The General Tomb Raider Thread [including Soy Raider trilogy] -

[TVBForever]

So I've been discussing on the Slob Chipman discussion here on Kiwi Farms--and for a while, I was thinking of creating a Tomb Raider thread; also including the Soy Raider trilogy (2013, Rise, and Shadow), its 2018 film reboot, and the toxic fanbase. I had something to say about Soy Raider thus far--

I did see the movie (truth be told, I purchased a ticket to see Black Panther for a second time since I had nothing better to do on that day--not that either of them are good--and even though I'm not an MCU fan and I don't even like Black Panther, you still done fucked up when Black Panther is actually a bit more enjoyable than Soy Raider).

Yeah, I wish I missed out--absolutely one of the worst movies of 2018; Alicia proves she's an awful actress (even though she seems like a friendly person in real life--though I haven't met her in real life, so I cannot tell you anything); but yeah, when she's on screen, it seems like she's half-awake and mumbles whenever she speaks; which features a mindless out-of-place cameo from Nick Frost which seems like he's there just to get a weekly paycheck. But unfortunately, similar to how feminists keep making Disney's Star Wars canon despite that they aren't and that they're exact proof that they're dumpster fires, Square Enix and the Tomb Raider fanbase just wants everyone to enjoy the new SJW propaganda piece and if anyone dares to say "it's average" or "it sucks," they'll act like a bunch of eight-year-olds being too defensive and label the criticism as "haters," and they'll defend Tomb Raider just for the namesake.

Which reminds me, I had made a few memes down the line regarding the failure of Tomb Raider nowadays.

...If anything, I'm more looking forward to the next video game crash to happen.

Which is sad, cause Underworld has been my favorite game in the franchise; Anniversary and Legends are really damn good. I'm curiously to see where this franchise is headed knowing the failures of both Shadow and 2018 film, what actually happened behind the scenes, why the fanbase are toxic as shit, and what might happen to the future of the franchise.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

Didn’t the newest one involve her literally kickstarting the apocalypse to where even the bad guy is like “fuck, what did you just do?” And she makes what can only be described as a “I’m badly lying to hide my collassal fuckup” face?

 

[SJ 485]

I haven't played a tomb raider game since angel of darkness, I haven't played a GOOD tomb raider game since tomb raider 3. Franchise has been dead for over a decade.
Angel of darkness was absolutely fucking insane though I'd rather have another broken mess like that than whatever Uncharted QTE bullshit they're releasing now.

 

[Cod of War]

Was never a fan of the games and when I was young the dinosaurs scared my bitch ass. I did try Legend and Underworld and enjoyed them. Tried the 2013 reboot and couldn't forced myself to finish it.

 

[SubtleInvitation]

I've played TR since 1998 (started with TR2), and own all of the Tomb Raider games so far. Honestly, it took me a lot of time to like the new trilogy or the new Lara, but I wish she were a different character and belonged to a different franchise. She could be an interesting character on her own merit, but not as Lara Croft, the gaming icon of the late 90s.

I think the closest to a proper Tomb Raider game we will ever again get is fan projects like this:

The demo is available for download here, in case anyone's interested.

ETA: another fan project, this time a TR3 remake:

More info and images here.

 

[Begemot]

Yeah, i'm going to be the easy mark here and tell you I've only ever really played the most recent soy trilogy. I'm currently playing Shadow of the tombraider but would like to see more evidence of the main villain as I'm not really buying Lara's need to do what she's doing. The challenge tombs are interesting, I guess.


I mean I mucked around with the first tomb raider on PC when it came out but was wretched at it. Played a bit of Legends.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

I don't have a lot of history with the series. I have played the original game up to the second tomb; not a huge fan of the controls in either the PC nor the PS1 version (the PC version would be better if it weren't for the controls that are nigh impossible to rebind and possibly controller support that didn't suck) but with some finagling I can have fun with it.

