Since Shadow of the Tomb Raider left me bored out of my mind, I decided to step back in time to replay and review the original action adventure classic Tomb Raider. Does the game and its star live up to my fond recollection, or are they both an embarassing relic best forgotten? Let's find out.
I miss the rounded sunglasses and the fact she was one of the few people cool enough to pull the look off.
Maybe I'm not boomer enough to understand but people liked weird sunglasses back then like how were those ones in Matrix cool?
TUNA it was a specific kind of cool, and I think it’s aged gloriously in a cheesy sort of way. Don’t understand the boomer word use? You know boomers are a lot older than the Matrix/Tomb Raider time right?
@@tuna5305 At least learn to use "boomer" in the correct context, kid.
@@bergonath8851 Okay, anime profile pic sure. Oh, and I'd rather use a word wrong than be a "mature" person who uses the word "kid"
@@tuna5305 Yeah, nice comeback, kid.
The modern Tomb Raider games have a huge disconnect between cutscenes and gameplay. In the cutscenes she's fragile and vulnerable as you mentioned, but in gameplay she's like a slasher villain taking down the enemies one by one, cutting their throats or killing them in other horrible ways with her pickaxe, then committing genocide with an entire village, etc. She's a total killer. While the original game tells more the atmosphere trough gameplay, which is all more aligned with actual tomb... raiding.
This is my primary gripe with Naughty Dog games. The disconnect between gameplay and cutscene is downright comical... like how can anyone pretend that Joel is a morally grey character when he strangles like 50+ people to death in the first hour of gameplay alone? He's an irreverent murderer.
I remember thinking how she came across so realistic and then suddenly she was a a flippin hardened murderer lol
@@trequor Joel pretty much tells you that he's a murderer. He has to be. And in cutscenes he does come across as a brooding murder man. There is no grey area in TLOU. It's either kill or be killed. Lara on the other hand acts like some scary girl, when she clearly can wipe out an entire city. The 1st game I understood why she was nervous and terrified. She went against zombie samurai and saw ww2 dead corpses. She stabbed herself with a arrow and survived bear traps. There's no reason she should be scared of anything in her next 2 adventures.
Ludonarrative dissonance is a problem a lot of modern games struggle with, unfortunately.
@@trequor Joel never denied he has become a bad guy after his daughter's death and the virus outbreak. That's why his character development is so precious to millions of fans of the original TLOU, and that's why the same people hate the sequel so much.
I love how the reboot Laura went from “Oh no I just killed a man” to mowing down mercenaries with ease.
Haha, so true. I literally just finished the 2013 reboot tonight for the first time (I know, I'm eight years late). I remember the early trailers seem to depict killing out of necessity as a pivotol, traumatic moment. And as such, I didn't think that those confrontations would occur too often. Boy was I wrong! It had all the subtlety of a jackhammer. At times I wasn't sure if I was playing Tomb Raider or Max Payne. As an origin story, I expected more survival and tomb raiding and less wanton murder. Who needs intricate puzzle solving when you can have Mortal Kombat esque finishers? :-(
Lol yeah. I don't mind the first reboot installment. It gave an interesting backstory but honestly after being so emotionally vulnerable after killing one dude she just turns into a type of sociopathic killer. And her personality hardly changed the second installment. Just more daddy issues. If they took away all the hundred of humans she just mowed down and introduced some more wildlife and other dangers that come from being stranded on an island it'd make sense. Then pivot her character in the second and third game that just kicks ass like the old Lara.
@@RonT222 Currently playing through a second time to clear up some achievements. I mean you can blast guys with a shotgun to the face by the dozens as if it's just another day in the park. It's kind of hilarious. Fun thrill ride of a game, but over the top to the max. Playing through a second time I've really come to realize just how much of a departure in tone it is, and how the identity of the original series and Legend/Underworld is somewhat lost in translation.
@@UToobin75 Yeah that was my major issue with it. I loved the graphics for Shadow of the Tomb Raider mostly bc with RTX and my monitor has a method for enhancing RTX. It's visually amazing but honestly it just doesn't hit right. Too many linear quick reaction moments and yeah by the final boss battle I was like "what's happening." Him pointing out the music and absence of noise while inside a vast tomb is definitely something I miss but didn't realize it until it was pointed out. There needs to be a simple enhanced version of the original Tomb Raider. Frankly I'm tired of all these articles that keep bashing old classic games like Tomb Raider and God of War. Like clearly the things that occurred happened for a reason and developed the characters. If they want to bash something go after the game magazines or something of that time lol. They specifically sexualized characters, the games were just doing what they wanted and all games had a clear rating system back then.
@@UToobin75 If I remember correctly there's a scene in the 2013 game that has Lara talking to her "mentor" and him going on about how killing is never easy, how hard it must be for her to have to do it, and so on. But Lara actually admits to the fact that killing is indeed easy for her, implying that she has problems feeling remorse for doing so. Seemed like an interresting take tbh, but they went nowhere with that in the sequels, so whatever I guess.
Old Lara Croft: Just prepared enough to shoot some wild animals while dodging for her life. New Lara Croft: So unprepared and out of her depth that she single-handedly slaughters a private army in CQC in a matter of hours. This is what "progress" looks like.
Seems legit.
ahahah i never thought of that but its true.
Reboot Lara is fine and much better than the majority of modern day female protagonists.
@@AimForMyHead81 Explain why, apologist.
@@philithegamer8265 I just posted an entire comment explaining why but KZhead auto-deleted it for some reason ffs.
“Don’t you think you’ve seen enough?” Of you, Lara, never.
Heheh
Just another Lara Croft compilation. ;) Update: The video is gone, lost to the great pr0n purge of the hub. And many others. F
I love how this happens after she has dealt with a unit of evil goons sent to her house.
Lol, and thats a line from my favorite tomb raider.
@@ther_ternum6712 It's because of people like you, why female characters get sex appeal removed. You're disgusting, go troll back to your ''pr0n'' hub where you belong.
As a child, I LOVED Lara Croft and wanted to be her. Now, I go into caves as a hobby. Funny, that! She always struck me as a good role model because she was so head-strong.
Did you get into spelunking
Check out this woman's channel. She's like a real life tomb raider! (mostly caves tho)
Do you do back flips in the caves?
Honestly she influenced me so much, I’m even doing archaeology at Cambridge right now and writing a book on Mesoamerica and honestly I put it down to her
Same!! I got into Anthropology. She was a direct influence amongst other things like Star Trek etc 🤓
Her original persona/biography is the best. She’s more badass, choosing to live the lifestyle of an explorer and tomb raider instead of a British socialite. She has this total air of independence, which I love.
She also seems older, almost in her near 40's with her voice actor. At least for me.
@@00Kuja00 Lara was canonically 28 in TR1. She just seems a lot older when put next to re-rebooted Lara due to... well, the gaping chasm of differences between their characters. The oldest we see the original Lara is 35 in Angel of Darkness. Or if you prefer the timeline where she died in Egypt, 31.
@@theredlioness2502 I know, I was just reflecting on my own perspective.
@@00Kuja00 That's nice.
@@theredlioness2502 Is that sarcasm?
When Lara was created it was very clear that her creators came up with a great idea for a character and theme to put the character in.... Then decided it would be even better if that character was also a hot babe. Which is why it worked. The games activists are too stupid to realize that her sex appeal certainly brought attention, but the game itself and the quality of her character is why she was successful... Not because of dudes just perving out to her.
The story I've heard was they came up with the premise of the game before the main character, and when they designed a Tomb Raider, they said "Shit that's Indiana Jones, Spielberg is gonna sue us." So then they said "What if woman?" Thus was born Laura Cruz, A rich Brazilian explorer. But Core Design couldn't find a voice actress with a convincing South American accent there in Derby, England, so they altered her backstory to be Laura Croft, British Aristocrat. Then for some reason they decided Americans--by far the largest market for the game--weren't familiar with the name Laura, so they changed it to Lara.
@@thegardenofeatin5965 Thanks for that. I always thought it was suspiciously Indiana Jonsey just without a penis.
really? gamer?
well, there's the legend, I don't claim it to be true, that one of the editors made a mistake when making the 3D model and Lara got her breasts "a couple cups" larger. which made her a hot babe (or more of a hot babe than she was planned to be) but a game, as you said, isn't about the front polygons. it's about the plot.
It's in the title "shadow of Tomb Raider" as in shadow of its former self.
The shadow of SJWs overshadow the real Tomb Raider
BRILLIANT!
They just needed to add "Pale" to that title, and they would've hit the situation bang-on. "Pale Shadow of the Tomb Raider".
Yeah!
"A prequel worked, how about we do that two more times?"
Old Lara is best, she actually had a personality and she was fun.
Whew I was kinda getting scared for a while that I might have been the only person who thought that..
She was beautiful too new one looks like a stranger
Yes good ol DD personality.
If only you knew how many of the reboot fans attacked for calling out that "TR in name only".
But what about her spiky boobs?
"The good news is, most of these people are idiots". Subscribed
"so we don't need to care what they think". Exactly.
The modern version of Lara Croft, in the later games: Cutscene Lara: "I can't do this, I can't... but I have to. I KNOW I can do this. Just... a little more..." Gameplay Lara: "I killed five hundred and thirty four people on Yamatai. They were rapists, cannibals, and murderers, so by the end, I didn't even feel guilty."
