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Oct 27, 2017
993
Not with the level design of the old ones they don't.

Read this:
www.gamasutra.com

news

news

You can't pull off the same level design of the old ones with mario style movement. The PS2 era tried that and the platforming was much more boring.
Yeah, because the games are designed around the clunky ass movement. You can't just slap in a better control scheme and expect it to work.

Core designed their game around control scheme limitations and then continued to design their games that way when those limitations were no longer limitations. Halfway through reading the article now, but nothing in it sells me on anything other than the games have great level and puzzle design and lackluster everything else.

Isn't anything I haven't been reading online for 15+ years now.
The newer games were designed with mario control and yet I didn't find them as satisfying or fun to play through as the original.
As I said before, the PS2 era games dumbed everything down so much that they just don't feel as fun. The act of having to study your surroundings and planning your movement is pretty much gone.

The original games did a much better job at platforming cause of all the factors like movement and level design.
Damn, the last paragraph is brutal (not that I disagree):

It would surprise me if the platforming of the new Tomb Raider offered anything cerebral at all. Its target audience are the fans of Uncharted and Enslaved. Those games are not about rewarding the contemplation of movement mechanics -- they are about rewarding obedience, and it frightens and upsets me that they are widely praised. Not that they are completely worthless pieces of media; they look and sound very nice. But I wish they would do away with the orwellian QTEs and meaningless walking around. I wish we could have more communication, and less crawling.


FYI, there is a pretty interesting conversation between the author of the article (writer/designer Hamish Todd), on one side, and a highly proficient speedrunner of the classic games, on the other. The conversation takes place in the comments section of the article:

Speedrunner's Comment (Link): It's great to see an article on earlier Tomb Raider's controls on a high-profile site that goes beyond instantly dismissing them because they aren't immediately accessible, but some of the things on the third page make this feel a little "close, yet far" in getting to the heart of the strengths that it has over newer action/adventure control schemes.

The major strength of the original controls is their consistency in both function and interaction with the world. If you position right all the situations in this article can be "solved" 100% of the time, and Lara having very clear limitations to understand means that if something seems like it should be able to be done, it can be, including things not intended. Outside of the boundaries of the world and rare overzealous mesh hitboxes you never have to worry about invisible walls or similar stopping you from doing something that should be clearly possible. Modern action/adventures might be far more accessible but it's pathetic how little interaction with the environment they have in comparison; the only one I've seen capture anything like the original TR's is Mirror's Edge, which has a few issues in a couple of areas but actually feels like the closest thing to a natural evolution of the original TR controls and environmental interaction (including unintentional interactions that nonetheless add depth and exploration).

Saying the games are lacking depth just because properly understanding them isn't required to finish the game normally is a little questionable when there are many facets to the way you can interact with things that allow you to do things far beyond what the developers obviously intended even without glitches. There are also the various ways you can interrupt animations and use certain geometry to your advantage that lead to so many nuances for things like speedrunning that new things are still being discovered to this day.

As an extension of that, the dismissal of the sequels and certain things they bought also sells things short; the mid-air twist was already mentioned in this article but undersold on what a massive change it makes to the amount of flexibility you have (with the example given in the article being just one way it can be used), as well as allowing for some interesting and complex mid-air roll+air control navigation. In contrast to the crawl, the sprint that was also added in TR3 is also interesting in how the big speed improvement allowed the developers to make larger levels while minimising the amount of extra backtracking and time spent in empty space (assuming you don't get too stuck anyway, which is admittedly a pretty big assumption in the context of TR3's absurd difficulty). The sequels also generally make more complex and interesting use of space and the moves provided.

Given the bringing up of games like VVVVVV I wonder if the article writer would be intrigued by certain custom levels made for the Tomb Raider editor; while frequently incredibly difficult and complex they allow you to save anywhere (avoiding much progression loss) and many explore the kind of scenarios presented in this article to a much greater degree, from bigger scale versions of the situations in this article to crazy stuff way beyond anything demanded/explored in the main games (such as the previously mentioned mid-air roll+air control combos).

The author of the article (Hamish Todd) responds to that comment here, and the conversation goes back and forth for a bit, so I think it would be of interest for many folks here.

