Posts Tagged ‘lara croft’
Tomb Raider Anniversary Review
The original Tomb Raider was more than just a 32 bit title that launched a strong Playstation franchise, it was a cultural phenomenon. For those that have ever played it, especially if you’ve recently gone back, it’s rather difficult to appreciate that game without the amazing strength of nostalgia. Fortunately when Crystal Dynamics took over for the franchise with Legend the company’s second project was to remake the original. As the following reviews will attest, it was a good faith effort to not only switch up the mechanics and polish the weaker points of the first game, but ultimately the need to keep many of the levels and designs intact tarnish the experience. Crystal Dynamics played it safe with how little it tweaked of the original formula and what resulted was a game that feels so updated and tight at some points and so sluggish and archaic at others.
Tomb Raider Review
The original Tomb Raider exploded in popularity on its release in 1996. People were blown away by the 3D graphics and the title helped promote the Sony Playstation despite being released in mind for the Sega Saturn. The game was praised to high heaven by gaming critics and it launched Lara Croft into icon status by being the first digital character to feature on the cover of Face magazine in the UK. Lara would then quickly go on to be more of a sell out than Krusty the Clown. Her image was used to sell various products like the Lucozade energy drink and Land Rover vehicles. After all why not, she was huge in the UK. This game was the talk of many playground conversations when I was younger not just because of the mythical “Nude Raider” code but gamers would discuss how to get through difficult sections of the game. Guides were not common place back then and the small ones printed in magazines lacked the impressive detail we see in fan made guides online today. It was considered a badge of honour if you were able to finish this game without using cheat codes. Its almost twenty years now since this game came out so I made this months Game Club my personal mission to finish this game without a guide. After lots of blood sweat and gamer tears here are my thoughts.
Time has not been kind to Tomb Raider along with the rest of the back catalogue of early 3D 32 bit games. Before I get started on the game itself I really wanted to hit home that I am very nostalgic for games of this era. Resident Evil on Playstation one still remains one of my favourite games of all time, my enjoyment of titles from this generation seems to have actually grown as I got older. This is the beauty of nostalgia, unfortunately for the someone who doesn’t share this connection you’ll probably go into a lot of these old 3D games and have issues with the controls and be generally turned off by the graphics. I acknowledge all these negative points yet I still enjoy these games. I feel these points are worth bringing up before you hear what I have to say about Tomb Raider now.
Extra Credit: Tomb Raider Game Club
Tomb Raider and its infamous heroin, Lara Croft, are a culture phenomenon. While Ms. Croft garnered more attention and mass appeal – both from a gaming and culture standpoint – in the UK rather than the US, it was nearly impossible to live in the late 90s and not know about Tomb Raider. With countless ports and even anAnniversary face lift thanks to now series developer Crystal Dynamics, we delve into the original game once and for all. Join special guest Andy Urquhart along with Fred and Jam as they discuss Lara’s first adventure.
Podcast: What Did You Expect?
This week Fred and Jam are joined by guest Fortengard to talk about the world of video game movies. Now, if we just sat around and ragged on them all day we would be just like every other gaming podcast. Instead, we delve into concepts of production, adaptation, and what makes these movies good or what makes them completely worthless.
Note: I promised to post the chat for this show as well, you can find it here (.doc version).
Podcast: It’s Pronounced La-Ra
This week Fred and Trees are talking about the Tomb Raider series and its busty protagonist Lara Croft that shadowed the video game as a pop culture icon in the late 1990s. We discuss development, creation, and production of both Core and recent Crystal Dynamics’ vision for Lara and her many adventures.
Gaming History 101 