So she's a psychopath who is extremely shrewdly deceptive to the level of schizophrenia and directing the deception at herself to try and stay in denial about her other half's savage nature.
The activists predictably cite original Lara's sexiness as a problem, when even that was something she cleverly, manipulatively, and unapologetically leveraged to press every advantage. The quip you end the video with was a great example. She's quite self aware of where most fellas will be looking, and isn't at all threatened by that.
She has the trigger finger and the right hook to put you back in your place. Which is the point.
She is confident about who she is mentally and physically. Feminists like to "body shame" her, or rather the devs, because of her curves. They claim to support all body types but when the busty curvy girls get a hero that looks like them, they need to be ashamed of it. I am paraphrasing a woman that used to do game journalism. Sadly cant remember her name.
I still think she’s kinda hot in the reboots, just not totally aware of how to leverage that yet.
@MichelleObama isAman she became kinda whiney and lost. In new Lara's defense, I think its a good origin story IF it was put into the reboot like an ACTUAL origin story instead of some epic save the world thing.
I remember reading an article discussing the, at the time, upcoming Tomb Raider reboot and how the new Laura was much more grounded and realistic. They guy went so far as to mention her reduced breast size being more realistic and fitting for her character, and that he didn't want anyone commenting with any rebuttals otherwise to that position as he, "didn't want to hear it". Funny the hypocrisy of those kinds of people. They act as if they speak for women equally, yet end up condemning or shaming the very real women out there who happen to have large bust sizes and curvy figures (naturally). Because women with a hefty pair can't accomplish much besides being eye candy for men I guess. That was one of the first examples of the mentalities I saw seeping into the gaming industry at that time.
"For anyone who knows absolutely nothing about video games" Shows photo of She Who Must Not Be Named 😂😂😂😂😂
Go on who the fuck is she?
@@nickyroche2486 Anita Sarkeesian. Feminist "games critic" who ran feminist frequency. She was one of the anti-gamergate morons who tried to claim "gamergate is just hatred for women".
Before watching the video, I'll hazard a guess. Anita Snarky Ass?
@@wulfherecyning1282 ok nice one
I genuinely lost it there :)
6:22 The impact sound when her body hits the ground still is so damn visceral and haunting over 20 years later.
I remember that *Crunch, I would always be Leary trying the second time just because of that sound.
Original Lara was such a badass. As a child in the 90s my reaction to her was borderline awe, the same kind of appreciation I had for the coolest and greatest heroes. Her feminine form never came across as a reason to think less of her, her strength and capability meant that she could never just be eye candy. She was a character it was enjoyable to spend time with, qualities anyone might aspire to, and that she was something of a sexual icon only made her cooler. As a man I've never understood why modern society shuns great female characters like this. So many female protagonists now cry a lot and then luck their way out of situations with deus ex machina. Not that there's anything wrong with crying but when it's the default response to situations there's something wrong with the character or the constantly abusive scenarios they're being put into. My reaction to the Tomb Raider reboot was the overwhelming feeling that the universe wanted her dead. Every handhold breaks, every ledge crumbles, every ancient wreck falls -why are the developers abusing the poor girl so much? Pain and suffering are not a substitute for character growth.
"Pain and suffering are not a substitute for character growth." this should be printed on crystal dynamics front door.
It's all about how a character reacts to said pain and suffering. But shitting on a character for the sake of it is just as empty as a game journalist's arguments
I'm a girl and I totally LOVED the trilogy with Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld. I might have been a little late for the Tomb Raider series, I haven't played the previous games, still, I was almost instantly hooked on Legend. I actually loved her outfits and it never bothered me that she always looked sexy. Just the opposite, it showed me that I don't have to be the typical girly girl to be attractive. She's become one of my greatest role models. When the new series came out, I haven't played it because I wasn't attracted when I saw the trailers, I watched a walkthrough, it instantly seemed like a disappointment. I think the video greatly summarizes the problems. I would like to add, that in the new series, they basically took away her sexiness, inside and outside, and made a neutral character. The acrobatic moves were my favorite things in the games I played. In the new games (2013 and up), she could easily be replaced by a male character. Sorry to say that, feminists ruined the game.
It's funny how today's idea of a "strong female character" is kind of misogynistic when you think about. They take away any trait that would deem a female character "feminine" both in her looks and attitude. So, what do they mean, she has to be a dude or act like a dude to be strong? And people defend this notion, maybe without even realizing it.
@@bergonath8851 Yes, plus they have achieved the challenge, of weakening and victimizing *even* Lara Croft...seriously. Though I never pined to the Tomb Raider hype 1st hand, then, I would still play those games rather than stupidly victimizing, patronizing, puritan moralistic ones...
That one long comment.
I liked Legend quite a bit with its mad Matrix style gun-play and the motorcycle segments were pretty cool too. It could have done without the QTE's, but it was quite funny when you fail them. There was one where Lara had to jump over something on her bike and I missed the prompt and she she just drives into a wall. Lol.
@@Error404---- Something like that was in the Japan scene, when there was a motorcycle at the rooftop. 😻😻😻😺😺😺
Anyone who says Lara Croft is nothing but eye-candy clearly never played the games.
idk fam those triangle boobs really do it for me
@@surejan.8472 Duuuuuude why you gotta remind me??? 🥵🥵🥵
I loved this Lara. I don't care that the stupid femwarriors are whining about Lara having huge boobs and is 'objectified', she was pulling off that sexy vibe because she was confident, intelligent, and BADASS. That, as a young woman, is what I took away from Lara's design- she owned her own sexiness, because she was confident in her personality. Thanks Drinker, I smiled at many fond memories
i don t see what is sexy with that new trash impostor
“ you always have the idea that lara has something up her sleeve” YES it’s having a good character. She’s well written! Critical drinker you know your tomb raider alright!
For Christs sake, put up a warning if you are gonna flash up an Anita like that, I was eating.
lol, not sure who that is, but from the seemingly unanimous comments, i don't think i want to know either. haha
@@trje246 Look her up, then grab a few drinks to wash away the memory.
@@johncrafton8319 lol
I'm sure Anita and Greta fell from the same ugly tree
@@trje246 she is basically the person who inspired Druckmann to create Abbymination and have her kill Joel
Old Lara, all the way!
I still remember my astonishment at the remake the first time I walked into an optional tomb and said "alright, it's on now, let's make a tomb raider!" only moments later to have Lara say "Ugh, I hate tombs" WHAT?!!! YOUR THE FING TOMB RAIDER, HOW DO YOU HATE TOMBS!
Well the developers took this to heart and gave her way more tombs in the next 2 games. And they are amazing.
@@6Kubik Yeah, the second and third game might be dull story-wise, but the challenge tombs are fun well made. Granted, they're not that demanding and complex like in the original games, but still a nice distraction from the rest of the gameplay with its Uncharted/Gears Of War-combat mechanics (which has really no place in Tomb Raider-games).
@@stevekramerf242 " Granted, they're not that demanding and complex like in the original games " ... that's the POINT of the "original": it was the first 3d platform game, and not for the sake to simply to platform to platform to score the best time (alike a Sonic or Super Mario) but with an entire enviroment to explore to RAID A TOMB! And also is a shame that a 25 years old game can topple a (barely) prequel-sequel on the FUNDAMENTAL!!! I was an already grown up boy at the time (21 yo) but I was the first one to get TR in my friend group: with my brother (7 years younger) we became the "help guide" of the neighbourhood (back in the days, NO actual internet/walkthrough guides) just because, for those couple of weeks of advantages, we were the two more deep with the explorations, to give advices and help people stuck in this or that corner of the game. It was a "quiet game", that you could dive in, relax (as Drinker said: it was silent, with a GREAT soundtrack that popped out just sometime, and only in the right moment), but also place you in an acute sense of mind, where agility and reflexes needed to be paired with an actual functional brain, to rember clues and with NO MAP and NO WAY POINTS: you had to picture the 3D enviroment in your brain and actually USE your neurons.
@@CapitanoAraym Yeah, I know, most older games didn't treat the player like an idiot and were not really holding your hand.
10:14 this is oddly satisfying for some reason. incredible how long ago that game was released
It’s impressive to see stuff like that on older hardware, shows how much effort they put into the game.
This game was made by 6 young dudes. 6 YOUNG DUDES. And Squeenix, Crystal Dynamics and all of their labour force and resources can't make a Tomb Raider that's as entertaining.
Youth is vitality. To create something new you have to be young.
@@malice5121 you're way wrong. Its commonly known that you become less and less creative as you age. That's why authors always talk about struggling to maintain their "inner child" And older people have just as much ambition and vision as younger people. That's why they are so restrictive- they believe doing the same, uncreative thing is the best way to serve that ambition. Corporate takeovers, presidential nominees, and the vain attempts at glory by elderly kings throughout history are enough proof. And I dont know why you are insulting me, I've said nothing offensive.