This has also been discussed a bit in other threads, where folks (like the speedrunner above) frequently mention Mirror's Edge.

I also really like the example of Super Cloudbuilt, as I've mentioned on occasion:
With regard to the idea of the tide turning just a bit, in addition to the Game Maker's Toolkit video essay that Semfry mentions, there was a very interesting More_Badass thread from last year (LTTP: Tomb Raider (1996) remains an innovative platformer and I wish there were more games like it)... I always thought that the Mechanics Demo video by the dev of Super Cloudbuilt gave a good explication/illustration of important design principles, for a non-automated, challenging/engaging platforming/traversal system:
[0m50s]...You're in full control of every part of the movement, meaning that you have a lot of freedom, but it also means you have to earn it. In Super Cloudbuilt, one input equals one action. This is an important feature, meaning that there is no automization: everything you see and accomplish is a result of your own skill. So, what does this actually mean?

[1m50s]...What's even more important is the conversion of momentum between actions. If I run up on a wall and jump before I lose all my upward momentum, that momentum will carry over into the jump. Likewise if I ran up on a wall and that momentum fizzles out before I jump, the resulting jump will be a lot lower. This conversion of momentum is true even when chaining multiple interactions, like wall running into a jump, into another wallrun, and so on...

[2m20s]...Take this case for instance. Running at it with perfect angles I can get up here. If I use bad angles it converts my momentum differently, making it hard or impossible to get up. Not only finding the combination of moves but all the timings, angles, and momentum is important if you want to be successful. There's a lot of depth here, but also a lot to learn, as most games don't really work like this...

[4m27s]...Mastering these techniques... is key to becoming a successful and skillful [player]... If you pay attention and practice a bit, they will soon become second nature, and let you move around the maps freely. When you eventually get there, it will feel great looking back and knowing the journey and [the fact that now] everything you do, is your own skill...


Richard Moss: ...The grid [in Classic TR] meant that players would always know that if they jumped forward, backward, or sideways from a standing start, they would finish exactly one block [one unit] away. Likewise, three steps forwards or backward were equal to the length of one block [one unit], as was hopping backwards, while a running jump took three steps to prepare and traveled a distance of two blocks [two units] forward. And you knew that you could execute a running jump, without fail, by walking to the edge of a block, hopping back, running, and jumping...

Part 1:
Richard Moss: [3m11s]"...an alluring world that demanded a kind of patient precision... its mechanics, its rules by which players could navigate the world... Lara Croft moved predictably and consistently. Controlling her at times felt like moving a remarkably agile tank. But that was a small price to pay for the intricate environmental puzzles that this enabled. There were multi-jump maneuvers, desperate leaps across chasms, dives between poisoned darts, spike traps, backflips up to secret areas..."

[4m23s] "...And all of those things might have been totally different if not for one simple decision during development, one pragmatic choice to lay the levels out on a grid of square blocks. Everything comes back to that: the majority of the puzzles, and certainly all of the platforming owe their existence to that decision... the cavernous chambers and ruins and outdoor areas that provide a sense of isolation, of solitude and discovery... Lara's almost iconic movements, her backflips and sideways somersaults, her swandives and 180 degree forward rolls. These were all defined by the grid. The grid meant that players would always know that if they jumped forward, backward, or sideways from a standing start, they would finish exactly one block away. Likewise, three steps forwards or backward were equal to the length of one block, as was hopping backwards, while a running jump took three steps to prepare and traveled a distance of two blocks forward. And you knew that you could execute a running jump, without fail, by walking to the edge of a block, hopping back, running, and jumping... when you coupled all these abilities with the grapple button that allowed Lara to try to catch a ledge while airborne, plus a few environmental elements like movable blocks she could push or pull, and steep inclines that she could slide down... you had all the tools needed to devise some masterful environmental puzzles. Tomb Raider's grid was game-changing, it defined and confined the problem space for both players and developers in such a way that it became liberating…"

[14m53s]"...This is the moment, perhaps more than any other, that defined what Tomb Raider would become. It meant that the game would have a fully realized 3D world, but also a clear and consistent internal logic. Switching to a grid-based system, with a purpose-built room editor, would have huge ramifications for the game's development..."