I've also played the 2013 game but that one I simply can't get into because of how ridiculous the game is. Every publication praised the game's emphasis on survival, but Lara gets stabbed through the gut in the opening minutes and continues like it's nothing. I mean fuck, not even Rambo could sustain an injury like that without having to sit down for a bit (plus Rambo had to actually treat the wound, which Lara never gets around to doing). Beyond that, the game felt like a second-rate Uncharted, and I hated that the game repeatedly told you to use "Survival Vision" or whatever it was called, which was basically the game's Detective Mode only more blunt and told you where to go.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

This is what I was talking about, though I highly recommend seeing it in motion.

 

[_blank_]

Yeah, I've played the first 2 "survival Lara" games and started to play Shadow. They're... fine games. Not saying they're the most amazing games I've ever played, but they're mechanically and visually competent games. I've never had to worry about the games crashing, or for characters to suddenly start T-posing, or for Lara to accidentally clip on a rock and then be shot 4 miles into the air. So, if you're just needing a bang-bang soda pop game, they're fine.

The problem however is that they are games that take themselves WAAAY too seriously for their own good. They're not like Max Payne grimdark or anything, but there is no real levity to them. The original tomb raider games had a bit of self-awareness to them, a wink and a nod to the player before hopping into some Mayan tomb and then dual wielding hand cannons and killing ancient gods riding tigers and shit. Survival Lara is essentially a very anti-character whose sole reason for existing is to exonerate the memory of Dead Daddy and stop the group Trinity because reasons and everything has to played straight.

Also, it's kind of like this... classic Lara would have a sense of confidence and bravado to her. You felt like she could handle the situation. She was fucking empowering. Survival Lara doesn't give off a sense of confidence, but has this absurd stubborness and manages to bungle her way through situations while managing to slam into every wall along the way.

As @SteelPlatedHeart mentioned, in the third game Lara is pretty much a villain. I think the idea the developers were going for was to make her seem more self-assured or something, but nah. She doesn't exude confidence or bravado, she just this sneering queen bitch who literally doesn't give a fuck about how many people she's just murdered.

I'll probably be slogging through Shadow later on this year as I go through my backlog, but honestly the first few hours have not endeared me to this game at all.

 

[Block Me]

I played the first rebooted TR a few years ago and was thoroughly unimpressed. They took one of the most classic IPs from the PS1 days and turned it into a generic Uncharted knockoff with a heaping helping of cinematic pretension and melodrama. I played Rise a few months ago because it was on Xbox game pass and it was more of the same but with the addition of visually cluttered hub worlds that are a pain in the ass to navigate. From what I've heard Shadow is even worse so I'm not going to bother unless it falls into my lap and I have nothing better to do.

The very first TR, on the other hand, is a favorite of mine. It's primitive and punishing by today's standards but I like it for precisely those reasons. Getting out alive feels like an actual accomplishment in that game, unlike the new ones where you just QTE your way out of lavishly-rendered set pieces and respawn at a checkpoint five seconds earlier if you screw it up.

 

[Night Owl]

For me, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation was the first PC game my parents ever bought me when we got our first computer. Apart from the opening level and some funny deaths, I don't really remember much of it. I played the older ones later on, but for some reason I could never get into them enough to finish them. I think I prefered point-and-click games at the time when I was transitioning from console to PC and got stuck there for a couple of years.

Tomb Raider just kind of faded away from my memory and never recovered. With the reboot, it mostly just came across as 'let's take this game about tomb robbing and shooting dinosaurs and make it edgy and serious', so that didn't exactly appeal to me either.

 

[MrTroll]

There has literally never been a good TR game.

 

[BerriesArnold]

The main draw for movies like Indiana Jones and James Bond was the power fantasy aspect of it. For an hour or two, the viewer could vicariously put themselves in their roles and live out the inconsequential adventures of being a fearless Renaissance man with all of the luxuries that accompany it. The money, the honeys, the treasures etc...

Tomb Raider, was kind of the same in that aspect. The player didn't so much care about the strife (her backstory was always hinted at minimally) that Lora endured becoming the badass that she was. Lora represented a simple idea; An explorer with an insane set of physical and survival skills who shoots guns and solves puzzle games. All while wearing booty shorts and riding a Harley. There was an innate satisfaction in playing a simple game like that. It also had a hint of tongue-in-cheek dark humor that made the characters interesting. Plus the silliness of going against giant tigers was endearing. The game didn't take itself so seriously and you know what? It was completely fine.