@@manny5450 People change over time, its universal. most artists have periods , some good, some bad, some depressed. They do keep working but often they don't work creatively their whole life, a lot of it is simple commercialization. I have lots of creativity left because I've worked at it, but even I don't spark with idea the way I did when I was 15. Yes you can mitigate it, yes if you have lots of it you wont probably lose it completely, but you cannot ignore the reality that it will decrease over time, just like mental sharpness and beauty, you can work at it, it will still decrease, if slowly.
Tomb Raider was a perfect storm. Technology and vision came together at that moment in time and a lot of good decisions were made along the way concerning character design, basic gameplay loop, story and music. These things happen every once in a while mostly by themselves and can't be recreated just by pouring more resources into a project. Some other examples of this are Doom, Quake, Thief I & II, Half-Life, Myst.
...I liked the Legend reboot
Old Lara is sexy, iconic, interesting, strong, competent and the childhood of many a mid 90s gamers. She was essentially the strong female character done right.
And she didn't whine about men
Samuel kibunda. In which game does she whine about men? I’ve played every single TR game and not once does she pass a sexist remark.
Female characters don’t need to be “sexy” to be good. Neither do male characters.
@@kirbyhatesincels917 but it's always been like that I don't remember a time when a video game character isn't someones ideal body type hell games like God of war are pure male fantasy
@@kirbyhatesincels917 Sorry I played two of the reboots rise and tomb raider I haven't played shadow but someone told me she whines a lot
Another aspect of Old Lara that was better was that she actually wanted to raid tombs and collect artifacts. In the modern games the tombs don't have treasure at the end but rather a new 'skill' bonus or some shit.
And the tombs in the reboot games are too easy and not very complex.
You have to be amused by the modern contradiction that Lara Croft has been turned into a strong female character...by making her physically and emotionally weaker. Must be my outdated definition of the word 'strong'.
how tf is she emotionally weaker? because she now actually has emotion? and shes physically weaker because they went for a more realistic approach. Her cosmetic redesign is the only thing u have any real argument pinning feminism to
@@sameerkhatri588 "muh realism" is the shittest, most overdone argument I have seen to say a character is "better". Realism is boring, overrated, and just annoying to have when it is shoved on every goddamn type of media nowadays. You're talking about a series that was never realistic to begin with, which was made from the ground up to play like an over the top action adventure movie with fantasy elements where your character can jump and bounce all over the place with inhuman agility. When the fuck was it ever meant to be realistic? Even the reboot has some elements of this and the mere fact a single 20 something year old woman is fighting off entire armies worth of armed men is already unrealistic so your dumbass point does not even fit the game you are trying to defend. Almost no one plays games these kind of games so we can see the character cry and whine all the goddamn time for "muh realism" they play them because they just want to play a badass and interesting character. Old Lara showed plenty of emotions like being cocky, sarcastic, angry, and sadness. The difference is that unlike the reboot she acted like a fucking professional at her job and did not overreact or get too emotional like she never did this job before. Reboot Lara still acts like she is a newbie to this shit when she should be maturing by now yet she has not progressed since the first reboot. Old Lara was fun and interesting due to them not giving away too much of her backstory while making her have a personalty and still be strong and in charge.
@@rorschach1985ify Thank you. I have been saying this very thing for some time in regards to realism and making things "grounded". It's gotten so overdone and played out, I think it is just an excuse in a lot of cases so directors and studios don't have to think too far out the box and be creative, also to cut down on the special effects budget that they still fuck up when spending millions of dollars at the worst attempts. Though I also agree on the downgrade Lara has gotten in the reboots, which I saw it coming when it was announced who was publishing it and had a large influence in it, Square Enix. A traditionally Japanese game dev that overuses insecurity and self doubt as a crutch for so many of their own characters "development" in their own games. I was only willing to play the first reboot, as ridiculous as it was with it's Michael Bay action segments and explosions. Along with Lara putting Wolverine to shame with her apparent healing factor in no matter how many mountains or great heights she fell from, what she was stabbed or impaled by, no matter how many broken bones, lacerations, fractures, and almost every injury known to man she endured....the bitch could walk away from all of it five minutes later right as rain ready to get fucked up all over again lol. I'll take the quippy, danger loving, adventurous, fearless, badass version any day over millennial counterpart. I find it funny when people like Sameer Khatri imply that women with those qualities are lacking in personality or aren't "realistic", as if a woman can't have those very traits and has to display vulnerability. Not like the original character of her didn't in games like Legend and Underworld. Things could get personal for her to get upset or saddened (like when Alastor was killed which hit home for her, but sure as hell enraged her), but that was still accompanied by determination and focus to accomplish her original goal and kick ass along the way. One of my favorite scenes is when instead of shooting Amanda like she wanted to, because they used to be friends, she delivers the line, "From this day forward, every breath you take is a gift from me!" and pistol whips the fuck out of her. New Lara had one good part in the first reboot I thought was the closest she got to being that bold or badass, when she goes through one of the enemy fortified areas and says, "That's right, run you bastards, I'm coming for you!" Wasn't delivered with the same affect of the previous line, and was preceded by enemies in the reboot saying such skewed, misogynist toned and obvious lines curbed towards a feminist spin, "Don't be afraid, she's just a girl!" They even had to go so far as to insert that scene where she was about to be sexually assaulted to set the "men are bad" tone further.
@@sameerkhatri588 She never needed to become realistic. There is no need for that. Lara Croft was meant to be this over the top, super Human who destroys everything she touches basically. Now Nathan Drake taken her role and kicked her out as she is all "serious bizniz" suddenly. People need to stop altering old IPs and just make new.
I think in the current story she's supposed to be more clever in how she tackles opponents, instead of jumping and shooting with barely any aim or skill necessary to play..... the reboot is supposed to be more her becoming stronger gradually, if you listen to Anna's tapes in rise of the tomb raider it brings her some depth as shes coming to terms that she's a killer. I really couldn't give two shits about feminist bitching and whining... I think its just that they want to tell another story with her to try and keep up with newer games that are more like films.... you can love her, you can hate her, but at the end of the day she's here.
More and more game developers nowadays want to create "grounded" stories featuring "everyman" characters who trudge their way through misery and pathos, only to reach some less-than-ideal ending. The appeal of classic Lara was that she was a larger-than-life heroine who took us on grand adventures and did it with supreme confidence. At least the _Legend_ trilogy, _The Guardian of Light_ and _The Temple of Osiris_ kept that aspect of Lara intact. Perhaps game devs will come back around to that once this stale interpretation of Lara reaches its climax.
Being sympathetic and relatable is inferior to being interesting and driven in the same way that being passive is normally inferior to being active. Relatable/sympathetic characters are more likely to be passive as they tend towards being more normal people (until the gameplay segments start and they become Rambo) and then they are pushed into these situations where they go through some (normally) generic and shallow character development which somehow makes them more interesting characters because they grow through the story (from boring characters to slightly less boring characters). Part of the fun of old Lara (even if she's not very deep) is that she wasn't really a hero or some noble archaeologist, instead she's doing it for the thrill and for the chance to find some shinies to keep for herself and she embraces this side of herself. New Lara only starts to become interesting when she chooses to go exploring in the second game either to prove her father was right about the supernatural (while forgetting to bring a camera for proof) or because she enjoys the thrill of living dangerously and exploring ancient sites (even if she won't admit it herself) but then the author fails to explore these ideas with the result being that her character ends up only being about as compelling as the old Lara in spite of devs having so much more to work with.
My favourite in the series was TR 2. Not only is Lara her larger-than-life, sassy self as you said, but she also has a genuinely heroic reason to be adventuring; she's trying to stop a Mafia-affiliated cultist leader from stealing a deadly artifact for his own misuse. She even joins forces with an ancient group of monks who have been trying to protect the artifact for hundreds of years. They didn't need to spend 60 in game hours explaining why she's shooting people in this game - they are evil bastards and shady criminal scum. At the end of the game they even invade Lara's home and try to murder her. On top of that, she only killed a few people in self defence in each level, whereas the modern game tries to convince you she's struggling with the morality of killing even as it sends 500 more redshirts for you to shoot mindlessly in the face. Somehow it makes Lara seem like a murdering b*tch despite trying to do the opposite.
The Isaiahnator It’s almost like the Everyman doesn’t want stories about the Everyman that fizzle out? Right?
i loved legend most, it was so fun, and i played tomb raider since nr 3.
damn right... I played TR BECAUSE Lara was a fierce mf!!! if I just wanted to play with a normal character, I'd be outdoors living... leave me be in my imaginary world where I too can be a fierce mf!!!! xD
1:40 - "straight out the Naught Dog playbook" Wow - that backhander got better with age :D
These old 3D games were so fascinating to explore. The idea that you could literally get lost in labyrinth tunnels made everything seem dangerous. You were in full control of your character, any death by platforming was all your failure, no magnetic sticking to ledges, auto climbing with 0 risk to death. You had the freedom to execute every single input needed to succeed or fail doing so, mastering your movement was mastering the game, potentially pulling off some crazy movement to solve puzzles and secrets that made you feel like a real skilled explorer. Unlike today's third person games where control is taken away from you into an auto jumping, cover shooting, cutscene fest that limits everything to be strictly streamlined and relatively risk free. I miss those games of old, you either got good or died trying.
