In retrospect, last-gen Tomb Raider was better than last-gen Uncharted

[Chairman Yang]

Tomb Raider Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld got flak around their release for feeling outdated compared to the flashy new kid on the block, Uncharted. But by today's standards, I think they're better games, and highlight what's really important for games to stand the test of time.

This is mostly because the stuff Uncharted was good at hasn't aged all that well, while Tomb Raider's strengths have.
For Uncharted, the games were great at scripted spectacle and graphical prowess. They had good shooting mechanics for the time. They also had passable writing (at least Uncharted 2). Problem is, none of those things are very strong by today's standards. And the Uncharted weaknesses, especially brain-dead puzzle design and mindless platforming, are more obvious than before.

What were those three Tomb Raider games good at? Puzzles and platforming, plain and simple. Those have aged supremely well. The combat sucks, as ever, but so does Uncharted now. The graphics, divorced from the relatively realistic and now-dated Uncharted style, look cartoony but still appealing. And the writing and story aren't good, but no one should be playing UC1-3 for those things anyways.

What do you think?

 

[mescalineeyes]

My hot take:
I loved every uncharted when they came out but none of them held up (not even 2)
To me, pre-reboot tomb raider was never good.

I guess we all lose.

 

[Brass Body Dave]

When you lean on scripted visual blockbusters, as time goes on, gameplay remains the best metric to enjoy the games, so yeah. TR definitely trounces UC as they're not as focused on spectacle.

I also hated the actual gameplay of Uncharted, so there's some bias there. Trash games.

 

[-PyramidSong]

Gunplay sucks in the first 3 Uncharted games. But puzzles in Uncharted 3 were good imo. And the set pieces are fucking amazing. Didnt play the tomb raider games so i cant judge them.

 

[Jawmuncher]

I absolutely love Tomb Raider Legend (beat Underworld and Anniversary as well). They're good for what they are. But even with the spectacle of UC being a lesser point. Those games just hold up better I think. The pre-reboot TR games lack that overall polish that would elevate the point you're making I feel.

 

[Deleted member 679]

I really disagree that Uncharted combat sucks now. It's still hard to find other TPS that scratch that same itch. I still replay the Nathan Drake collection all the time.

Even consider all of them better than 4.

 

[Deleted member 15428]

Does Tomb Raider have Elena Fisher?

 

[The Almighty Tria]

I agree. It didnt have a good story or cast of characters but the gameplay was far better than Uncharted.

The gameplay being so standard and boring in the Uncharted series is the reason I find them so overrated. There's nothing to them (to be fair I havent played 4 or the Lost Legacy one)

 

[TheJollyCorner]

Does Tomb Raider have Elena Fisher?

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Does Uncharted have a T-Rex?

Checkmate.

 

[spam musubi]

The pre-latest-reboot TR games had no identity. They were trying to cash in on the Prince of Persia hype and we're just soulless games that didn't feel right for TR and played worse than PoP. I'd say the only good incarnation of TR was the original PS1 series. Everything else has been a mediocre attempt at imitating whatever action-adventure style was popular at the time and failing to actually be interesting.

 

[RocknRola]

Have you played Underworld recently? That game is a hot mess. The camera fights you with the whole time. Couldn't get back into it after playing TR 2013.

 

[LifeLine]

Saw what you want about the gameplay, I still rather replay the uncharted series than the Tomb Raider Games.

 

[Syysch]

I really liked that Tomb Raider trilogy, but i dont know if they're comparable to Uncharted, in the sense that it's more of an apples-oranges comparison.

With that said, I'd like to see an Uncharted game that stepped away from all the gunplay and moved toward more puzzle solving, because Uncharted's combat is a bag of butts that only gets worse the higher the difficulty goes (haven't played #4 yet). They're wonderful at creating characters though.

 

[Sgt. Demblant]

I don't know that many people will agree with you but I can see where your coming from.
I absolutely love Anniversary and never managed to get past the opening hour of both Uncharted 2 and 3 because I couldn't stand the movement and gameplay.

Never played Uncharted 1 though. And while I thought they were fine, I never beat Legend and Underworld, they didn't draw me in the way Anniversary did.

 

[RM8]

To me, pre-reboot tomb raider was never good.

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The first two TR games are some of the absolute best and most revolutionary 3D platformers, though ;(

 

[Dr. Caroll]

Have you played Underworld recently? That game is a hot mess. The camera fights you with the whole time. Couldn't get back into it after playing TR 2013.