[26m20s] "...they learned more about the most interesting ways that Lara could interact with this grid-based environment, and began to think of more intricate puzzles involving sliding jumps and timers, and the full extent of Lara's acrobatic abilities. And still always, you could identify your possible routes through a level, not by finding the shiny surfaces, or following the onscreen prompts pointing you there, as has become the norm in today's 3D action-adventure games, but rather by understanding that relationship between Lara's capabilities and the geometry of the world..."

Part 2:
Gavin Rummery: [0m20s] "...becuase [the grid-based Level Editor I created] was so easy [for the Level Designers] to use... that's what made Tomb Raider [as] intricate as it was for the time, because the levels could be modified so easily... in some ways I do feel that's been lost... I love games like Uncharted and whatnot but you can tell that – I've looked into how they're doing it – and you can see that they have to just kind of design the path through the level and where you're going to be able to grab onto and where you're not, up front, and then the artist then just [makes] these fantastic-looking environments, but they're kind of restricted to what's been decided already... having that kind of easy way of building environments is obviously just not possible anymore..."

Richard Moss: [3m30s]"...it's much harder now, to keep the playfulness and flexibility in the game's level design as it moves through the stages of production... just for simple reasons of logistics, dozens of artists might have to redo parts of their work, or sit around twiddling their thumbs, if a designer wants to do what Heather [Gibson] and Neal [Boyd] did, during the original Tomb Raider development, which was to keep experimenting and tweaking the layouts, throughout the process...

[27m50s] ...Minecraft's blockiness is no mere aesthetic: it's the consequence of its voxel-based engine, a cubic variation on the same grid conceit that Tomb Raider used... the Tomb Raider Level Editor was released for free with the PC version of the 5th game, and it's still used by a passionate community of fan creators today, many of whom are involved in the level editing community because they don't see any other games that can scratch the same itch as the old-school Tomb Raider. And with their custom modifications and extensions to the editor, it's actually able to produce some incredible levels, and remarkably organic-looking environments, all while still adhering to that grid, that preserves the game's internal logic..."
lifeandtimes.games

How Tomb Raider's grid-based level editor shaped the early series' design and identity (part 1) | The Life & Times of Video Games

Every aspect of the original Core Design Tomb Raider series (and by extension the franchise's success post-Core) comes back to the grid that lies beneath it — the majority of the puzzles; the platforming; the cavernous chambers and ruins and outdoor areas that provide a sense of isolation, of...
It comes down to the fundamental problem of 3D gaming: depth perception. For a platformer, running and jumping in 3D space is the most important aspect. Without stereopsis, judging jumps in 3 dimensional space is significantly more difficult than in 2D games. Most games got around the issue by just not having a lot of difficult to judge jumps and making it so if you missed a jump you could retry. Tomb Raider, however, chose to make the controls and Lara's moveset very precise so that you could always judge the distance and type of jump you needed...
 
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Deleted member 60295

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This incredible article argues otherwise. Unpersuasively.

medium.com

GOTY 2013: Badass Girls Need Not Apply

Game developer Brianna Wu explains why women remain a small part of the voting for 2013's best video game.

- "2013 Tomb Raider isn't just a very good game, it's a historically important one."

Lol. Yeah, Lara in the reboot is SO relatable, with how she cries over killing someone for the first time... and then immediately gets over it and proceeds to kill a bazillion other people without remorse.

Also, I may be fairly desensitized to virtual violence, but there's a good reason they seriously toned down the death animations in the sequel - both for Lara AND for enemy combatants. A lot of people (including MANY women) had issues with how unnecessarily brutal they were in the first game. Between Lara being gruesomely impaled by a host of sharp objects, and her finishing enemies off at point blank with assault rifles while fountains of blood poured out of their chests.... it was pretty ridiculous.

Plus, as previously stated, the game's abysmal writing wants to have its cake and eat it too when it comes to the neverending violence. Having Lara briefly show remorse about killing the very first time, and then never bringing that up again - because it would get in the way of the game's greatly increased focus on brutal combat compared to any previous game in the franchise. Which of course, made the ludonarrative dissonance in this game even WORSE than in the many games that don't even bother to bring up that their "heroic" protagonists are mass murderers.
 

