the world population. There’s a lot of first world Western bias here.
- phkahler 3y agoWhy do I recall seeing pictures of an actual human female model posing for the artists at the studio? I swear there was one, thought they had quotes from her back in Game Developer or somewhere.
- magpi3 3y agoThe quote from Charles Ardai bugs me. The original was a fun game. Women in video games were at that time (and still are? I don't play anymore) consistently over-sexualized, but it was never why I played a game, and I really don't think most gamers buy games just because because of the size of the main character's chest. Yes, the main character has to be cool and interesting, and Lara Croft is. They gave her an interesting backstory, and the rich British angle made her a cross between James Bond and Indiana Jones (and maybe a little bit of Batman). Maybe it is just me, but the implication that my buying decision are based on something so puerile is just so damn insulting.
- Semaphor 3y agoI had a poster of Lara Croft in my childhood room. First the original, later Angelina Jolie. I never had another video game character on my wall. I was 10 when the first game came out.
- nmz 3y agoAs did many others, to say sex doesn't sell in the age of the internet and OF is complete blasphemy.
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago> I really don't think most gamers buy games just because of the size of the main character's chest. Eidos’s marketing team apparently thought otherwise. No idea if they were right—although the game's sales make me suspect the marketing department was probably at least competent.
- qingcharles 3y agoAnyone from Core want to tell the story of what happened when Angelina Jolie dropped in for a tour of the studio? I can't tell it, it's TFT classified.
- lowbloodsugar 3y agoAlso super sad that Rhona Mitra didn’t get the role in the movies having played the live action model for years. I’m sure they needed the star power of Angelina Jolie to sell the movie but her English accent was painful.