Yep! And nowadaysif you dont solve a puzzle ten seconds in, Lara will give you a „helpful hint“ which noone has asked for…
Yeah nowadays you have these interactive cutscenes where it's "press x to not die and move the cutscene along"
Climbing in modern games is just "press up to jump to the next yellow painted ledge!" We peaked at Infamous 2.
Yeah, and the funny thing is: I usually die in the newer games BECAUSE of the auto stuff :D It's difficult to predict movement when the games try to "help" and think for the player, like magnetically draw towards a nearby ledge when clearly trying to jump further away (and fail to do either of them). Or just fail to be consistent in other ways, like fall through a platform after you clearly made the jump or having the camera affect jump directions in weird ways. When I jump from the exact same place to the exact same direction in the exact same way I expect the jump to carry out the same way every time, which just doesn't happen in newer games.
We're almost the same age. I was born in 81. So that's how I can get all your jokes.
68'er here and fully on board. *Too old to have cared about the later trilogy but had a full on blast with the originals!
Born in 81 too - I loved the first few games on the PlayStation, I prbly would’ve bought more, but thought it was getting a bit much, same with the Resident Evil franchise too
I'm from 89 and get it aswell.
I was born in 71 and I'm having a bit of difficulty remembering what we were discussing... ;)
@Elliot Kirk '06? That's just a few years before the start of WWI, since in my mind '06 can only expand to 1906. Congratulations on most certainly being the oldest person to comment on KZhead videos.
So I actually really liked the first game in the Tomb Raider reboot. It was cool to see a young Lara gaining the skills and prowess she would become famous for, and the story was compelling enough. But the thing I liked most was the potential to bring the series full circle and be there when she turned into the competent, intelligent, and bad ass woman she would be become ... and then that didn't happen and her character mostly stagnates over the next two games. So disappointing.
Will Mills agreed. I liked the first game. It was compelling and it was fun. The game play was ok. Not the the best but passable. But then the next two games fell right into the age old trap of plot over story and it made no sense, none of the antagonists were interesting. Lara didn’t evolve as a character in any way. Perfect example of focusing too much on the polish and not on the heart.
Rise of the Tomb Raider seemed to be on the right path, with Lara having more confidence and picking up an edge as the world once again proved that shit is crazy. After playing Rise, I could see her character putting down the bow and taking up the pistols in the third game. Unfortunately, that game turned out to be Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the weakest of the trilogy, the worst presentation of our heroine and a poorly optimized piece of crap on PC.
@@silverblade357 shadow ran better on my pc vs rise
@@sameerkhatri588 Settings on Shadow? Also, I only just played both games so maybe Rise got patched up?
I can agree to that, though vulnerability doesn't have to be a starting point for someone. In the original series, her outlook and take on tombs and adventuring stayed largely the same, she was enticed and excited by danger and relics. Despite her original experience in surviving had the plane she and her mother were on crashing, mother dying, and her having to survive in the Himalayas(?) alone at 9 or 10. Vulnerability and insecurity can work when written well, but it's used too often and is pretty much expected of anyone undergoing any new experience. A danger loving thrill seeker is just seen as "shallow" or "unrealistic" now.
I think my nostalgia fuse just exploded... Tomb Raider - and I played it on Sega Saturn back then - was so enjoyable to play. But I dare to say Tomb Raider 2 surpassed it in glorious fashion (this one, played on PlayStation). It was long AF, but not tedious, had a kick ass story, diverse scenarios... Had me holding my breath and almost going into despair trying to solve some challenges. Absolutely amazing games. Edit: and oh boy, that last scene is precisely from Tomb Raider 2!
this is SPOT ON
I hope it included pretend gun noises too, nothing beats a good bit of pchew pchew
Lara Croft is the reason I like women with an English accent. Tomb Raider I was the first game I finished on my own as a kid... The Lara I grew up with will always have a special place in my heart and there's no amount of reboots that could ever change that.
As someone from England, most girls meet that requirement so I have set my eyes on more specific aspects like having brown hair, pointy tits and being able to dual wield pistols with ease
One great thing that gets overlooked about Lara's backstory in the originals is that Lara's family disapproved of her lifestyle; there was no legacy or learning everything she knows from daddy. While on a school trip she survived a plane crash in the mountains and managed to survive two weeks until she found a village and was rescued. The experience changed her, and she began her tomb raiding lifestyle because, like the Drinker made about so many excellent points, she wanted to. In my opinion that makes her so much more badass than the cliche "father's legacy" that's been the norm for her cannon since the movie and Anniversary (otherwise an excellent remake).
all feminism and nostalgia aside: - had my first PC in 2007 and among the first games to play was TR:anniversary - i was captivated and mesmerized and been playing it occasionally to the present day (which after this video im going to do again) - bought TR 2013 about 2 yrs ago, played a bit, i was unimpressed, lara got stuck in a game breaking bug - didnt bother with it anymore; bought RotTR - played about 2 hrs and refunded it Tomb raider as a distinct and original franchise died in 2008
You should have kept playing, Rise of the Tomb Raider was quite good.
@@vincegonzalez2171 depends by which standards youre judging, im still stuck on pre '10s mentality about games - todays games are just industry drones. imo modern TR games are too over the top for what Laras character is supposed to be and have lost their individuality - and im not even one of those fans that played the good games like the first couple of TR games
The first game is an utter masterpiece! Not hard to play, except some of the 'boss' battles, interesting, a lot of fun, and Lara's hot as hell!
I always maintained, that the first reboot of Tomb Raider; Anniversary, Legend and Underworld were as good as Tomb Raider was ever going to be, and modern gaming trends would just ruin the whole thing; as they did. If Square Enix would just remake TR2 and 4 in the same way as Anniversary I will die happy. But it won't. Because shitty action set pieces are more important. And for fuck sake give her the dual guns back. It's like having Mario without the moustache.
Yep. Or they could've released the level editor like the times of old and let fans do it. Even now there was some fan project to remake the Dagger of Xian, but it's going nowhere. TRLE is what made the original immortal - there is enough fan levels to last a lifetime. Most are shit, but some are great mini-games in and of themselves. A universe of adventures for Lara Croft that can never be fully experienced. As for the two guns - if they haven't given them back 3 games in, they never will. And why - because 2 guns don't mesh with the cover-shooting. Who would want to charge guns blazing, pulling-off head-shots mid somersault after bouncing off of the head of your enemy, when you could crouch behind a wall with a bow (just like every other game). Is it just me, or is Horizon Zero Dawn closer to Tomb Raider than Tomb Raider? I've come here to explore tombs and shoot dinosaurs, and we seem to be out of both. Although, to be fair, I haven't played the last 2 games and I heard that the "Shadow" had more tombs than the other 2.
My three favorites come from each era. I like the first game, Legend and 2012.
And give her back her old tits!!!
@@keenanweind1780 and give her back her classic outfits
Word, like giving Mario Hitlers mustache patch instead 😒
I also think today vs 90s early 3D era is a case of limitations breeding creativity. Back then you had a TON of restriction from the 2D sprite era that made certain game ideas impossible, and moving into 3D finally opened up those ideas to explore (while still having restrictions with hardware limitations of the day that fostered more creativity in the process). Today only the budget is the limit it seems, combined with it becoming a high cash flow market, we are getting super awesome looking sameness. Even investor/publisher meddling aside, when you possibilities are limitless, you can get decision paralysis or confusion because you have to keep deciding what to do. Games should always be designed first without hardware in mind. The theme and mechanics and framework need to be ironed out. If the environment does not limit you, you have to make your own limitations and stick to them.
I love how the early Tomb Raiders are kind of Mine craft boxes. It makes measuring running distances and jumps so easy! It makes for a wonderful gameplay. I also do not mind the auto aim, because the combat in Tomb Raider was not about headshoting your enemies, but about avoiding their attacks. I so miss everything that made Tomb Raider good and enjoyable in the new games, it is like any other modern game with Tomb Raider textures over it. I did not like Legend that much when it came out (and well AoD was just different). But it felt that Anniversary and especially Underworld got back to the core of what makes a good Tomb Raider game. Miss that in the new triology.
I know, its painful.
@Dragon's Red as an aspiring programmer, I now see why pseudocode is so important
I remember seeing a post someone had made awhile ago. It basically was about how the jump to 3D graphics killed creativity. What is the next step? As it stands all there is to improve is "nicer" graphics, there is no revolution to be had when it comes to video games. When 3D came out the floodgates opened, no longer were games limited by pixel sprites and limited movement. But now where can we go? 4D? Can't really be done. VR? Maybe but it's still got some time to go before it's mainstream. 3D gameplay killed the need to innovate. Hardware is accelerating at a pace that gaming can't keep up meaning there is no build up of desire or tediousness when it comes to gaming anymore.
Next jump is the point where procedural generation and photogrammetry are sophisticated enough that instead of having artists design game elements, a computer spits out a polished but unoriginal chunk of polygons that are high fidelity but lack any creativity at all.
I was something like 33 when the first Tomb Raider came out and I fell in love with the character and the environment. I appreciated there not being many enemies to fight and you were concentrating on solving the puzzles. Some of those were pretty difficult if memory serves. The last 3 are visually nice and I can't deny that. But they are so lacking on what made the game what it was, being a tomb raider. With the steam deck coming out I plan on using that to fire up those games and enjoy something from when I was younger.