CosmicGP

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,880
Imo: Classic tomb raider: The sex appeal to lure you to try the game and not abandon it too quickly, then the fun exploration and sense of isolation, challenging puzzle solving that feels rewarding, the slight horror element of monsters coming out of nowhere.

Reboot tomb raider: Sex appeal.... is still there but in moderate amounts, though negated by unappealing character. Exploration.... nope it's pretty linear. Puzzle solving....nope there's barely any. Ah yes the horror element of watching Lara get hurt badly and seeing her get immersed in a pool of blood or other disgusting things. Then...the fun of collecting twigs and herbs and scrap all over the map to upgrade Lara's gear and skills. What fun.
 

Pyccko

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,869
I mean

C0SzeKP.png


We all know what they were using to hook people. But the personality and escapades are what gave her such staying power.
 

Berto

Member
Oct 25, 2017
555
Go read the official forums and talk with diehard fans and you'll notice that a large percentage of fans are women, so tits and ass are not the answer. My wife was a massive fan at the time and Lara had a big impact in her when she was growing up cause, in her words, she was a liberated free bad ass. It made her dream it was possible to be independent and travel the world and sparked her imagination.
 
Oct 27, 2017
1,003
Imo: Classic tomb raider: The sex appeal to lure you to try the game and not abandon it too quickly, then the fun exploration and sense of isolation, challenging puzzle solving that feels rewarding, the slight horror element of monsters coming out of nowhere.

Reboot tomb raider: Sex appeal.... is still there but in moderate amounts, though negated by unappealing character. Exploration.... nope it's pretty linear. Puzzle solving....nope there's barely any. Ah yes the horror element of watching Lara get hurt badly and seeing her get immersed in a pool of blood or other disgusting things. Then...the fun of collecting twigs and herbs and scrap all over the map to upgrade Lara's gear and skills. What fun.
Barely any puzzle solving? The tombs in Rise are better than any of the old ones. The older games weren't that great, guys.
 

CosmicGP

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,880
Barely any puzzle solving? The tombs in Rise are better than any of the old ones. The older games weren't that great, guys.

Huh? Are you talking about some DLC content? Because the tombs in the new games, even Rise are a joke. >Solve 1 puzzle that opens up a small altar, get a new skill.

How are they better than the old ones? They feel like you're just solving how to open the entrance to a tomb, but inside there's nothing.
 
Oct 27, 2017
1,003
Huh? Are you talking about some DLC content? Because the tombs in the new games, even Rise are a joke. >Solve 1 puzzle that opens up a small altar, get a new skill.

How are they better than the old ones? They feel like you're just solving how to open the entrance to a tomb, but inside there's nothing.
I dunno, I find they're interesting in the way they make you observe your environments and deduct what you can do with the interactive elements they present.

They're better than about 99% of what counts as puzzles these days in adventure games, including those in Uncharted, TLoU and the likes, and what I remember from the old Tomb games was mainly traversal puzzles and memorizing a series of inputs to make sure you don't fall to your death. It wasn't that interesting.

I remember getting bored of them really easy.
 
Oct 27, 2017
5,329
Just being the main character in what felt like a 3D gaming revolution of sorts. Playing the original Tomb Raider and Super Mario 64 (released a month apart I think but was still playing both at the same time) at the same time was pure gaming bliss and one of my most memorable gaming experiences ever if not the most memorable. Nothing will ever replicate that experience.
 
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GlitchyDegree

Prophet of Truth
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Dec 4, 2017
5,477
Huh? Are you talking about some DLC content? Because the tombs in the new games, even Rise are a joke. >Solve 1 puzzle that opens up a small altar, get a new skill.

How are they better than the old ones? They feel like you're just solving how to open the entrance to a tomb, but inside there's nothing.
This is a great way to put it. I like the reboot series well enough (still need to play Shadow) but the actual tomb raiding in them is pretty weak compared to the classic or Legend series.
 

Mekanos

▲ Legend ▲
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Oct 17, 2018
44,127
I've never played the series but every time I see gameplay footage of the original PS1 games it seems like it's mostly Lara jumping and climbing empty tombs and caves. It seems... oddly pleasant for some reason, almost peaceful. Makes me want to try them.
 

