Tomb Raider I-III Remastered from Aspyr - for real this time

[JarlFrank]

Crystal Dynamics will never make a good Tomb Raider game.

Just play the expansion levels in the Remaster, they're great.

 

[Melcar]

Crystal Dynamics trying to stay relevant.
I'm getting this, most likely on GOG. Will wait for the first several patches and maybe a further discount.

 

[mastroego]

well, I have the last 3 (all bought at decent discounts), still haven't played the last one, though.
But I didn't dislike them, ALL CONSIDERED.
I'm not against getting a fourth. At a discount, of course.

And I might get the remasters too eventually (after all I never played the originals), but only when they're very, very cheap.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I want to play this using a modern 3rd-person controller scheme (L-stick forward/backward, R-stick camera/turning) but that's probably impossible to implement smoothly and seamlessly so that it's similar to other modern games. Right? RIGHT? Didn't much care for the old "you have to turn in the direction you want to walk" movement.

Only played half of TR2 (the very first DirectX game I ever played on PC, in Windows 95) but I ended up not finishing it because the levels were so huge and sprawling. I'd like to try again. Do they have the grisly Lara death animations like in the reboots?

 

[Lacrymas]

Just play the expansion levels in the Remaster, they're great.

They are indeed great and memorable, which is surprising because you'd think they were a quick cashgrab to milk the game before the next one comes out, but it's not the case. The Egypt levels in Unfinished Business are gorgeous, which isn't something I thought I'd say about a blocky platformer from the 90s. Nighttime outside the pyramid is a scene that's been burned into my mind forever and I only played it 3-4 years ago (so it's not nostalgia). TR2's Golden Mask is also very impressive, with unique level design and new enemies. The expansions lack a bit of narrative, though, you have no idea what you are doing and why.

 

[Melcar]

Who cares about narrative. You are just spelunking, finding treasures and killing random shit.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

Some guy discovered a new way of swapping weapons on pad without opening the inventory menu.

 

[Lacrymas]

Who cares about narrative. You are just spelunking, finding treasures and killing random shit.

Considering you are in random Soviet base with pictures of Stalin on the walls in the Golden Mask, then going into a forgotten city with gold rivers flowing through it only to come out the other end inside a thick jungle you swing around on the treetops in, there could've been a paragraph of explanation about it. I'm not saying insert a cutscene every 5 minutes, just some context.

 

[JarlFrank]

The context is "whoa cool areas"

 

[DJOGamer PT]

This remaster does seem quite good
Might get it on GOG

If this remaster is successful. Peak player count was 6k and it's 3k now. I'm not convinced it's enough to make waves.

https://steamdb.info/app/2478970/charts/

Likerly around 59k copy by now

 

[Ezekiel]

https://www.ign.com/articles/tomb-raider-dev-reveals-lara-crofts-official-redesign

Next game's concept art. Looks like a mix between the old and new. Don't care for it. Leans too much towards realism, when the tombs used to be anything but. Well, still are, but more boring.

 

[janior]

looks alright but i'm waiting for a futa version

 

[Tehdagah]

I hope Lara gets a cute girlfriend.

 

[DemonKing]

Yeah I kind of like the look of the reboot Lara from 2013 more than this. Short shorts and the blue tank top worked fine for the original pixelated version but I prefer the grittier look for the more "realistic" looking games.

Saying that the newer games let you do costume swaps some of which are quite weird looking so it's no big deal.

 

[Ezekiel]

Yeah I kind of like the look of the reboot Lara from 2013 more than this. Short shorts and the blue tank top worked fine for the original pixelated version but I prefer the grittier look for the more "realistic" looking games.

Saying that the newer games let you do costume swaps some of which are quite weird looking so it's no big deal.

"Realistic" Tomb Raider is the whole problem, though. Used quotes because the realism makes the unrealistic, like all the shit in the level, stand out MORE.