Ah Tomb Raider- was my mom's favorite game - she started playing it when it came out (she was 64) and stopped playing the series when she went into hospice 10 years later....i remember that last scene!
I'm assuming you're a middle aged guy who likes anime based on your PFP. So you're mother is now dead? R.I.P.
Old Lara Croft: Strong female character, basically Indiana Jones but it's a female in modern times. Current Lara Croft: Psycho Rambo Mary Sue who cries a lot and takes out entire armies single handedly. Guess which Lara was better. -_-
New Lara. Old Lara has no character.
@@alejandromelendez1609 Have you seen this video? It was about how Old Lara had actual character. Suffering, grunting and groaning from start to finish while being shoved from one situation to the next does not equal having character. The new games are nice but the protagonist is not Lara.
@@alejandromelendez1609 She does. She's a posh British woman who does whatever she wants, she's polite when it suits her but has no shame in being snarky at her enemies. Also you know, she WANTS to do this stuff because she finds it fun.
@@samz8691 Who enjoys surprising her butler by taking pot shots at him, forcing him to deflect pistol rounds off his serving tray to avoid another trip to the hospital. Who occasionally locks him in the freezer, and forgets about him. Someone who enjoys mowing down entire villages of Tibetan monks and taking their artifacts. Who.... Wait a second... was Laura a psychopathic maniac? XD
@@Acesahn Yes. Also killing those monks is optional, they're actually allies,
The Lara Paradox: The fewer the polygons, the hotter she is.
Man that's true
Pfft. Not a paradox. It's a real life phenomenon. The less you know about a (hot) woman and the less you see of her, the hotter she is.
She even agrees.. "haven't you seen enough? "
The more polygons, the less you see. In 10 years she will probably be sporting a burka.
Dunno, the Underworld one is my favourite
I couldn't agree more! The mystery surrounding the character is what made her so intriguing. New Lara is not the same character in any respect. They are trying to fill in these details about the character, and to be honest, they are not very good writers, so the character ends up being bland, very much like every other action game hero, and more like Nathan Drake than anyone asked for. Also, she takes these insane shots throughout the game that would seriously injure or kill someone twice her size. The level design of the original was simple and that's why it was so good, I wish we could get back to that.. Less is more in this case.
I played neither for many reasons. But I have to say, the footage of the original game was satisfying and engaging to watch. And I loved the original Lara's voice. I watched a bit of some let's play of the reboot and Lara came across as self-absorbed, oblivious, completely disregarding those who are trying to help her, obsessed, and generally not very smart. Why? Why? When I look at the original, I cannot wrap my head around how this could happen.
There is Tomb Raider Anniversary which is a 2007 remake of the original, it's pretty decent.
Ironically the more powerful most women feel the more sexy they behave. People complaining about strong female characters that are also sexy are anxiety driven perhaps.
Agreed. Feminists are basically anxious women frightened about their own potential or about their inability to cope with the surrounding social environment, so either they want to suppress the other's sexy feminine potential (which is so well appreciated by men), or yell all sorts of shit towards anybody that isn't them. Then it could become a crystallized behavior, which is way worse. They don't even remember why they do it and start rationalizing about stupid crap that has no connection whatsoever with their habits.
Merriden Women behaving “sexy” or charismatic, and wearing lingerie-clothing are two different things. It’s not about female characters depicted as acting attractively feminine, so much as looking too exposed and possibly setting bad examples for girls, in terms of what powerful female role-models should look like.
@@michaeloquendo11 Nothing wrong with lingerie clothing. Movies like twilight objectify men all the time and no one cares. Yet when women are objectified all hell breaks lose. That's a very obvious double standard. I say let women and men objectify each other as much as they want.
@@michaeloquendo11 my wife is sexiest to me when she's just being smart and confident. Her clothes, make-up, none of that really matters when she's just being a badass. Strong women are awesome. I can't imagine why someone would want a partner that doesn't assert themselves and know their strengths. Boring!
@@michaeloquendo11 didnt women fight for freedom to dress how they wanted
The new TR games also seem oddly keen to avoid the more overt fantasy stuff that made the the old TR games special. The old games used to have what I can only describe as a sort of Ray Harryhausen thing going on, where mythological monsters are a thing that can happen. And that was awesome; a major part of why I loved them. In the old games you'd eye statues with suspicion, wondering if they were likely to come to life when your back was turned. Skeletons, T-Rexes, winged Atlanteans, spear-wielding centaurs; all of that stuff could (and did) happen. Stuff like set-piece gunfights with regular human enemies - seemingly the primary interest of the new TR games (because Uncharted) - were actually the most mundane bits in the old TR games. They represented the real world making a momentary and unwelcome intrusion into the far more interesting Sinbad-type stuff; they were something to get past so you could get back to the good stuff. I guess they decided to massively dial back the fantasy elements in the new TR games because it's somewhat dissonant with their new "realistic" take on Lara. Trouble is, no-one ever asked for a more realistic Lara, and certainly not at that price.
With the 2013 reboot still fresh in my mind (played through it for the first time this week), I will say that despite the writers attempt to ground the narrative into a tale of survival (and killing, lots and lots of killing), they still fell into the same pitfall of anchoring the mythology to the supernatural. Problem is, the story barely telegraphed that it was going to lead to a supernatural eventuality, making it that much more jarring. While most of the Tomb Raider titles do have an other worldly element, if you're going to tell an origin survival story with a gritty bend, I think it would've served the story more to keep it rooted in reality from start to finish -- or perhaps bookend her adventure with a subtle nuanced hint at the possibility of the supernatural to inspire Lara to continue adventuring and raiding tombs.
the devs of tomb raider said that the new games are supposed to be lara’s backstory that turn her into the hot badass in the original games, they also stated that they wanted to celebrate tomb raider’s anniversary with ‘surprises’ which could possibly be a new game and if it is i cannot wait for a modernized classic lara croft
@@rayan7089 Yep, I get what they were trying to do, i.e. show how the character became the Lara Croft that we knew, but (imho) it was deeply misguided. It's worth remembering that the original TR games (briefly) covered an origin story for her - but I guess Lara was originally mentored by a male character (Werner Von Croy) and we can't be having that anymore in the current climate, can we? Nope, modern Lara had to be a self-made woman on a journey of self-discovery ... fuelled (mostly) by killing several hundred nasty male grunts. That's what you get when you hire a female writer to "reimagine" the character, I guess :(
But, but now they can show how tough and gritty she is!
@@UToobin75 Same here - I finally finished TR2013 during lockdown. Must've been my third run-up at the game, but this time I managed to see it all the way through and not tap out part-way. Yes, the end was very jarring. All the way through, the game it seems keen to suggest rational explanations for any apparently supernatural stuff and then suddenly at the end it just says to hell with all that, it's supernatural after all. I was convinced the storms thing was going to be something to do with the military base - some kind of experimental magnetic storm-generator - and the Himiko stuff would turn out to be just people getting their religious-cult on about the legend. As you say, it was jarring after all the "realism" stuff to have the explanation be "Oh alright, it IS supernatural." I guess it was supposed to be a neat surprise, but to me it just felt like a shrug from the writer; an admission that they couldn't come up with a good enough rational explanation for their own "mystery box" plot-devices. I'd have been happier if the game had just picked one - realism or fantasy - embraced it fully, ran with it, and stayed consistent to it.
My favourite from the reboot is Rise. Just because of the setting. An unknown island in the pacific littered with shipwrecks ? C'mon , we seen it a dozen times. Same as the lost city in the deep jungle setting. But a lost and hidden Byzantean civilisation in Siberia ? That instantly arouse my interest.
Having played the hell out of Tomb Raider games on the PS1 as a kid, so much of this resonates with me. I’m just finishing up the mew Tomb Raider trilogy, and I get what the critic is saying for the “hold your hand” style of the games. I’ve been going back and replaying the old Tomb Raiders to compare them subjectively, yeah the challenge difference is noticeable and the originals are harder but in a good way. In defense of the new trilogy, which I also enjoyed, Naughty Dog knows that he Tomb Raider audience are no longer 12 year olds having wet dreams to Lara Crofts polygon rack.I work 70 hour weeks plus I’m a juggler and a painter, and a lot of the audience has other responsibilities like kids. Most of that audience wants to relax to good story with moderate challenge, and I can see why. I’m not a shooter game player the only competitive game I play is Street Fighter 5. The events of the new trilogy seem to occur within a short 2~3 year lifespan of Lara’s post college twenties, where she’s hardcore but still emotionally green.
Back then I literally spent the entire 12th birthday of a friend with him trying to undress Lara with a cheatcode that turned out to be fake
Did you do the one that made her explode? That was a fun gag. I think that was for TR2, though.
LOL
Brilliant
How stupid were you?
@@Saltyaf38 Pubescent boy tier stupid. Did you skip puberty?
This is one of the best videos I have ever seen in my life, thank you for making this. Too many people have awful misconceptions about classic Lara Croft, you have really done her justice with this. I hope to see Tomb Raider return to what it once was. I had a lot of fun with the reboot trilogy, but ultimately they were downgrades in every way compared to the original titles.
