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Tomb Raider I-III Remastered – features detailed, new key art Revealed

Kabelly

Gold Member
i was so close to buying the original releases on steam and was willing to to all the modding needed to be done to get this to work. then this got announced. very excited. played only the first a very long time ago on someone else's playstation so i never actually beat it from start to finish. very excited to replay. will use the classic controls.
 
This looks great but you never know with Aspyr what you'll get

I will say though, they've done a really good on on Lara's model, shes not erm Downsized at all
Exactly my thoughts. Aspyr don't have a great track record for my tastes. The Jedi Knight games they worked on were pretty bad for console and I'm hesitant to look at anything they've done since.

I've got family that are really excited for this though, so I'm hoping it's good enough.
 

Gojiira

Member
This is looking greater than I thought, the character model they’ve done a really good job with, optional controls/visuals all look great. Hope they get round to The Last Revelation too eventually.
Getting a physical release?
 
The original Tomb Raider games (Saturn/PS1) played in 240 progressive on CRT.
Real Next-gen ® 😁

...holy hell we've come a long way, granted, it's been...27 years (?) so that's to be expected but still, the technological jump has been huge.

Cheers
 

Filben

Member
Hope Aspyre did a good job here, which is not a given.

The animations and momentum and weight Lara carries through her movements in the first TR was ahead of its time, so was she as a character: most protagonists could be described with three words at that time and she really had a backstory.

It's great to be able to play these classics on modern consoles. I'm not sure whether to get on PC (seems great for the Steam Deck, too) or PlayStation, where she feels like home to me.
 

CGNoire

Member
This is for you:
Yes and I own all the originals but was looking forward to the visual upgrades. Uprezzing textures, geometry, and effects is one thing but changing color palletes distorts the orginal emotional intent of the OG Art directors vision and is a slap in the face to there work.

Imagine if a third party company remastered Mario 64 and changed the 1st level sky to storm clouds and the green grass to a brown wheat field. I think most here would find that to be Bullshit.
 
I still have these installed on Steam, modded and always ready to go. They're some of my go-to comfort games.

I really like everything I'm seeing and all I'm hoping for is that they didn't fuck with the original controls and didn't introduce any massive bugs.
 

EverydayBeast

ChatGPT 0.1
Tomb raider had a huge impact on female characters
video games 90s GIF
 

Killer8

Gold Member
Fucking Fools.

One thing you never ever EVER change with a visual remaster is the Color Pallette.

Those skybox and time of day changes are awefull and destroy nostalgia of those areas.

Yeah i'm kind of bummed they ended up doing the one thing I hate that remasters do - change the time of day for no reason. I'll still play it in the remastered visual mode at least once but i'm getting bad Halo: Anniversary vibes from some of these levels.

The new controls will be interesting to try as I suspect these could completely break the game. I think a run through with the classic visuals + tank controls and then the updated visuals + new controls would be cool.
 
Not really. It was released before the dual analog controller was a thing so the gameplay suffered a lot. BEcause of that they updated the controls in Anniversary and now here.
Agree to disagree.

reason: there is no game released after tomb raider 1996 that has provided the freedom, precise controls and immersive feedback that it does.
Analog controls are by nature inhumanly imprecise you can't calculate momentum of a analog control stick if you want it precise that is.
Binary 1 and 0 is as precise as you gonna get to interpretate exactly where to jump, how far you jump.

Thus if you have to adjust to analog control schemes level design and thus gameplay will take a dive in quality.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
Yeah I think Tank controls might be the way to go here. I mean, I liked the controls of Legend and Underworld mind you, but they were more by chance and thus random deaths. With classic TR controls you can not fail a jump, ever. I don't think I ever failed a jump that was possible to make, if it was not my own fault.

The grid based, digital controls of TR ensure that you can perfectly navigate its platforms. I would always hold the walk button and push as far as I could as Lara would stop at the edge with it held, then tap D-pad down and up+jump. 100% success rate.

