Tomb Raider's original composer on TR4: "the whole of the original Core team had practically left"

DSOGaming writes: "It's always great to dig up the past and uncover things that never crossed your mind. Tomb Raider is a franchise that was introduced with Playstation 1 and was developed by Core Team. However, that team was merely a shadow of its former self by the time it was developing the fourth part of this IP. As Nathan McCree - Tomb Raider's original composer - revealed in an interview with Platform-Online, the whole original team had practically left by then."

[abzdine]

they pushed it away...
Underworld was garbage, and the last TR has only the name.
if they go back to the old fashion addictive gameplay i would be very interested cause TR is maybe a good game but i prefer they kept it the way it has always been.

[CrossingEden]

The reboot is a perfect example on how to modernize a series and how to make a character mean more than just her tits.

[ShinMaster]

Implying that Tomb Raider's appeal was mostly Lara's tits? Come on now.

The reboot relied to much on shoot outs and action sequences. Too much like Uncharted. The reboot was a pretty good game, but lost a lot of its puzzle elements, scary encounters with different creatures and tomb raiding.

At times it felt like they were trying a little too hard with her character. Lara Croft used to love adventure and discovery. New Lara hated the whole thing.
This game is not going to make her a better tomb raider or love adventure any better in the future, it's only going to make her a more aware and experienced survivor.

[MightyNoX]

Considering that the original Lara's character trait was that she was an adrenaline junkie who likes adventure and that this Lara was stirred into Tomb Raiding (ahem, sorry...'Surviving') by almost getting raped, I'd say tits have been supercharged to being ESSENTIAL to the plot and character development.

Gifts of the modern age, I suppose.

[vishmarx]

loved the new tomb raider.
but i want the sequel to be a globe trotting adventure with a little more variety in enemies.
myth creatures n stuff.
fingers crossed for a teaser in the definitive edition

[abzdine]

@CrossingEden: NO WAY!!
they killed the gameplay that made TR so great. i haven't bought it just for that and im happy the sales flopped.
i'm really tired of TPS and FPS

[mechlord]

@ShinMaster

Its a reboot. I would think they will add new elements to the sequel and move Lara more towards the old one who loves adventures and maybe add tomb raiding for real. I mean, at some point someone must have asked about these elements. My guess? they will keep adding to future sequels.

But i gotta admit. Going from poor naive innocent woman to a pretty damn bad-ass survivor in game one was a good thing

[Matt666]

The reboot was a pile of crap, they should go back to how Tomb Raider one was on the PS1. The reboot was noting more then a graphics whore fantasy. I think I stick to the old ones where you actually had to use your brain to solve puzzles etc.

[Ares84HU]

@CrossingEden,

No, that is a bad example. They took everything that made Tomb Raider well, Tomb Raider and created something different that is more like Uncharted. It wasn't a bad game by any means just not a Tomb Raider game. I've been a Tomb Raider fan since the very first on on Playstation. I own every TR game ever released on Playstation.

In the TR reboot Lara is a constant complainer, whining about everything even if you made the smallest jump she would scream like she was having hardcore sex. Playing this game sounded like watching porn. There was no sense of exploration, at least not to me. The focus was on shooting not puzzles. Puzzles were so dumb that even a 2 year old could have solved them very easily. Any puzzle from TR1 puts to shame all the puzzles in the TR reboot. Lara was a teen in the 70's not in the 2000's so they fucked up on that big time. We liked the confident Lara with her tits. Why is this so bad for everyone? Why did the newer TR games didn't make enough money? Because they got shorter and shorter with each new release and relied on easy puzzles and very linear gameplay. Not like the old TR games. In the new ones, you had to visit a room only once, than you moved on to the next never coming back. In the old TR games it was different. You could explore a whole level and go anywhere on that level any given time. That was taken away also.

They should really go back to the old TR games. I could have made a 1000x better true TR game than this was. Also, you know that a game that is purely single player and all about single player gets an mp mode that it's going to shit. TR really didn't needed an mp mode. Almost no one played it. It was a waste of time and resources.

[Seraphim]

Come on man, Underworld wasn't all that bad. Though it did still have some of the problems the game has come with since inception. Static movement and face plants into walls.... To say it was garbage is absurd though. Perfect by no means but it was still a fun game to play and good, or at the very least an average game.

Personally I wasn't too thrilled w/ the direction the latest TR went. I think the bloody Finishing moves via video preview was my last straw and the point I decided to skip it. The blood n gore, more adult theme just turned me off so I've neglected TR; that is until Black Friday. $15 I had to pick it up and while I haven't played too much of it I have to say this game definitely impressed me while some aspects are EPIC FAIL. Like first time she kills a deer and her false innocence. Corny, cheesy, pathetic attempt at trying to draw you into relating w/ Lara. Maybe it's because we know it which makes it harder to swallow or maybe it's just that cheesy and unrealistic but they failed miserably at trying to show an innocent Lara trying to survive and escape..... From a game play perspective it's not perfect but it plays well and they are certainly on the right track. The running, climbing, jumping, the mechanics are all pretty solid and it's nice finally have a Lara who moves freely, does what you command her to & doesn't accidentally run into walls and grab her face. It's disappointing they're wasting time, resources and energy on a Definitive version for PS4/1 and not creating a new entry into the series using this engine with more of a Tomb Raider scene. IE Exploration not Survival Island w/ sprinkles of cheap ass caves called tombs.