Was it one of the first videos you've ever seen? I found the last game borderline unplayable and I'm a massive fan of the originals but you should look into some actual documentary series' on Tomb Raider and not this narrow anti-feminist crap who has no idea about the franchise besides enjoying the mechanics and limitations of the originals (which I also really enjoy). Look into the creator and his views and ideas, then what actually happened later. This was just "the game was actually fun and also I don't like 'feminists', especially Anita Sarkeesian! Am I right fellow incels in the comments?!".
@@byz88 Yes, exactly! Melonie is _obviously_ mistaken. Because how could a female like this video so much??! It's obviously a mistake... Or is it wrongthink?? ...NO! Surely not! I mean, she's a wamen, so *clearly* she's just confused. Thou lady needs some "mansplaining"! LOL you're a perfect example of a male feminist. I'm screenshotting this it's comedy gold.
@@_Data_ think you missed the point there haha. I mentioned this has a bit of the simple minded 'anti-feminism' trash you see people lapping up, didn't bring gender into it at all but you seem to have a bit of an obsession with it 🤔 And you're assuming because I criticised anti-feminism that I must therefore be a feminist who supports Anita and is 'triggered' by everything? Nice way to prove my point 👍🏼 😂
the first reboot was good I had a lot of fun with it and I got that she was feeling vulnerable and all that other shit because she sort of wasnt the Lara croft yet that we know in the classics .. but I dunno that new one just couldn't keep my attention and I stopped playing it in the end, the games gone down the chore path which isnt the right move .. lara shoudl be a level by level progress like the classics, im getting sick to death of having too much offered to me in a game via chores, sometimes its nice just to have one route and a story behind it instead of having to run around a massive world
@@kayden5238 I had the same experience, the 'open world' part of it breaks the flow of the games narrative, but I really enjoyed the first reboot despite being a big fan of the originals (currently replaying them again) and I got that it was Lara before she became the version we seen in the originals too. I'd have liked to see her turn more into that character even if not exactly the same, I don't mind a slightly different take on the character. They should probably tone the massive killing sprees she goes on though before cutting to a more emotional vulnerable character in a cutscene, the disconnect is expected in games but these newer games it seems a little bit more jarring because the contrast is massive. The original badass sarcastic Lara would be more suited to the crazy action in these games, it's not on Bayonetta's level but her character suits the gameplay in that game better than these Tomb Raider games do.
The original Tomb Raider games will always be one of my absolute favorites. I still come back and play the original PS1 games from time to time. Tomb Raider 3 being one of my personal favorites. The soundtrack is gorgeous and nostalgic for me as well. I also looked up to the original Lara a lot because I loved how she was smart, sophisticated, feminine and absolutely badass. It's rather obnoxious to see gaming activists shred her without even playing the games. Thanks for making this video. It's awesome to see more people appreciate the 90s Lara Croft.
She does her thing with no self-doubt. She's been doing it for years. So she's good at what she does. She looks good while doing it. She knows she looks good. So she rolls with it. The ideal fictional figure that we want to see in this game, be it back then, or now.
I'm convinced that freedom of/fun movement is one of the most underrated and under-utilized elements of game design. Think about how well Mario 64 holds up and how FUN it is just to move around in that game. Similarly, Lara's movements felt fluid and dynamic in a way that no game without a jump button really can.
Game designers have forgotten that games are supposed to be fun. I think that Yahtzee Croshaw gave a great piece of advice to aspiring games developers: "Start with a character in an empty box. Figure out how to make moving the character around fun, then move on to more complex level design."
I highly recommend trying out the (genuinely) free to play game Warframe specifically for the freedom of movement. I played that game for years because of the beautiful graphics and the way your characters can move (jumping and gliding and flipping and sliding and rolling and so on). Every time I stopped playing it and went to another game I felt like my character's legs and arms were all broken. I think this is the same experience people had with the original Tomb Raider games. Just total freedom.
Same with Ocarina of Time. So many hours riding Epona around and exploring the environment. Mario 64 was a pretty huge game for the time too, so many different levels and things to do. The slides were always the most fun IMO
That's essentially what the developers of Batman: Arkham Asylum did, and we saw how that went. They asked themselves how to represent Batman in terms of movement and combat, and then found a way to do it. Most previous games turned human fighters into either guys who were limited in combat (not good enough for Batman, who needs to be able to realistically take out a room of gangsters) or were overpowered boxers. The freeflow combat of AA is exactly what we always wanted from him, with graceful attacks and constant counters that often used enemy movement against them hitting the mark. And the final element of the game that I loved was that it turned gunfire into a real threat...it saved Batman from plunging into crazy unrealism, and offered a threat to work around. Great stuff, all cribbed off of the thinking that you shared!
Before my Wiimote died, I used to turn on Smash Bros Melee just to move around in the game, when I felt like I needed my hands to do something.
He's spot on that the sparseness of music and foes in the original made the game very tense. You really did feel you were exploring something that hadn't been seen in eons. And if you encountered only 1 tiger in a given section, it made that seem like a real threat. It was substantially more realistic than the games of its time. Tomb Raider 1 was the best game of the 90's. So much focus was on Lara's proportions (which I liked) that most missed what made the game great was excellent game play, intriguing puzzles and a real sense of character and atmosphere.
I totally agree!! I'm replaying the original Tomb Raider right now and the lack of music is absolutely terrifying. It makes it even more jarring when you hear any other sound effects/foes.
@@stephaniebaird6937 You are so right, Stephanie. Great atmosphere.
While it's been forever and a day since I played the first couple of TR games, I remember forgetting all about Lara's bodily dimensions, and how much I got just straight sucked into how damn good the games were. And yeah, there were some levels in them that made me straight up claustrophic (sunken ship? Fuck me! Climbing that tower that just kept going up, so you start to really notice just how far away the ground was? FUCK! ME!) Lara kicked ass, the games were fun and engaging, and to me, the fact that Lara was a badass, no-nonsense adventure hound was the real appeal; the fact that she had an impressive bra cup size really held no importance beyond wondering if those things were gonna give her back problems as she got older.
4:17 "so for anyone who knows absolutely nothing about video games..." I'm f**king dead. Drinker, your writing and delivery is timeless. Thank you.
The first tomb raider was my first gaming experience, and I was hooked. I’m a gamer because of that video game, and every 5 years or so I reply it just to remember how it felt like to discover a video game for the first time. The theme music gives me goosebumps and brings up a tear in my eyes. Oh to be 7 again and to play it for the first time…
another argument for the graphics aren't everything debate, good video
Oblivion. Faces the stuff of nightmares. Gameplay the stuff of legends
Graphics only need to pass a certain threshold, - after which, any further improvements bear no meaning whatsoever. Creativity on the other hand - has no maximum limit. And that is what defines things. (game mechanics aside) Think Crysis (or any other such brand) series VS Slain, for example. 250-ish megabytes of sheer artistic talent - effortlessly annihilate the so-called "cutting-edge graphics", which in fact, - are nothing but presumptuous whirlygigs of a numeric DPI setting devoid of any artistic skill.
The difference between art made by dedication with the scant resources they had and the shallow corporate mass produced shit nowadays, awesome work mate.
well said
They completely changed her appearance, personality AND motivations. The only thing that remained was the brand name, to sell more copies.
Maaan Tomb Raider is one of my favorites games series ever! I'm glad to see someone recognizing them in all their glory. I play them every few years.
It was the lonliness and mystery of the adventure, with an EXCELLENT soundtrack that went perfectly with the action on screen. Made me feel like I was there, and always curious but cautious about what I would find next. Atmosphere is key.
i really liked the first of the reboot, as it felt like a real backstory to her, seeing how she struggles and learns along the way. then came the 2nd and 3rd and somehow it was just "oh she forgot everything again for some reason" where i didn't feel like any progress was made on the charakter and most of the game just turned into a mediocre shooter.
Yes, I replayed the reboot many times. I played the sequels twice--only to try and get trophies. They were boring.
I still like the first reboot game too, although it certainly had it's problems, mainly quicktime event disease. Button mashing + instant death for not button mashing fast enough does not equal compelling gameplay. But raiding the side tombs in that game was a lot of fun, with some nifty puzzles and a nice control scheme to accompany them. It gave a good motivation to explore and play more than just the main storyline. Definitely very Uncharted-like but it works for this type of game. After that it felt like the reboot sequels really fell into a rut though. Instead of building on the first one and trying to improve the flaws while building the story towards the older Tomb Raider style, they just made increasingly tired retreads of the same stuff.
I'm sorry the reboot has TWO sequels?!
Same here. Thoroughly loved the first instalment of the reboot. And while I mostly enjoyed the gameplay of the second one, I just could not get over having to listen to her shiver and whimper her way through the whole thing (while simultaneously defeating armour clad, sword-wielding ancient guardians with a goddamn ice pick). She should be tough as fucking nails at this point, not still somehow surprised that magic exists
@@enumaelish9193 Yep. Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Tomb Raider with 3DFX Voodoo was what exploded 3D Accelerators. It's just insane what that game did in 1996. In a way it was the biggest leap of game tech, though I still have to give that title to Doom in 1993. I remember playing Tomb Raider and having the Twitch audience present in my room, raising the temperature to insane levels. That game was pretty much perfect.