Fredrik

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,003
Well I'm sure her breasts helped but also because she was super confident and just plain cool, she was one of the first women that got to be a proper badass game hero, Indiana Jones and James Bond as a woman. The dual guns were awesome too. And the game was great and felt new.


I just finished Shadow of the Tomb Raider on Stadia yesterday so I've been thinking quite a bit about what they can do to make both Lara and Tomb Raider more popular.

Lara's good looks are important, I had my wife beside me when playing and we both got annoyed when they forced Lara to wear the Paititi costumes. Cool designs but she just didn't look like Lara Croft anymore and at this point that pretty much means that it doesn't look like Tomb Raider anymore. Uncharted and Tomb Raider are so close now that Lara's looks pretty much holds the whole identity of the Tomb Raider IP. Even Assassin's Creed is close too, if they would have an Assassin's Creed game with a woman in braided ponytail it would look like a Tomb Raider game.

And the dual pistols needs to come back. I love the stealth and using the bow for stealth is awesome, the shotgun is useful too when someone is rushing at you but Lara using her iconic dual pistols would be a Kratos blades moment at this point because it was so long ago we saw her like that.

As for her wellknown pointy bits they aren't as important as some grumpy fans would say. I'd say they have perfected her looks at this point, when she wear the desert tanktop it's clear that she's still a busty lady, I don't think they need to go any further.
They could have her in the iconic blue top and shorts though, not for a whole game but in some smaller segment just to connect new Lara with her past. And they can always add more hips and ass instead as a break glass in case of emergency action, that seems way more popular now.

As for the game itself I liked what they did in Shadow - more tombs, more puzzles, less big shootouts. But they need to drop the Crash Bandicoot sequences, I hate those, just make a cutscene instead. And they shouldn't try to turn Tomb Raider into a RPG where Lara saves a village, it's out of character, she should be a lone wolf obsessed about her own stuff. And no romancing, Jonah is awesome but that door should stay closed, just not needed.
They could have the mansion as a hub world and have her chat with her butler or something instead. Kinda like Batman and Alfred.
 

Giolon

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Oct 25, 2017
3,080
It was the fact that she was something of a cross between James Bond and Indiana Jones, an absolute badass, filthy rich, and she starred in some of the most formative 3D platformers of the era. Sex appeal certainly didn't hurt to grab attention from the general public but 13 year old me was far more interested in the awesome adventures through pyramids, fighting dinosaurs, bears, and skeletons, and puzzles.

I do remember showing my mom an ad for the game in a magazine, it was the one with all the screenshots around that original render of Lara and she just went "Whoa, those boobs are huge," and I was like, "Moooooom no look at the screenshots!" XD I got the game for Christmas.

New-Lara lost everything that made OG Lara great. Despite being a fan from game one, Legend-Anniversary-Underworld are my favorite incarnation of her.
 

CosmicGP

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,880
I dunno, I find they're interesting in the way they make you observe your environments and deduct what you can do with the interactive elements they present.

They're better than about 99% of what counts as puzzles these days in adventure games, including those in Uncharted, TLoU and the likes, and what I remember from the old Tomb games was mainly traversal puzzles and memorizing a series of inputs to make sure you don't fall to your death. It wasn't that interesting.

I remember getting bored of them really easy.

The oldest one I remember is Legend and there's definitely lots to do even once you get into a tomb. Huge complex contraptions like the huge rotating one in Shadow.

Uncharted definitely started the shift away from puzzles towards action but even then it wasn't as killjoy as the ones in reboot Tomb Raider. For instance in Uncharted 2 there was that huge dagger puzzle. It was just that one puzzle, but you did the whole process - looked around for the entrance, explored the tomb, solve the big puzzle at the end. Whereas the new tomb raider is: enter cave, solve big puzzle, here's a closet with a skillup.
 

gosublime

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,429
I've never played the series but every time I see gameplay footage of the original PS1 games it seems like it's mostly Lara jumping and climbing empty tombs and caves. It seems... oddly pleasant for some reason, almost peaceful. Makes me want to try them.
The first two are pretty good - they're more like puzzle games than people make out. Edge once pointed out they are almost like chess in some way - you need to get over to a certain point in the level and Lara can move in some very set ways; everything is very grid based and if you try to do something out of that grid, it won't work.
It's not the best analogy but it catches something about the game and the part I liked the most!
 

