Tomb Raider I-III Remastered from Aspyr - IV-VI coming on February 14th

[JarlFrank]

I expected them to do IV & V, but Angel of Darkness is surprising, considering what an unfinished buggy mess that one was. They have to put a LOT more work into remastering that one, and on top of that it runs on a different engine than the previous five games (which all run on the same engine).

Anyway I'm cautiously optimistic.

Yeah, the AI upscaled textures are shit, BUT you can just switch to original graphics by hitting F1 and the 1-3 remaster is the easiest way to play the games on modern systems, as well as the most complete (including all expansions which were never bundled with previous digital releases). They even kept TR1's low draw distance in the original graphics of the remaster, so I fully approve of that one.

TR4 is my second-favorite TR game.
TR5 is the worst.
TR6 is a buggy mess that needs a lot of work to polish.

So I'm really curious how this one is gonna turn out.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Are they going to remaster the last of the Tomb Raider Reboot games as well?

Anyway, this made me ponder Silent Hill and why GOG only has 4: The room and Why Steam only has the entirely new remaster of 2 and the older 6th game, Homecoming. They're fucking all over the place here. Yeah, just get an emulator or original hardware but sheesh, fucking Konami. I'm damned surprised there isn't a SH digital pachinko machine on Steam.

I suppose Elf-butt Heretic 2 will be remastered along with the entire Heretic/Hexen franchise.

After this I wonder if they just start making new Tomb Raider games in the style of the classic games. Do a “collection” of new Tomb Raider games 7, 8, and 9. They could probably do some retro Tomb Raider game and it wouldn’t cost them much of anything if they kept the environment models around want you’d expect from a good looking Xbox game.

 

[Semiurge]

Are they going to remaster the last of the Tomb Raider Reboot games as well?

Anyway, this made me ponder Silent Hill and why GOG only has 4: The room and Why Steam only has the entirely new remaster of 2 and the older 6th game, Homecoming. They're fucking all over the place here. Yeah, just get an emulator or original hardware but sheesh, fucking Konami. I'm damned surprised there isn't a SH digital pachinko machine on Steam.

I suppose Elf-butt Heretic 2 will be remastered along with the entire Heretic/Hexen franchise.

You mean the Legend trilogy? There have been no hints dropped about them like there were about the "Darkness trilogy" aka IV-VI. There was a rather obvious hint in TR3 remaster in the form of an easter egg.

And besides, those are the games that would benefit from a graphical overhaul the least. They're already as good as they're going to get, which is mediocre compared to the Core games. Anniversary is pointless, misguided and ugly, but Legend has a goth waifu and Underworld has the nicest graphics out of the three despite the Lara model and her animations sometimes looking unfinished. Underworld is also disapointingly linear in its level design, which is a shame when the environments look so great most of the time. If you play those three expecting a highly streamlined console-friendly experience with some retcons to Lara's backstory, you might not be so disapointed.

 

[deuxhero]

Wonder how they'll handle the 16 year old version in V.

 

[Semiurge]

Wonder how they'll handle the 16 year old version in V.

For those who haven't played Chronicles (or tLR where teen Lara appears for the first time) -

The ingame model itself is no problem, but that one Chronicles FMV might be. Teenage Lara shows some underboob there for a split second. The most optimistic scenario: The FMV remains uncut and Crystal Dynamics attaches yet another trigger warning to the trilogy.

 

[Lacrymas]

My prediction for Angel of Darkness - they'll just slap on the fan-made fixes that have come out over the years and call it a day. AoD requires a lot of refinement of the content itself, not only bug fixes (which have been a thing for over a decade at this point).

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Oh my.. underboob. SIN!

 

[deuxhero]

My prediction for Angel of Darkness - they'll just slap on the fan-made fixes that have come out over the years and call it a day. AoD requires a lot of refinement of the content itself, not only bug fixes (which have been a thing for over a decade at this point).

Some of the achievements supposedly reference things cut from AoD.

 

[Semiurge]

They've expanded some gameplay areas that were the easiest to expand. Some itemisation-related stuff was also changed.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Lara should be required to strip tease in every game, no matter how blocky or pointy her tits are.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

I'm curious to see what they do with Angel of Darkness. Perhaps its just bias since it was the second game in the series I played a good chunk of, but I thought that while the execution was off, the idea was solid. Keep the controls, add in a hub area with people and points of interest, and add in more intrigue. On the other hand, the actual tomb parts of the game felt like the weakest in the series, and I doubt there's any way to fix those short of restarting from scratch, which they aren't going to be able to do.

 

[Ash]

Can you elaborate?

Sure; Toby Gard indicated during the Anniversary commentary that he always intended much of the game to be outdoors but wasn't able to display that with the technology of the PlayStation at the time, so it turns out that much of TR1's superb atmosphere was entirely accidental; the striking feeling of desolate, eerie loneliness was not what Gard had intended, but rather a result of the PlayStation's inability to render the sort of vistas and outdoor areas he wanted.

The result was that the original visuals lent the game an atmosphere of unnerving isolation - thanks to the lack of a skybox and a short draw distance, it appeared that the player was moving perpetually further underground, into areas that had been long since buried and completely untouched for millennia. In the original Coliseum for example you couldn't see anything above you other than dark murkiness, and if you did manage to climb high enough, you were only met with a crumbled stone roof. Working under the implication that you were underground, every step you took felt like you were further and further away from civilization and deeper into danger and loneliness.