And I kind of would liked Last Revelations without loading screens breaking it up. I think its the second best, mostly dumped on because fatigue.
 

VitoNotVito

Member
I'm Donald Duck
Then it's quite clear who's the child here...
I played those games when they came out. Those early 3d simple polygons graphics aged terribly, don't want to play this shit today. I rather go back to pixel art style arcades from the 80s. Don't be upset just because someone doesn't agree with you.
 
Yeah I think Tank controls might be the way to go here. I mean, I liked the controls of Legend and Underworld mind you, but they were more by chance and thus random deaths. With classic TR controls you can not fail a jump, ever. I don't think I ever failed a jump that was possible to make, if it was not my own fault.

The grid based, digital controls of TR ensure that you can perfectly navigate its platforms. I would always hold the walk button and push as far as I could as Lara would stop at the edge with it held, then tap D-pad down and up+jump. 100% success rate.

And I kind of would liked Last Revelations without loading screens breaking it up. I think its the second best, mostly dumped on because fatigue.
This is my take and I'm not being a contrarian when I say that TR's controls are anything but bad. They're very particular and unique but they function perfectly within their environment. I love the hyper precision personally.

The only thing TR fucked up with was adding too much janky-ass combat as the levels, and especially games, progress. The controls are NOT well-suited and especially human fights turn into "can I heal fast enough". But the platforming, which thankfully is the vast majority, has tight controls, a great moveset and killer level design as far as I'm concerned.
 
Then it's quite clear who's the child here...
I played those games when they came out. Those early 3d simple polygons graphics aged terribly, don't want to play this shit today. I rather go back to pixel art style arcades from the 80s. Don't be upset just because someone doesn't agree with you.
If you don't want to play that kind of shit today, why are you in a thread about that exact thing in the first place though?
 

Aesius

Member
Looking forward to this solely to re-experience TR1. The atmosphere in that game is still incredible. 1996...what a time in gaming. I remember my brother and I going back and forth between TR1 and SM64 endlessly. Debating on which was better. Obviously, SM64 holds up much better, but TR1 was more intriguing because of its atmosphere and sense of discovery.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
This is my take and I'm not being a contrarian when I say that TR's controls are anything but bad. They're very particular and unique but they function perfectly within their environment. I love the hyper precision personally.

The only thing TR fucked up with was adding too much janky-ass combat as the levels, and especially games, progress. The controls are NOT well-suited and especially human fights turn into "can I heal fast enough". But the platforming, which thankfully is the vast majority, has tight controls, a great moveset and killer level design as far as I'm concerned.

The problem with the combat is its hitscan aim. This doesn't matter on the player side as you want to progress without too much issues, but enemies would aimbot you to death. TR1 ofcourse didn't deal with that many human opposition, mostly unarmed animals, this worked out better.

TR2 is where they go overboard with sending mercs after you, while you only have your pistols still. Back then it caused a lot of quick saves and reloads.
 
The problem with the combat is its hitscan aim. This doesn't matter on the player side as you want to progress without too much issues, but enemies would aimbot you to death. TR1 ofcourse didn't deal with that many human opposition, mostly unarmed animals, this worked out better.

TR2 is where they go overboard with sending mercs after you, while you only have your pistols still. Back then it caused a lot of quick saves and reloads.
I break those games out frequently, for a few levels or so. TR2 is out of control with it indeed. Suddenly your health drops because some random dude a mile away is hitscanning you in the dark somewhere.

They knew too. The way they balance it is to throw health packs everywhere near fights.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Glad they added in the boss HP bars - holy hell some of those bosses in the first few games were spongy.
 

rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Agree to disagree.

reason: there is no game released after tomb raider 1996 that has provided the freedom, precise controls and immersive feedback that it does.
Analog controls are by nature inhumanly imprecise you can't calculate momentum of a analog control stick if you want it precise that is.
Binary 1 and 0 is as precise as you gonna get to interpretate exactly where to jump, how far you jump.

