Since its acquisition of Eidos in 2009, Square Enix has become the custodian of several cherished series. So it has gone about rebooting and revising them in recent years, with varying degrees of success. Each new game superficially appears to understand its lineage, but close inspection reveals the results of misjudged tampering.
From outer space to stealing in Europe, The Epic Games Store has two free games you might like.
Tomb Raider I, II, III Remastered is available now on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Lara Croft is back in a classic remaster of the original PlayStation 1 hit title. Is the remaster any good though?
We've gone on many adventures with Lara Croft. With another reboot in the making, Wealth of Geeks felt it was a good time to go down the nostalgia rabbit hole and remember the best of those tomb-raiding thrills.
I do agree that Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness was the worse one 😂 I remember playing some of it and I took it back. That game was just awful in every way. I bought it used at gamestop and glad they had that 7 day return policy for used games 😂
Simple. He's been hating on the Tomb Raider reboots for years. I can't imagine seeing them at the top of a best TR game list let alone being on the list in general sitting well with him because of it.
Zeek
“Hating”
No no, just pointing out how TR mutated into a generic action adventure game losing the appeal of what it once was when it was more about puzzles and platforming over going Rambo, slaughtering waves of enemies
But hey, continue being a dick and speaking about me like I’m not going to see the comment.
Foxtrot, I'm curious if you have played the most recent games. Sure the 2013 reboot was hugely focused on combat, but each follow up became less and less about combat to the point where outside of a few large scale story missions I don't even remember combat being a part of shadow of the tomb raider. Shadow was so puzzle focused it actually was a bit much for me and I love the TR puzzles.
I still feel like Rise was the best of the series and I was a huge fan of the originals. To me it struck the perfect balance of exploration, platforming, puzzles, and combat. Not saying your opinion is wrong I'm just curious what you think they should have done different. Games do need to evolve somewhat to stay relevant. Would you prefer small linear jumping platform levels like the original?
I think Shadow wasn't even develop by crystal dynamics. I thought it was the worse in the new trilogy
That's right. Shadow was developed by Eidos Montreal who who went and made Marvels Guardians of the Galaxy next. (Great game)
Meanwhile after Rise of the Tomb Raider, Crystal Dynamics made Marvels Avengers. (bad game)
For me, Legend should be alot higher (along with the other two ). Shadow, I enjoyed it, but has too much has fluff, as modern games tend to do. Playing the remastered series, and apart from the controls, is very good.
I really enjoyed the first 2 games, Legend and the first of the reboots and the rest I didn’t get into so I never finished.
Completely subjective list. I really liked Underworld, I preferred Lara's design. That said I loved the horror/uncharted feel of the reboot. I think all the TR games have strengths and weaknesses. None are objectively better in every way.
Square themselves admitted to trying to pander to "casual gamers" when making these games. Casual gamers usually like easy, uncomplicated games with horrible AI, hence the end result are games like Thief. Bland, horribly planned, unintuitive menus and user interfaces, and using the "research" of other nitwits to dictate the direction of the game's flow. Trying to please everyone in this business is never a good idea. The perfect example is xbox1 and it's current status in the gaming industry. Different people have different tastes, but when you try to mix all of those tastes into one bowl, you'll probably get a puke worthy concoction.
Some of there games still hold up like Hitman and Tomb Raider but at the end of the day them trying to focus on the casual/action focused audience doesn't make those games feel true to the franchise
I mean take Tomb Raider for example, good game but doesn't feel like a Tomb Raider game at all. It feels like a more open Uncharted clone at times, hell for a TOMB Raider games the tombs were optional and were easy as hell (they all looked the same). While Hitman...well I don't know about you but it didn't feel as challenging, I never got the same feel from it like Blood Money
Although I agree with Hitman and Thief, Tombs Raider was already moving in the action/ third person shooter direction before Square got their hands on it.
I'm surprised nobody remembers Legends and Underworld, which focused a lot on action. Nobody was buying the games when it was sticking to the same formula. I remember reviewers complaining about the older games being "more of the same". Sales were decreasing with each installment and the series was inching closer to death. This was one of the reasons the series went on a 5 years hiatus. If it wasn't for Square, the series would have probably died.
Keep in mind that this was once a yearly franchise.
Why do gamers expect that every sequel should be as good as or better than the original release?
It's not like you expect any movie with the nummber 2 behind the title to be as good or better.
Play the good games, if you buy it based on the name alone, well what can i say? you're not the sharpest tool in the shed..
Here's the thing, when franchises don't evolve and don't keep up with the rest of the gaming world, people and critics will say that the game is stuck in the past, more of the same and that it might be time for the franchise to be put on indefinite hiatus until it can find a way to become relevant once more. Until then, the series will suffer from declining sales, and if nothing is done, the publisher will lose money and write off the entire franchise as being dead.
On the other hand, if said franchises change their formula to be more in line with what every one else is doing, people will go and say that they have removed the soul and essence of the series, that it doesn't feel like the original game and that it should never have been made.
But, at the end of the day, what really matters to a publisher will be the sale numbers, and as far as Tomb Raider goes, the new formula has proven to be much more viable than the old one, although it still did not meet SE's stupidly high expectations. For Thief though, the game simply did not meet gamer's standards and it failed miserably. Finally, for Hitman, the last game was good, great even, but it simply wasn't enough. But let's not forget that Hitman games have been hit or miss in the past as well, the first one, Agent 47, was pretty bad, while Silent Assassin was great. Contracts was a step backwards, but Blood Money was in my opinion the best in the series.