This review reminded me of how much I miss true atmospheric story telling. And by that I mean setting the tone purely with the atmosphere generated by the game's surrounding, environment and audio. One of my favorite examples of this is the 2D Metroid games which give the feeling of tension, loneliness, fear , etc. just by its art and music styles. When music is even there. A lot of old games did this in order to overcome technological limitations that prevented the creation of the more fully realized worlds we can have now. But the most interesting part of this is that this style of setting atmosphere is often a lot more effective than what we get today with modern technology because the artists and developers knew exactly how to use their art to trigger the things they wanted us to feel. These days the worlds are often just thrown at us without a care towards setting tone at all and it really takes away from the immersion.
That's why art design is a bit more important than graphics alone.
My history with the Tomb Raider franchise is probably completely different from everyone else's. When I first got my PS3, I like a lot of people, got into the Uncharted franchise during that console generation. After playing those 3 games multiple times, I wanted to play a game similar to it. That's when I picked up "The Tomb Raider Trilogy". The collection came with Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld. I absolutely loved Anniversary and Legend (though Underworld I wasn't too big on). Heck, I liked them more than Uncharted (the irony being that TR would just turn into an Uncharted knockoff soon). Till this day, "Tomb Raider Legend" is one of my favorite games. After enjoying that trilogy so much, I wanted more. I purchased TR 1, 2, 3, and The Last Revelation. I hated them at first (mostly due to the controls). But after I got used to those controls, I LOVED them. The level design and puzzles were so good. For once, I had to actually use my head in a game, rather than "go here, shoot people, then go here and shoot more people." Like so many modern games (modern TR included). So I end my Tomb Raider opinion with this. I have NO NOSTALGIA FOR CLASSIC TOMB RAIDER, AND I LOVE IT!!! TR is now one of my favorite video game franchises and Lara Croft is one of my favorite video game characters (and my favorite female video game character). Thanks for the video. I agree with it completely.
Multi Tech Power The original Tomb Raider is my favourite game of all time, the only Tomb Raider I hate, is Angel of Darkness, I also like the new reboots, but they have nothing on the originals. If you like games like Tomb Raider and Uncharted, have you tried God of War ? I never gave God of War the time of day, back when it first came out, because of the Quick time event fighting, but many years later, the very first God of War was free on PS plus, I played it and fell in love with it right away. I had never played anything that felt so Tomb Raider like, the exploring, puzzle solving and hidden secrets to find, was on par with Tomb Raider. I am just playing through the PS4 God of War, and enjoying it more than I did any of the new rebooted Tomb Raider games, the only thing is the combat system is much different, but I have got use to that now, and like the challenge. I put all games I buy on the hardest difficulty straight away, but if you just want the game exploration and puzzle solving, just set the difficulty to easy. God of War on PS4 is amazing, and I got it in the PS Store sales for £15 :)
Loads of people seem to forget that if you turn up the puzzle difficulty to hard on the new ones you actually have to think about shit.
Add to this, after making Tomb Raider Legend, which was somewhat different from the original game, but kept most of the original aspects (except for the loneliness feeling), they released Tomb Raider Anniversary, which was practically just a remake of Tomb Raider One, only with graphics that were up to date, modern controls, and the levels were just slightly reconfigured to give the old players some surprises. Even the music was the same, only recorded again for better quality.
@@SparrowNoblePoland To this day, Anniversary is the only game 'reboot' done right - don't change a thing except upgrade the graphics and tech for modern machines - leave everything else as it was - brilliant!
Legend is awesome, one of my favorite games. The original is a classic for a reason, and Anniversary was a fun remake.
Im visiting scotland in a month. I cant wait to practice my Drinker® voice with everyone around me
Make sure you do it real loud so I can hear.
Same here
I’m Scottish by blood but English by accent. You’re gonna piss people off
I’m Romanian by blood but Asshole by accent, pissing people off is the shit
Cool! What part will you be visiting?
Classic Lara is by far the best and most memorable of them all. Can´t wait for Lara to become Lara again. One day this SJW crap will go away and we can enjoy media again
I've revisited old tomb raider games and it never ceases to amaze me how at first the graphics seem unforgivably bad, but within a few hours play, they are perfect.
i find older graphics are often clearer. newer games have very busy graphics with too many details, particle effects and UI covering the screen.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider's gigantic plot hole. In the opening chapter she discovers that the badies are exploring the wrong country. So she travels to the correct country, and the bad guys are already there? Oppressing the locals, setting up shop. What? It was in main badies backyard? And screw the traps. If she's so damned smart, why doesn't she just blow a hole in the wall and yoink the Muggufin like Trinity just happens to do... constantly. She survives 6 different things that'd kill her, yet these ass hats are already in the joint wandering around waiting for sugar shorts to show up? Grab the thingy and split! Duh. Bad guys win.
Classic Tomb Raider - Badass, intelligent, confident, tough as bolts, gunz blazing, femme fetale Adventurer and explorer. Reboot Tomb Raider - Mopey, frightened, guilt ridden rich girl with daddy issues. Me: Where have I seen this before? Samus: Cough cough....
They did'nt need to reinvent her, it's like reinventing somone iconic like superman
While I think you exaggerate to an extent I do have to say that I'm really bloody tired of characters in modern media having daddy issues as part of their character.
Agree, the old Samus, was strong a sex bomb, that in the reboot of the snes, you can see she was strong. Muscular six pack abs, confident in control. New Samus, sounds like an automaton, she loose control and enter panick mode and she enters a hazardous zone wiouth protection because daddy didnt allow her to. She was aone metre ninte tower, but tey put her near tall men, so she doesnt even look like that. Yes, Samus was kill. Lara loose her personality, sensality twin guns, origin, everithing
the first reboot was awesome. the other 2 not so much
Svagg LAORDE old one sounds like Rey with that description
I was in my mid 20s when Tomb Raider came out and I bought it for my little sister (17 yrs my junior), it was awesome. After thinking games were kids stuff I bought PS1 for myself and have been hooked on games ever since. Without Lara Croft the games industry would not be the juggernaut it is today and journalists that are fed by the industry ought to bear that in mind.
I still have falling nightmares about the two last chapters in first "Tomb raider". I'm 43 years old.
"And believe me, I came on to Tomb Raider many times back then." 😏
Heh.heh.heh.
That was just cringy
@@osaniss but thats the whole point
@@UmBelenense not so sure
Same
I was completely blown away by the first Tomb Raider when it came out. Great video good sir, also,go away games "Journalists".
Oh boy, I was playing Shadow of Tomb Raider yesterday, my first gameplay. I thought the game was cool and stuff... but something was missing... And then I saw your video and all the old feelings about the first games... shooting and jumping like crazy, REALLY exploring tombs, instead of just killing people Rambo style and crying in the next cutscene. Damn, I miss the old Lara
I couldn't agree more, I felt the same way when the reboot got released and it was pretty disappointing. I probably spent a a good amount of my childhood just exploring those games for secrets since it had literally none of the dumb handholding mechanics we see in every game today. When we were stuck on games back then we usually got friends over and figured it out somehow on our own, good times.
I always remember being stuck in the first Monkey Island at the part with the cable and the chasm. I had no idea, that I could use this damn rubber chicken as a pulley!🤣 Some friend of mine gave me that tip. That's how we did it back in the day.
The games in the 90's had generally more soul within them. No microtransactions, no fancy graphics, but compelling gameplays and fascinating stories. I cannot recall anything as epic as Baldur's Gate Saga, which, within its good vs. evil narrative, managed to present a whole spectrum of moral stances, provided companions and NPC's whose strengths were not their sexual orientations, but their stories and dilemmas they faced, and gave the players some freedom in terms of dealing with certain problems. And now one developer wants us to get hyped about adding NPC's to a deeply flawed game that used to be a great franchise, another claims tgat we should get excited, because the new game would be a single player without microtransactions. To paraphrase the witty, yet inebriated genius himself - F**k off, devs! Thank goodness there is Cyberpunk on the horizon
This push toward 'realism' and 'cinematic presentation' has drained all of the fun out of videogames.
The graphics were "fancy" for its time. It might not look that great in todays standards, but they always tried the best that it was possible to do. And Tomb Raider is just one of those examples!
That's plain wrong: "no fancy graphics", "fascinating stories"... The games did have "fancy graphics" for their time. Most of the games didn't have "fascinating stories", they had generic excuse for a story to set the theme of the game. One of the best example for both is "Doom", even "Duke Nukem 3D".
@@ericrhodes5174 yeaaa I've noticed the surge in realism It's getting boring
I'm waiting for the Cyberpunk as well! Vampire the masquerade 2 is pretty promising too
Tomb Raider is one of those games I replay every year along others like Tenchu and Dino Crisis. I haven't played the new ones simply because it isn't the Lara I know. Tomb Raider's levels and music have always brought me unparalleled wonder and joy. It will always be one of the greats.
Well, not every year, but every 2-3 years, I replay my favorite games ever. The entire classic tomb raider series is one of them (yes, chronicles included)
Aw man!! Tenchu kicked so much ass!! Loved 1 & 2. Then they took a piss on it. ....a-holes......
@@opinionatedlookinboy5555 Right you are! I actually played through Tenchu 2 in preparation for Ghost of Tsushima which is a pleasantly decent game. I see Sekiro as the rightful spiritual successor to Tenchu. I actually thought FromSoft was making a new Tenchu when I saw the teaser.