With the newer franchises, that's all been stripped away. It was an interesting direction to take; to give us a more amateur Lora, but it should have been a small arc of the game. We should have had a transition right after that first game to the savage, witty Lora that we know and love.

 

[The Shadow]

I've been playing them since the original PSX releases. Last Revelation was Core's last cohesive title- don't get me wrong, it had problems (vehicle sections, open world confusion) but it did a good job incorporating story into it.

90's Lara was a completely different character from the Crystal Dynamics incarnations. She was an amoral treasure hunter and thrillseeker that had no qualms about popping a cap in someone's ass and making a joke about it. Then Crystal Dynamics came along and created a different Lara Croft that had like...feelings and stuff. While I liked the Legend trilogy, their treatment of Lara was weird and seemed like a fundamentally different character.

 

[Rand /pol/]

Why do people make such a big deal over soy, it's a fucking plant.

 

[shartshooter]

The main draw for movies like Indiana Jones and James Bond was the power fantasy aspect of it. For an hour or two, the viewer could vicariously put themselves in their roles and live out the inconsequential adventures of being a fearless Renaissance man with all of the luxuries that accompany it. The money, the honeys, the treasures etc...

Tomb Raider, was kind of the same in that aspect. The player didn't so much care about the strife (her backstory was always hinted at minimally) that Lora endured becoming the badass that she was. Lora represented a simple idea; An explorer with an insane set of physical and survival skills who shoots guns and solves puzzle games. All while wearing booty shorts and riding a Harley. There was an innate satisfaction in playing a simple game like that. It also had a hint of tongue-in-cheek dark humor that made the characters interesting. Plus the silliness of going against giant tigers was endearing. The game didn't take itself so seriously and you know what? It was completely fine.

With the newer franchises, that's all been stripped away. It was an interesting direction to take; to give us a more amateur Lora, but it should have been a small arc of the game. We should have had a transition right after that first game to the savage, witty Lora that we know and love.

One Lara is a sex appeal power fantasy and the other is a gender egalitarianism power fantasy (that doesn't know it's fantasy.) Modern Lara is boring because her brand of strongk woman character was already tired by the reboot's release. Now it's surprising to see any entertainment product with a budget over 10 million without its mandated strongk woman trope.

 

[LN 910]

There has literally never been a good TR game.

The Gen 2 Lara was great. Underworld, Legend and Anniversary.

Also it's super weird to me that sexy, independent Lara shooting dinosaurs = not woke

But crying, whimpering Lara = woke?

 

[Deadwaste]

i kinda liked the new movie, actually. had its flaws, but wasnt the worst thing i saw or anything. i played tomb raider 2 and legends a long time ago. i only recently played the first part of the reboot because it was tough to run on my shit laptop, but i managed to beat it. rise on the other hand was impossible to try so yeah. i think the only reason they changed how you play the games in the reboots is because of uncharted, possibly. i could be wrong tho

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

Its kinda of ironic (and sad) really. When Uncharted first came out, people derisively called it "Dude Raider" because they saw it as aping the much more successful Tomb Raider franchise. Now, the second reboot trilogy is called "Uncharted with tits" because that's exactly what it is; Uncharted with some bitch pretending to be Lara Croft slapped on top.

 

[The Shadow]

One Lara is a sex appeal power fantasy and the other is a gender egalitarianism power fantasy (that doesn't know it's fantasy.) Modern Lara is boring because her brand of strongk woman character was already tired by the reboot's release. Now it's surprising to see any entertainment product with a budget over 10 million without its mandated strongk woman trope.

Doesn't help that Rhianna Pratchett only seems to get writing gigs because her dad wrote Discworld. Her work is just kinda...why is it a big deal when she's on a writing staff? It's serviceable but forgettable. Anyone could write the games she writes. Writing talent isn't hereditary.