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Can't speak for the console version but the camera is fine on PC. Love that game. Swimming was a joy.

Uncharted was the product of Amy Hennig getting passed over as the director of TR: Legend. The older UC games are solid but they ended up too bogged down with cover shooting and extremely scripted set pieces to the detriment of everything else. They chased and perhaps defined the cinematic formula many Sony games are saddled with. I would play LAU on PC over them. They have great level design, fun puzzles, and a light amount of combat instead of waves of enemies.

 

[RocknRola]

Can't speak for the console version but the camera is fine on PC. Love that game. Swimming was a joy.

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PS3 version myself. What a hot mess. It's funny that when it launched I didn't notice it all that much, but after the playing the Uncharted series and the more recent TR games (2013 and Rise, yet to play Shadow) that camera just messed with me, hard. Couldn't deal with it.

 

[Kerozinn]

Uncharted shits on TR from the highest mountain in pretty much every aspect.
Its even worse vs current gen TR.

 

[Dr. Caroll]

Uncharted shits on TR from the highest mountain in pretty much every aspect.

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Howso? IMO it had worse puzzles, worse level design, way too much cookie cutter cover shooting, and smug, quip-driven writing that thinks it's way better than it is. Also Uncharted 1 is kind of an ugly game. It's remarkable how much better LAU hold up graphically.

 

[Kaguya]

Yes, I'd replay Anniversary before any Uncharted game(still rather play classic TR though), but there's not a single redeeming quality about Legend. Even Angel of Darkness was better.

 

[Laser Man]

I really like UC1, as a tropical Gears game it has far better gun gameplay than the Tomb Raider games. As for jumping and climbing/puzzles... that's where the old Tomb Raider trilogy stands far above Uncharted, but to be fair, UC was never good at that. It was nothing more than windowdressing and lacked any form of challenge or tension.

 

[mescalineeyes]

The first two TR games are some of the absolute best and most revolutionary 3D platformers, though ;(

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Oh god yes totally. I just meant last gen as specified in the op.

 

[Deleted member 23212]

The pre-latest-reboot TR games had no identity. They were trying to cash in on the Prince of Persia hype and we're just soulless games that didn't feel right for TR and played worse than PoP. I'd say the only good incarnation of TR was the original PS1 series. Everything else has been a mediocre attempt at imitating whatever action-adventure style was popular at the time and failing to actually be interesting.

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Interesting that you call the first reboot of TR as cashing in on Prince of Persia, play the OG Prince of Persia and the first Tomb Raider and you'll find that Tomb Raider is essentially a 3D PoP.

 

[spam musubi]

Interesting that you call the first reboot of TR as cashing in on Prince of Persia, play the OG Prince of Persia and the first Tomb Raider and you'll find that Tomb Raider is essentially a 3D PoP.

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I mean, sure, OG TR inspired PoP 3D to some extent, but last-geb-reboot TR was straight up a worse version of PoP almost note for note. Just like how Uncharted was inspired by TR (and PoP) and current gen TR is just a worse version of Uncharted. The original TR games were revolutionary and amazing, but everything after that in the franchise was chasing some trend instead of trailblazing like the originals.

 

[Deleted member 23212]

I mean, sure, OG TR inspired PoP 3D to some extent, but last-geb-reboot TR was straight up a worse version of PoP almost note for note. Just like how Uncharted was inspired by TR (and PoP) and current gen TR is just a worse version of Uncharted. The original TR games were revolutionary and amazing, but everything after that in the franchise was chasing some trend instead of trailblazing like the originals.

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I actually meant the other way around. The original Tomb Raider seems heavily inspired by the original Prince of Persia.

 

[Deleted member 8593]

I know some people think it doesn't do the original any justice, but I prefer Tomb Raider Anniversary to pretty much any Uncharted and especially 2013 Tomb Raider game.

 

[Kerozinn]

I really like UC1, as a tropical Gears game it has far better gun gameplay than the Tomb Raider games. As for jumping and climbing/puzzles... that's where the old Tomb Raider trilogy stands far above Uncharted, but to be fair, UC was never good at that. It was nothing more than windowdressing and lacked any form of challenge or tension.