Calvarok

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,218
a girl in a video game.

bar was low. cant look to that for sufficient inspiration to stand apart now.
 

Thorn

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
24,446
Her design even disregarding the obvious part is also rather simple yet stark. Turquoise was a good decision.

And Akimbo Pistols are cool.
 

Iztok

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,133
Main thing was the games were good.
So that got her foot in the door.

Next, as far as I remember, it was that she was a new kind of "mascot", not a furry, but an actual "realistic" (funny to say that now looking at early designs) human being. She was built up as a role model of sorts, so having her be a woman definitely helped.

I just remember thinking she was incredibly cool. Dual pistols, sunglasses, shooting dinosaurs while doing backflips. Just cool.
 

Patapuf

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,408
She was the star in a really good series game that at least with 1 and 2, did a lot of new things and for better or worse, she also has a striking design.
 

Thorn

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
24,446
So, the original game was revolutionary in mechanical terms in many ways, but you're not going to get why Lara Croft became an icon without understanding the atmosphere she was birthed into, without understanding mid 90s British culture. As I mentioned before, she debuted three months after Spice Girls released Wannabe, kicking off Girl Power, and neatly fit into that whole thing. But it was also a time of somewhat renewed optimism generally in Britain and British culture. British films were setting the world alight, British bands and Britpop were dominating the world stage, Euro 96 had just taken place and brought a real feeling of pride in England. And of course it was only a few months before New Labour swept to victory in the 1997 Election.

And into this spirit of renewed optimism in Britain was birthed Lara Croft, with a game that was genuinely revolutionary and stood out from the crowd with it's protagonist, a badass female action hero (with sex appeal.) She was cool, and we were all about cool back then. She got pushed hard as an icon, getting lots of mentions in the media, as well as some memorable Lucozade adverts (I still have a Larazade bottle from the more recent releases!), and even got announced as an 'Ambassador of British Scientific Excellence' in 1999, when the Labour Government wanted to promote a more forward looking idea of British science and engineering. World beating excellence in these new fangled video games sure seemed to fit that bill.

So yes, more than just Tits and Ass. She fit perfectly into the British culture at the time, and certainly left her mark. Not many video game characters with a road named after them, I'd wager.

_91932011_lara_croft_michael_owen.jpg

_92061147_lara_croft_way.jpg

This is a fantastic post. I absolutely remember the feeling that Lara was less of a video game character and more of a celebrity. In a sea of cartoon mascots in an industry trying to break out into the larger public this was a huge deal.
 

Fleck0

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,447
They marketed the boobs for sure but the game was revolutionary. People who are old revered the T-Rex encounter because at the time it was amazing, I'd compare it to the Sonic Adventurer Whale sequence.

How either of those franchises went the places they did and ended up where they are would be documentaries I would watch.
 

Wackamole

Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,932
Her voice! But of course the Dual guns, her hair, dinos!, her agility. The fact that she was a badass Indiana Jones type adventurous woman was pretty exciting back in the day.
And i certainly didn't mind looking at her butt, long legs and boobs 🤷🏽‍♂️. And the game just looked good with good animations.
 

Mr_Zombie

Member
Oct 27, 2017
971
Poland
It was the fact that she was something of a cross between James Bond and Indiana Jones, an absolute badass, filthy rich, and she starred in some of the most formative 3D platformers of the era.

This. The old Lara (and even the first reboot Lara, although they just needed to give her that backstory) was simply a badass, full of sass.

This is the first cut-scene in the game:

www.youtube.com

Tomb Raider 1 Intro Cinematic

This is the opening intro for TR1, file was downloaded from http://www.tombraiderchronicles.com.

Natla: Feast your eyes on this, Lara. How does that make your wallet rumble?
Lara: I'm sorry. I only play for sport.
Natla: Then you'll like a big park- Peru. Vast mountain ranges to cover. Sheer walls of ice, rocky crag, savage winds. And there's this little trinket – an age old artefact of mystical powers buried in the unfound tomb of Qualopec. That's my interest. You could leave tomorrow. Are you busy tomorrow?