Having it outdoors is so odd because it changes the atmosphere completely. Rather than being deep into a long-lost ruin and cut off from the outside world, you're now just... somewhere in the countryside of Greece, with the sun shining on your face. Lara could probably get a phone signal to call for help if she felt like it.

The area being buried also enhanced the feeling of the mystical lost knowledge of the Atlanteans; nobody's been here since those days and the Scion piece is completely forgotten to history. But with it being outside, the whole place must be well-known to anyone who's ever gone on a helicopter or looked at satellite imagery, and anyone could have wandered in at any time. But seemingly nobody except Lara and Pierre has bothered to do so over the last however-many-thousand years, despite the incredible amount of untouched history laying around the place.

Beautifully put. Couldn't have said it better myself. Tomb Raider was an underground adventure, so very unsettling, and felt like unearthing lost ancient civilizations and their artifiacts.

Interestingly enough though, much of the same feelings and atmosphere were still present in Tomb Raider 2 and 3 despite featuring outdoor environments. A little less intense but still very much present. Limited draw distance MVP! Godly soundtracks and primitive graphics rendering help with sealing the tone too.

 

[Tehdagah]

Are they going to remaster the last of the Tomb Raider Reboot games as well?

Anyway, this made me ponder Silent Hill and why GOG only has 4: The room and Why Steam only has the entirely new remaster of 2 and the older 6th game, Homecoming. They're fucking all over the place here. Yeah, just get an emulator or original hardware but sheesh, fucking Konami. I'm damned surprised there isn't a SH digital pachinko machine on Steam.

I suppose Elf-butt Heretic 2 will be remastered along with the entire Heretic/Hexen franchise.

You mean the Legend trilogy? There have been no hints dropped about them like there were about the "Darkness trilogy" aka IV-VI. There was a rather obvious hint in TR3 remaster in the form of an easter egg.

And besides, those are the games that would benefit from a graphical overhaul the least. They're already as good as they're going to get, which is mediocre compared to the Core games. Anniversary is pointless, misguided and ugly, but Legend has a goth waifu and Underworld has the nicest graphics out of the three despite the Lara model and her animations sometimes looking unfinished. Underworld is also disapointingly linear in its level design, which is a shame when the environments look so great most of the time. If you play those three expecting a highly streamlined console-friendly experience with some retcons to Lara's backstory, you might not be so disapointed.

For some reason I had a dream where I was playing Tomb Raider Underworld.

 

[.Pixote.]

The games became more tedious as they went on, TR1 was the best, it felt fresh and exciting, after TR2 the team making them had changed and the results show. Depending on save crystals was cruel, failing jumps was very painful, maybe that's why the first game is still so memorable.

 

[catfood]

The games became more tedious as they went on, TR1 was the best, it felt fresh and exciting, after TR2 the team making them had changed and the results show. Depending on save crystals was cruel, failing jumps was very painful, maybe that's why the first game is still so memorable.

That's why the games are better on PC so you can save when you want.

 

[Lacrymas]

I only found 2 to be a tiny bit tedious due to all the action and killing. It also doesn't feature many settings which are personally appealing to me. The entire underwater section on the Maria Doria was great, but China, Venice and Tibet aren't my cup of tea.

 

[catfood]

I only found 2 to be a tiny bit tedious due to all the action and killing. It also doesn't feature many settings which are personally appealing to me. The entire underwater section on the Maria Doria was great, but China, Venice and Tibet aren't my cup of tea.

For me it's the opposite. I hated the Maria Doria but I enjoyed every other location. The enemies were a bit too many tho. It's one of those instances where developers should NOT listen to fan feedback because sometimes they have no idea what they want.

 

[Lacrymas]

I only found 2 to be a tiny bit tedious due to all the action and killing. It also doesn't feature many settings which are personally appealing to me. The entire underwater section on the Maria Doria was great, but China, Venice and Tibet aren't my cup of tea.

For me it's the opposite. I hated the Maria Doria but I enjoyed every other location. The enemies were a bit too many tho. It's one of those instances where developers should NOT listen to fan feedback because sometimes they have no idea what they want.

IIRC, it wasn't the fans who were clamoring for more action, rather the lizard overlords the devs were beholden to because action games were trendy at the time.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

I only found 2 to be a tiny bit tedious due to all the action and killing. It also doesn't feature many settings which are personally appealing to me. The entire underwater section on the Maria Doria was great, but China, Venice and Tibet aren't my cup of tea.

For me it's the opposite. I hated the Maria Doria but I enjoyed every other location. The enemies were a bit too many tho. It's one of those instances where developers should NOT listen to fan feedback because sometimes they have no idea what they want.

IIRC, it wasn't the fans who were clamoring for more action, rather the lizard overlords the devs were beholden to because action games were trendy at the time.

They weren't entirely wrong considering that the more adventure-style entries are the ones with more controversial views on them. People either love or hate TLR, which IIRC, focused less on the action part of the game in favor of exploration.

 

[flyingjohn]

after TR2 the team making them had changed

Only Toby and the lead programmer left. Everybody else remained. Tr3 is where 2/3 of the original team just left.

rather the lizard overlords the devs were beholden to because action games were trendy at the time.

Nah, the publisher only dictated timetables. The push for action was because it was easier to code since the main programmer left and you couldn't make any new fancy stuff in the allocated time.You can see them trying in chronicles, but failing miserably because of how buggy and incomplete the implementations were.
Toby leaving was not a major blow, the guy who actually made the engine and tools leaving meant there was no real innovation they could implement.Ironically, the guy would screw Toby over with Galleon. Him leaving left the game eternally broken.