Below is what pixelated, blocky Tomb Raider was shooting for. Modern TR should be stylized.

 

[flyingjohn]

 

[kangaxx]

Worth the £20 for me, I'm enjoying it. These games really were great and I haven't played them through in a long time... haven't even finished Greece yet.

 

[ferratilis]

I had no idea Kermit the Frog became a youtuber. Good for him.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

I hope Lara gets a cute girlfriend.

Sorry, she likes sausages.

 

[Lemming42]

Why is the framerate capped at like 30 fps when you switch to original graphics in this? I almsot feel like I can launch original TR1/TR2 on Steam and get a smoother experience.

It feels like they've really neglected the original graphics mode. Things that would have made some logical sense - making the framerate on par with the modern graphics, extending the draw distance in areas where it would make sense to do so - haven't been done. You can't even switch outfits on the original playermodel in photo mode!

Hate being a negative nancy but the new graphics still don't sit right to me. The playermodel looks out of place and some of the textures are straight up ESRGAN nightmare material. I like the addition of things like 3D plants in some areas but it ultimately feels super half-assed. There's way more they could have done to dress up the environments and smooth out some of the jaggedness for modern graphics mode without losing any of the game's core functionality or making it harder for the player to identify climbable surfaces.

 

[kangaxx]

I don't think it's hard to see climbable surfaces in the new one is it? The key visibility thing is definitely true though... I found myself completely missing a key in the Greece levels because of it.

 

[Lemming42]

Climbable surfaces are exactly as visible as in the original, but that's my problem - they've just slapped photorealistic textures (that tile way worse than the originals, somehow) onto the original 1996 level geometry, which looks truly insane. There must have been a way to make the environments look more natural in modern graphics mode. They kind of half-assedly try in the first level of TR2 by putting a bunch of generic 3D plant models everywhere to mask the jagged unreachable mountains at the top of the map but there's so much more they could have done.

 

[Robber Baron]

I love and hate new character models at the same time

 

[JarlFrank]

Yeah I kind of like the look of the reboot Lara from 2013 more than this. Short shorts and the blue tank top worked fine for the original pixelated version but I prefer the grittier look for the more "realistic" looking games.

Saying that the newer games let you do costume swaps some of which are quite weird looking so it's no big deal.

"Realistic" Tomb Raider is the whole problem, though. Used quotes because the realism makes the unrealistic, like all the shit in the level, stand out MORE.

Below is what pixelated, blocky Tomb Raider was shooting for. Modern TR should be stylized.

Yep Lara was always supposed to be a pulpy action hero in the style of Duke Nukem.

 

[Lacrymas]

Why is the framerate capped at like 30 fps when you switch to original graphics in this? I almsot feel like I can launch original TR1/TR2 on Steam and get a smoother experience.

It feels like they've really neglected the original graphics mode. Things that would have made some logical sense - making the framerate on par with the modern graphics, extending the draw distance in areas where it would make sense to do so - haven't been done. You can't even switch outfits on the original playermodel in photo mode!

Hate being a negative nancy but the new graphics still don't sit right to me. The playermodel looks out of place and some of the textures are straight up ESRGAN nightmare material. I like the addition of things like 3D plants in some areas but it ultimately feels super half-assed. There's way more they could have done to dress up the environments and smooth out some of the jaggedness for modern graphics mode without losing any of the game's core functionality or making it harder for the player to identify climbable surfaces.

The framerate has always been capped at 30 on PC. Why they didn't change that is a good question. As for the other stuff, yeap, the graphics aren't bad per se, but ultimately noticeably different than the original, which immediately changes the atmosphere. The added holes in the ceiling remove the claustrophobia and feeling of being deep underground. It also stretches believability because they are telling us nobody found a huge colosseum near St. Francis's Folly with an open ceiling. Lara's model doesn't sit right with me either, because it looks like someone's interpretation of post-Angel of Darkness Lara rather than being inspired by the originals.