Those three lines tell you everything you need to know about Lara. No daddy issues, no "I hate tombs", no hesitation, "I can't do it!!", "I have to bring my mum back" etc. She "only play for sport" and she likes when it's dangerous.
 

Vault

▲ Legend ▲
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Oct 25, 2017
13,599
She's English female Indiana Jones with James Bonds coolness

The reboot completely neutered one of the most badass female characters in gaming
 

Kaguya

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Jun 19, 2018
6,404
It was ultimately because the games were good, a lot of other games tried to push characters made for horny teenagers, but they weren't going to reach LC's level without good games behind them.
 
Oct 25, 2017
3,065
Tomb Raider itself was a pretty phenomenal game for a lot of people. If you bought a PlayStation near launch, Tomb Raider was your Mario 64 moment.

A lot of the mainstream media picked up on it because Lara was a realistic character in a medium where the dominant characters were either anthropomorphic animals (Sonic) or deformed humans (Mario). The game looked like something completely new for those who only had the most peripheral knowledge of gaming.

Plus she was a British character at a time when Britpop and Girl Power were huge. She became a very licensable character because of that.
 
Oct 27, 2017
39,148
FYI, there is a pretty interesting conversation between the author of the article (writer/designer Hamish Todd), on one side, and a highly proficient speedrunner of the classic games, on the other. The conversation takes place in the comments section of the article:



The author of the article (Hamish Todd) responds to that comment here, and the conversation goes back and forth for a bit, so I think it would be of interest for many folks here.

This has also been discussed a bit in other threads, where folks (like the speedrunner above) frequently mention Mirror's Edge.

I also really like the example of Super Cloudbuilt, as I've mentioned on occasion:
Thanks a lot for this post. Will read now!
 

Deleted member 203

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She embodied the 90s edgy girl power aesthetic and also pandered to straight male gamers so everyone found something to like in her. in this poster's humble opinion, it's certainly not because the games were great. But it was early 3D so no one knew jack shit yet, except nintendo.
 

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Oct 25, 2017
487
She was one of the first big female game stars. Actually the biggest. Media in general, not just gaming considered her the First Lady of Gaming, she was mentioned in the same breath as Mario and Duke Nukem. She was a cool character in games that had cool moments like the first Trex encounter. Her attitude was take charge, and strong without coming off like they were trying so hard to make a statement. Lara was someone you could see holding her own with the likes of Indiana Jones. Plus the games were some of the first 3d ones in the way they were, releasing around the same time as Mario 64, but also they were good. They were very different than the other big games of the day, guns but not really a run and gun, puzzles and not really being all about collecting a bunch of items in one level to unlock the next. Too bad they stopped making them.
Speaking for my self and my sister.

The fact she was a badass woman going into dark and dangerous places killing scary monsters and animals along the way. Had an autitude and felt as if she is in control at all times. That she was rich and accomplished woman who had a big ass mansion that she turned into a training ground that she plays around for fun and quick training. That she had a butler. She was also cool cause she could use guns and run around like some kind of ninja. She did what she did cause she wanted to do it and not because of anybody, it is so damn cool that her parents couldn't decide her future.

As you can tell, most of what I described is gone in the new games. First series should be the one they look at if they decided to reboot the series again.


This was also another thing that was really cool.

The hair physics looked awesome at the time. Not to mention that unlike most female characters at the time, she had braided hair and braided hair is cool as hell.
Hitting at just the right time helped a lot, she easily went to the fore of the 'Girl Power' revolution that hit in the mid nineties. Her debut game came out 4 months after the Spice Girls released 'Wannabe', and six months before Buffy the Vampire Slayer debuted. That was quite a potent mix at the time.
So, the original game was revolutionary in mechanical terms in many ways, but you're not going to get why Lara Croft became an icon without understanding the atmosphere she was birthed into, without understanding mid 90s British culture. As I mentioned before, she debuted three months after Spice Girls released Wannabe, kicking off Girl Power, and neatly fit into that whole thing. But it was also a time of somewhat renewed optimism generally in Britain and British culture. British films were setting the world alight, British bands and Britpop were dominating the world stage, Euro 96 had just taken place and brought a real feeling of pride in England. And of course it was only a few months before New Labour swept to victory in the 1997 Election.