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jumping and climbing in TR was the main gameplay element so its understandable that its better cause its way more risky aswell since you can fall down and even die "OFTEN"

Uncharted main gameplay is shooting and climbing is not risky at all cause its not meant to be.
its just traversal with very low risk, unless you keep pressing circle

 

[Remo Williams]

As far as I'm concerned, Legend and Underworld are not better than any Uncharted game overall (much better when it comes to platforming, of course - there are FPS games that are better at platforming than Uncharted), but Anniversary? Easily as good as any Uncharted game, if not better.

As for the Tomb Raider reboot, I enjoyed it more than U1 and U3, but perhaps not quite as much as U2. It's a great game, in any case.

And I don't agree that combat in Uncharted doesn't hold up, I first played those games last year, and U2 was fantastic in that regard, while U3 was just slightly worse. U1, yeah, that one's never had particularly great combat, but it's still all right.

 

[MisterR]

I really disagree that Uncharted combat sucks now. It's still hard to find other TPS that scratch that same itch. I still replay the Nathan Drake collection all the time.

Even consider all of them better than 4.

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Yep, the combat holds up and remains excellent.

 

[Megatron]

It's true for this gen too.

 

[IronicSonic]

The shortcoming of Uncharted series were always very clear but people love their cutting edge graphics and super production values.

Tomb Raider until the last reboot were always better games in my opinion. Control in Shadow was terrible sadly.

 

[>__]

Uncharted is better than TR is nearly every regard.

- Characters
- Set peices
- Story
- Gameplay

The aging statement doesn't make much sense, games like UC2 are still a blast today.

 

[RoboPlato]

The recent TR reboots aren't even in the same solar system of quality as the Uncharted games. Climbing and puzzles are better in Tomb Raider but combat, writing, characterization (all key elements for both series) are severely lacking in Tomb Raider in comparison. I like the TR games, but the Uncharted games are all some of the best TPS ever made.

 

[iswasdoes]

I played uncharted, for the first time, last year. Did 1-4 back to back. I had a total blast, thought they looked amazing (this was the remasters), thought the writing was good, the combat got better and better. No way do I think these games are shoddy by todays standards, theyre better than 90% of current gen games in my book

Canst speak to the Tomb raiders myself

 

[DevilMayGuy]

Hard disagree. Just replayed the Nathan Drake collection on PS4. Still like them better than most of those games (though a couple are pretty damn good).

 

[Mafro]

I always thought the newer games were better than newer Uncharted too.

 

[Notaskwid]

I love uncharted, they're just fun romps, all of them. I also think that 'uncharted gunplay is bad' is some sort of bad meme.
Havent really played the tomb raider games for more than like 30 minutes (I own some of them on steam) , so can't really comment on them.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

What? the Uncharted trilogy was much better than the Legend/Anniversary/Underworld trilogy. I mean by far!

But i do have an unpopular opinion from this generation regarding these 2 franchises though:
I started this generation only last year. Started by playing Rise Of The Tomb Raider on the PS4 and right after, i played Uncharted 4.
Storywise, graphics, characters...Uncharted 4 wins by far.
BUT as a game, i had A LOT more fun with Tomb Raider and loved every second of it.

When i started Uncharted 4 after TR i was like "this game is much more on-rails than Tomb Raider and has nowhere near as much freedom".
Uncharted is an amazing franchise but a lot of times i realize how much i play it the way the developers want me to. Like parts where they don't allow you to run and just walk, how it doesn't allow you to climb places you clearly can, when you lose by trying to go down certain places you clearly can, etc.
I didn't go through that with Tomb Raider.
By the end of Uncharted 4 i realized that even though it's a much superior game at almost everything, the things Rise was better, made me prefer it. And i did NOT expect it at the time.

 

[FrostyLemon]

I felt like this as soon as I played Uncharted 2 for the first time. Everything that game did amazingly well was rooted in performance, graphics, animation and voice acting. None of those things will be impressive in the future.

 

[astro]

I can understand this, but as both were pale imitations of a former greatness I don't really see a winner here.

 

[Kerozinn]

The recent TR reboots aren't even in the same solar system of quality as the Uncharted games. Climbing and puzzles are better in Tomb Raider but combat, writing, characterization (all key elements for both series) are severely lacking in Tomb Raider in comparison. I like the TR games, but the Uncharted games are all some of the best TPS ever made.

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could not agree more!