I hate the fact people forget she's a purplish author that writes books from her adventures.
I recently found the original TR for PC on GOG and had to revisit those levels of so long ago, and enjoyed every moment of it. I'd forgotten just how atmospheric it was and soon, the aging graphics didn't matter. I enjoyed it so much I had to play the second and then the third. Ah yes, just for a moment I was transported back to the good old dalys.
Look up the Tomb ATI mode, which let you play in widescreen, and Tomb Raider Xtra website for high res texture mods.
One of my favorite games and characters, i miss the old Lara.
You have good taste in youtube videos! (And everything really lol)
“They could learn a lot from the old games” That seems to often be the case nowadays. Devs would rather emphasize story/narrative than mechanics or atmosphere. Basically, because of the limited hardware, they had to put more effort into the rest of the game to stand out. But with shinier visuals they can use that to distract you from the fact that it’s lesser in a lot of areas than it’s earlier counterparts.
So true.
It's more to do with the suits who run the companies and there are plenty of great developers but they are simply not allowed to make real games anymore. Gaming got big and the business men took over.
It's often the same with music. The more resources, the less creative the creator is. Up to this day, handbooks of composition for beginners give a lot tasks such as 'make a melody of 4 tones', or you're allowed to write a piece only in one, and 'obsolete' scale. That is done to unleash your creativity, and make go the right paths, instead of getting lost lost and wandering in chaos, thinking 'What am I supposed to do?' The problem I've got with new Tomb Raider, (As most of us here), is they dropped the classic gameplay features that worked for decades, and destroyed Lara both in terms of her pesonality and looks. Some people responsible at the company, failed to see that Lara was always a work of art rather than model of reality, AND that a very few real people actually are totally superior to others in some aspects, and sometimes even they combine superiority in several aspects. Original Lara was someone you could look up to. The new one is just hopelessly trying to say 'you can do anything regardless of how hopeless you are', and her looks look like a result of argument between artists and SJW's, resulting in a design that still has huge boobs, but isn't actually beatiful and has some beauty-flaws like short legs, so you notice her breasts is so fake, because you're not overwhelmed by her beauty and can see the whole design is inconsistent. Not to mention the pleasure they've talem away from us. I mean, I could launch Tomb Raider Legend only to run around and swing on rope, to watch how beatifully she looks, and the grace of her movements.
That's why I respect Hideaki Itsuno so much (director of Devil May Cry 3, 4 and 5). Instead of bending the knee and trying to do a cinematic borefest like Sony did with God of War, he went "you know the complex mechanics from DMC3 and 4? I'll bring them back in 2019 and I'll add more. Enjoy." It's really not hard to understand. A game is a combination of aesthetic, music, tone, gameplay and visuals. Most modern games only care about the last item of the list.
Oh, and thank you, Lara. Without you and your dual pistols, Dante probably wouldn't wield Ebony & Ivory.
Well said. Great video! Couldn’t agree more! Thought I was the only one who missed the old Tomb Raider this much. The atmosphere you describe really set the earlier games (especially the original) apart, and they’ve never been able to properly replicate that mood since. Tomb Raider is one of the very few games that I go back and re play every few years.
Lara Croft a badass girl power character. Libs: nerf her😁
Yep I always say Lara Croft got nerfed by sjw's. And for what, to become weak?
@@anaussie213 That makes no sense. Why would a liberal or sjw want a weak woman?
@@Gangst3r4ever too violent and unemotional. Oh and lots of shhoting with guns
@@blackaliss9488 Wtf. She didn't seem unemotional to me at all. She is scared in Tomb Raider 2013 and cries a lot. She is angry in Rise of Tomb Raider and shows remorse in Shadow of Tomb Raider. Wtf are you talking about. Also no one forces you to go guns blazing. You can be stealthy with the bow and all
@@Gangst3r4ever I am talking about the old badass and hard Lara in the first couple of games. Not a 'good' woke picture... Lara has become more and more soppy since 2013. The cut scenes have become painful to watch. Oh and they are endless now. Fits better into the whole show emotions scene
I used to love Lara's original voice actress. It was a bad decision to replace her after the first game, never had the same personality to it.
Shelly Blond (the actress) was great.
I enjoyed the second game and all but the cut scenes and dialogue where totally bizarre, barley made sense and seemed really unnatural. Not sure the voice actress would have fixed it. Was I the only one who felt this way?
Ditto.
@@MaxArturo I thought the vocal pitch was too low from the second actress.
Subi_fan same here. Hawes captured that classic Lara sass.
I've always missed the gymnastics from the originals.
The Legend trilogy was great while it lasted. It had the guns, the acrobatics, the tombs - Anniversary even was the entire first game. But why charge into battle guns blazing, when you can crouch behind a wall with a bow? Personally, I blame The Hunger Games.
10:52 Holy crap, that hit the nostalgia feels really hard.
I spent the first ten minutes trying to remember if i had played the original tomb raider. then at 10:15 i said to myself ''oh i remember those ledges'' and i found that funny. Great vid btw
I remember getting a sense vertigo in some of the original TR levels - helped by the horrible scream and crunch Lara made if she fell hundreds of feet to the ground. The floating islands level in TR2 was terrifying, with it's phantom warrior statues liable to shove you into the void at any moment. I don't get the same sense of visceral immersion from modern video games, despite the more 'realistic' graphics.
I never played the originals, but I have to say the 2013 game was the first game I've played that felt so 'visceral' as you say with the threat of those really intense deaths being played out in full with sound when you failed. I haven't really seen that in other games I've played - they're usually in a hurry to throw up a button for you to reload your save and the only consequence to dying is a screen that says 'you died' or 'game over' and a little bit of repeating what you did after you last saved. Maybe it's not as impactful as it was for you in the first games, but I think it's still something unique to Tomb Raider or at least games like it.
Because you are a grown man As time goes by, it is hard to be surprised by a video game
Swan dive at the top of the Egyptian level 6 floors up
Omg those statue guys are TERRIFYING
Tr2 was so good this comment has just given me flashbacks 😂
You are absolutely right! I miss the real Lara! The braid, the brain, the guns, the music... I miss TOMB RAIDER!
One game that I really loved as a child was MDK, one of the best sci-fi games in my opinion
Yes, loved the original MDK!! Great soundtrack, too!
It amazes me how often I totally agree with your observations and conclusions. And I appreciate your insight. Hope all continues good for you. Cheers M8.
I remember the clever doppelgänger enemy had me stumped for a few minutes. In a dark space you come across a foe that kills you every time. And after a few deaths you realise it was a mirror image of yourself. So you only beat that foe by not attacking. Clever stuff for the time.
Well no, games back then had lots of tricks and clever bits, some of them total wallbangers. Games devs had to be creative with such limited hardware. If they remade the game now it'd probably just be a QTE and a cutscene :D
Lara was a strong, independent, beautiful, capitalist woman... and that's the wrong kind of woman for 2020.
Yes indeed the modern trend is the traditional woman. I'm sarcastic
Blame the woke
@@madkilla707 the word woke has no meaning nowadays sadly
@@skorgezagreat2462 Yeah true Woke is meaningless
Capitalist? Thought she was ass old british nobility and rich by birth basically being free to do what she is actually interested in. Not working at Taco Bell to pay for college.
The Crystal Dynamics version, to me, still had the OG Tomb Raider feel while having a shiny new coat of paint.
Agreed. Lot of fun exploration, puzzle-solving, and platforming.
Two huge differences between OG Tomb Raider and the recent rebooted franchise (and no- not those two, you dirty mind): - OG's focus was on platforming and puzzle solving with rare instances of action to keep things fresh. Reboot franchise is an action game with an occasional puzzle to break the monotony. - OG Lara established her personality right away and didn't have to keep reminding you of who she was. Reboot Lara has to constantly remind you who she is because the character is so ill defined (switching between scared, unsure, and whiny almost exclusively). Here's the kicker too: a series like Uncharted was inspired by OG Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones, and nails a key element of both- the personality. The Uncharted gameplay is fun and the set pieces exciting, but most people want to see what snarky comment Nate will make next, what banter they'll have with Sully or Helena, or how Nate will react to the next discovery. Ironically reboot Tomb Raider tries to copy Uncharted but misses the mark in that new Lara's personality is as interesting as a rock to follow along. As such the engagement from the player is much more limited and impersonal. OG Lara made you start the game and the puzzles and discoveries kept you going. Uncharted made you want to see the misadventures of Nate because of the character, with a fun game to boot. Reboot Lara wants to pretend it is deeper and more mature when in reality it is nothing more than a modern action shooter with an uninteresting protagonist. The 2013 benefited from the novelty of the reboot, and the setting had its moment, but none of the sequels made anything to turn the character at the center of it all into OG Croft or Nathan Drake.
I truly do miss the Lara of yesteryear. I wish they had found a happier middle ground between realism and the more acrobatic gameplay found in earlier titles. I still feel like Tomb Raider Legend was the most enjoyable of all titles released. And recently seeing Tomb Raider 2 fan remastered in the Unreal4 engine dumped a fat load of salt on that wound I can tell you.