And into this spirit of renewed optimism in Britain was birthed Lara Croft, with a game that was genuinely revolutionary and stood out from the crowd with it's protagonist, a badass female action hero (with sex appeal.) She was cool, and we were all about cool back then. She got pushed hard as an icon, getting lots of mentions in the media, as well as some memorable Lucozade adverts (I still have a Larazade bottle from the more recent releases!), and even got announced as an 'Ambassador of British Scientific Excellence' in 1999, when the Labour Government wanted to promote a more forward looking idea of British science and engineering. World beating excellence in these new fangled video games sure seemed to fit that bill.

So yes, more than just Tits and Ass. She fit perfectly into the British culture at the time, and certainly left her mark. Not many video game characters with a road named after them, I'd wager.

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Agreed with all of these posts (and more in this thread)

Someone needs to show them to squenix.

It's been touched upon already, but the idea of being a "virtual celebrity" was kind of a big part of it. Lara was not only a videogame protagonist, but a "star" who appear in ads and U2 live tours, almost as if the games were just a corollary. After all, on the cover of the very first title you can read "Tomb Raider STARRING Lara Croft".
 

Jakten

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,764
Devil World, Toronto
As someone who never played a Tomb Raider game (I'm fibbing a bit, I clumsily walked around in the first game until I slid down a hill into some spikes) but had many friends who did; Up until I think Tomb Raider Legends it was %100 the sex appeal. And then I didn't hear anyone talk about the franchise till 2013 and then people stopped really talking about Lara as a character and more about how awesome it is when she dies. I've heard friends talk about these games since the start and know nothing about pre-modern era Lara other than these things so they must be important.
 

Deleted member 31133

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 5, 2017
4,155
I don't remember myself or my friends loving the original Tomb Raider games because of Lara's sex appeal.

We loved them because they were god damn good games and some of the best adventure games on the PS1. We loved the exploration and the platform sections of the games and that's what made them classics. We loved Lara as a character because she was a total badass! Also exploring the Croft mansion and locking the butler in the freezer was a highlight!

I think they were just universally loved games and it was clearly the biggest game series on the PS1. Everybody and their dog knew Lara Croft. She became so popular that there is even a street named after her Derby.

Tomb Raider 3 was my personal favourite from the PS1 games. I played the demo almost on a daily basis right up to release!

I now really want a release of the original games on current systems. I'd be happy with a straight port as well!
 

MrCibb

Member
Dec 12, 2018
5,349
UK
People like to say it was just sex appeal but Tomb Raider being fucking good was the main reason. Not saying her catering to thirsty teenage lads didn't help, it did, but if the game she was in was shite she'd have never gotten as much marketing as she did and that's where her iconic status came from. She was everywhere. As the badass, dual-wielding poster girl of a large, successful franchise. If Tomb Raider had bombed, the character would have gone away as well.
 

ghostcrew

The Shrouded Ghost
Administrator
Oct 27, 2017
30,351
It was the fact that she was something of a cross between James Bond and Indiana Jones, an absolute badass, filthy rich, and she starred in some of the most formative 3D platformers of the era. Sex appeal certainly didn't hurt to grab attention from the general public but 13 year old me was far more interested in the awesome adventures through pyramids, fighting dinosaurs, bears, and skeletons, and puzzles.

Yeah this. I think it would be a shame to only thank her image and the FHM/Loaded esque marketing of her as to why Tomb Raider (and, by extension, Lara Croft) became an icon. The game was amazing. It was dead exciting at that time. The atmosphere, the environments, the control system, the animations. It was a huge game for new PlayStation owners (less so but also for Saturn and PC owners) because it was an incredible 3D action adventure showcase first and also Lara was on the cover of Loaded second. I guess a double pronged marketing attack where Tomb Raider was an incredible thing for gamers and Lara was a legitimate mainstream icon didn't hurt.

Also, standard sharing this because it's always amazing.

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Gundam

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
12,801
Her outfit is fairly normal, but her design is still distinct. Boots with the shorts and the blue top with a ponytail. She's got two guns, and yeah, triangles.

It's just a solid design, in terms of being easy to recognize.