 

[TheBaldwin]

Nah

Tha characters, graphical design and colour palette, interactive set pieces, overall story, and traversal during combat all excel. Even the puzzles can be auite interesting, if a bit on the easy side

Tomb raiders combat is much better, buts its boring story ( with a setting and idea that should be great) leaves much to be desired. I dont even remember any of the puzzles

 

[Sense]

Idk I played through the Nathan drake collection and loved all of them all over again.

 

[Dr. Caroll]

Uncharted is better than TR is nearly every regard.

- Characters
- Set peices
- Story
- Gameplay

The aging statement doesn't make much sense, games like UC2 are still a blast today.

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The strength of Tomb Raider was that it didn't rely so heavily on smoke and mirror illusion of danger set pieces like Uncharted did. Uncharted's gameplay is good if you like really crouching behind waist high objects and shooting waves upon waves of enemies in between cutscenes. Because that's most of UC1-3.

LAU have some set pieces, and TR Legend is weaker for having so many, but a bulk of gameplay is timeless exploration and puzzle solving. Cover shooting in third person as you slowly advanced between pieces of waist high cover was a mid-to-late-2000s fad. LAU avoids it. They have relatively little combat, what little they do have is over in seconds, not minutes. Uncharted 1 goes on and on, throwing endless enemies at the player. Underworld's sinking ship is brief. U3's ship set piece goes on forever with one shooting gallery set piece after another.

In terms of being games in the spirit of Indiana Jones, I think LAU wins out. And AU feel more timeless in their design choices overall.

Also Infernal Machine on the N64 is better than the Core Tomb Raider games IMO.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Tomb Raider reboot played so much better than Uncharted that it's not even a contest. Most people really don't remember how poorly those games played in comparison to the peers. Like have you ever tried to use melee in Uncharted 2 or 3?

 

[hikarutilmitt]

Better is a strong word, but I would certainly agree with them aging better. I've never felt compelled to go back and play Uncharted 1-3, whereas I've gone back to LAU (even got them on PC eventually) because they're just fun to play. I enjoy the exploring and platforming more than the TPS duck and cover gameplay that has gotten stale (which may be one of the reasons I've had so much trouble finishing TLOU).

This isn't to say Uncharted games are bad or that their style of game is bad, but I don't get them on release for this particular reason.

 

[Deleted member 16876]

Agreed.

Unlike Tomb Raider, I didn't nfeel like I am going on an adventure in Uncharted. It doesn't help that Uncharted had so many shootouts.

As much as I give shit to theTomb Raider 2013 series for not being "Tomb Raider", it still have a much better gameplay compared to Uncharted and it also feels like you are going on an adventure unlike the former.

 

[JayWood2010]

I enjoyed both, and in fact i would say theyre both great, today and yesterday.

Regardless, and I have always said this, Tomb Raider had better gunplay. I think Uncharted has good writing, good characters, platforming, etc but the gunplay is just ok at best. Its definitely not its strong suit. Granted I dont think Tomb Raider was much better in terms of gunplay. i think during that time Gears of War was really the only TPS that I can remember that stood out in just pure shooting mechanics, which is why people love its multiplayer so much.

Idk which is better between Tomb Raider and Uncharted, so I always use to say if you want a light hearted story go Uncharted, but if you want a darker story go Tomb Raider. I personally think Uncharted has better characters and platforming, but Tomb Raider has better shooting mechanics. Its a toss up for me on which i like more.

Im talking about Tomb Raider reboot btw, so sorry if youre just talking about the ones before 2013.

 

[BlacJack]

I do agree that the game play is better. I miss old school TR and the new ones being more movie like in the vein of Uncharted is what disappointed me most about them.

I love Uncharted and hesitate to say old school TR is straight up better, but I do feel TR shoulda remained it's own thing. I would have certainly enjoyed them far more.

 

[Zaied]

One thing I didn't like about the Tomb Raider LAU trilogy is the reliance on QTEs, and I don't think they ever quite nailed the combat. It was great to have a manual targeting system compared to the classic games, but they kept making these small changes here and there that altered the combat in each game. Anniversary had the rage & adrenaline mechanic which just made the combat too easy. I did like the sandbox-y underwater missions in Underworld with sharks.

I prefer the puzzle solving, having to defer to Nate's journal for clues, the cinematic approach, and the character interactions in Uncharted 2 & 3. The airplane setpiece that's immediately followed by the desert chapter in Uncharted 3 is one of my favorite narrative transitions from last gen.