[HarryMasonHerpderp]

While I think the reboot is a good game, I don't think it's much of a Tomb Raider game. Next to no puzzles, no under water elements, too much action and I'm not a fan of the new LARA Croft. Her accent is way off and you can tell a mile off that this Tomb Raider was made for the American market. All the British flavour from the old games has now completely gone. TR1-6 were the best games by far.

[gamernova]

I love the latest tomb raider. People just don't like change.

[MadLad]

One of the best games of this year. That said, I see why old fans may shy away from it. It's not much like the original games.
That said, were I to choose between the classic style or a sequel to Tomb Raider 2013 . . . I will gladly take the sequel to Tomb Raider 2013.

[MightyNoX]

Played it, gameplay was nice but Tomb Raiding was optional. That's not change, that's departure from the core concept.

[gamernova]

Wasn't the whole island a giant tomb? I think that optional is good. Same as assissin's creed. It's a game about an Assassin but the assassin contracts are optional. Since when is giving options a departure from a concept? It just gives the player the ability to choose their experience.

[Salooh]

I love the first tomb raider games in ps1 days but i prefer the reboot over the games they released before it ps3/ps2 era.

If they use the same elements of the first tomb raider games plus that graphics and story telling then it will reach uncharted awesomeness level. It's not like i'm asking for new things. Just do that then start evolving.

[Shad0wRunner]

Tomb Raider was getting old, stale and milked. Featured the same elements with every game, same plot....it got predictable.

I would argue the same is happening to Resident Evil, COD, even Mario titles.

Sometimes, it is necessary to take an IP and breathe NEW life into it. Reinvent it. And make it different. TR 2013 was just that. An origin story, detailing the events that led to Lara Croft, becoming the Tomb Raider. It was SUPPOSED to be different, for a reason. With today's tech regarding mocap, facial features, expressions and emotions....developers can create a character that can be loved and revered for more than just her tits, and yet still maintain a sexually appealing physique. With this new IP, Lara Croft can finally be the badass she was meant to be, surpassing ways in which she was held back, in previous games.

Some people just dont want change. And it's those people who would hold us all back, from bigger and better things...if they could.

[BABY-JEDI]

The Tomb Raider RE-boot was excellent (with the exception of the under-developed smaller tombs/ puzzles). The story was well fleshed out, gritty & interesting. The upgrade system was intuitive & thematically good. The environments & character models were good as well.. If you haven't played this game go out & buy it. It's a great game (minus big breasts of course).
; )

[Imalwaysright]

I agree but there was a reason why the focus of this games wasn't the tombs. CD purpose was to let us know how Lara became the badass character that she is. If the next TR doesn't focus on Tombs, platforming and exploration then I will be severely disappointed.

[BABY-JEDI]

I agree, but I meant the smaller optional tombs scattered over the island. They were generally really small & undeveloped.

[CLOUD1983]

LoL what all those ppl talking about.. they didn't reinvent anything they just clone other popular games (UC guhu-guhu..) & that's it, if u call that breath of new life then I call it the main reasons all the classic game series become garbage nowadays, want some examples? RE5/RE6 nice reinvention eh? nice breath of new life.. next Diablo 3 nice reinvention eh? what a fresh air of new life this game have.. bliah.. Silent Hill any1? what about DMC? or FF? they can keep their "breath of new life" & "modernization of old IP's" we don't want them, they can stick them where the light don't shine, most of those games were some of my old time favorites back in the PS1/PS2 days not anymore I don't even want to see what they did with them it's very painful to watch...

[Imalwaysright]

What are you talking about? Cloned? If anything it was UC that cloned TR which is one of the most influential games ever made and set the standard for action adventure games. The only thing that UC influenced TR was the on rails platforming. Other than that, everything that Uncharted did was present on older TR games. I dare anyone to say otherwise. Just remember that youtube and its videos are readily available to prove UC fanboys and people that don't know anything about the history of videogames wrong.

[HaHa_Ostrich]

I think TR4 was the best old school TR game.

[gamer7804]

It's a shame Toby Gard is no longer involved, the newest tombraider was decent, but it was a shadow of its former self.

No puzzles, no swimming, no traveling around the world, no costume unlocks

It was just an action adventure game, after beating it was left feeling totally underwhelmed and wishing we had another sequel in the last reboot.

[Agent_hitman]

I guess there's nothing we can do about this.. As long as the latest Lara looks more appealing and hotter than the old ones.

[ThatEnglishDude]

How the fuck can you call it Tomb Raider if raiding tombs is completely optional?

You all bang on about character development, but really - there's only two instances where it's prominent, and even then it's forced down our throat. When she kills a deer, which the game goes great lengths into drawing out and making us feel sorry - despite never once having to do this again; and her struggling with taken a human life. The latter of which made completely pointless when within the next minute or so, and from that point on in the game, you're mowing down entire armies of guys without any moral consequence. It was too try-hard and not only failed to live up to the expectations of the series, but failed to even live up to what the very name promises. The best 'puzzles' of TR'13 were the tombs, which were completely optional and served no purpose other than to get salvage scraps... which you didn't really need anyway because the game was so fucking easy. Seriously, I only upgraded the pick axe, and that's only because I HAD to. Yes, I played on hard - and no, I'm not particularly kick ass at games either. It's just easy.

It was a standard, dime a dozen, over the shoulder shooter with pretty scripted set pieces, nice graphics, and nothing to prove but to force feed us the notion that women can be good lead characters. Well guess what, she was a strong and able character in the original series too.

[e-p-ayeaH]

Tomb Raider 4 was definitly one of the best in my opinion.