Thus if you have to adjust to analog control schemes level design and thus gameplay will take a dive in quality.
What precise controls? You can't even properly strafe left/right. And there was game BEFORE that gave much more precise controls. Freaking Mario 64.
 
What precise controls? You can't even properly strafe left/right. And there was game BEFORE that gave much more precise controls. Freaking Mario 64.
Tomb Raider released before Mario 64.
You are completely ignoring that it is very much impossible to do something like this

with Mario 64 Analog controls.

Second while it wasn't strafing the sideways jumps had the same function. and also Strafing is a shooter mechanic not a Platforming game mechanic.
 

schaft0620

Member
PlayAsia had a physical you can order. Idk if it's a region thing or an error. Feels like we will get a physical months later, IMO. I'll wait.
 

rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Tomb Raider released before Mario 64.
You are completely ignoring that it is very much impossible to do something like this

with Mario 64 Analog controls.

Second while it wasn't strafing the sideways jumps had the same function. and also Strafing is a shooter mechanic not a Platforming game mechanic.

Mario 64 released 23/6/1996. Tomb Raider 25/10/1996.

Do you really are saying that clank controls of that gif is more precise than the freedom of movement of Mario 64?



"Classic and modern control options


For our modern controller settings, we take inspiration from the Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld era of Tomb Raider. These changes are felt mostly in the way Lara moves – the right stick has full camera control and Lara moves directionally based on camera position.


Just like our approach to the graphical presentation, the original tank-style controls are still available to players via a menu toggle."

Even the devs are calling the classic controls tank style. Wow very precise much freedom of movement.
 
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hinch7

Member
Awesome how they've kept the artsyle close to the origional all while carefully adjusting/updating the character models, lighting and enviroments; despite keeping the whole low poly/retro look. This Lara actually looks like the old CGI renders, which is pretty cool.

Was pretty awful at platforming in the original games but really want to replay these. Hopefully with updated analogue controls it'll make it slightly more accessable for those a bit shit at precision jumps and hangs.
 
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Mario 64 released 23/6/1996. Tomb Raider 25/10/1996.

Do you really are saying that clank controls of that gif is more precise than the freedom of movement of Mario 64?
No what i am saying is that it is not humanly possible to accurately execute that sequence of jumps with a analog based control scheme, due to the way that analog nature is.
which is being imprecise and faulty in executing precise jumps and judgement in a 3D space.
Im a european so i remember that mario first came out in 1997.
 
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"Classic and modern control options

For our modern controller settings, we take inspiration from the Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld era of Tomb Raider. These changes are felt mostly in the way Lara moves – the right stick has full camera control and Lara moves directionally based on camera position.


Just like our approach to the graphical presentation, the original tank-style controls are still available to players via a menu toggle."

Even the devs are calling the classic controls tank style. Wow very precise much freedom of movement.
i stand by what i say i look forward to you discovering that the developers has made "adjustments" so the computer will calculate for you and handhold your controls if you choose to do modern controls scheme
 
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rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
No what i am saying is that it is not humanly possible to accurately execute that sequence of jumps with a analog based control scheme, due to the way that analog nature is.
which is being imprecise and faulty in executing precise jumps and judgement in a 3D space.
Im a european so i remember that mario first came out in 1997.
Yes it is, even more on the N64 controller that has those "cavities" to accommodate the stick in the 8 directions. You have even some control over Mario movement/jump mid air, while in TR you have none.
 
Yes it is, even more on the N64 controller that has those "cavities" to accommodate the stick in the 8 directions. You have even some control over Mario movement/jump mid air, while in TR you have none.
I have yet to see any proof that it is and i have yet to experience any game that can do that.. so i will regard that statement as false.

have you tried to run Super Mario 64 controls through tomb raider level design in Openlara? it very comical but more importantly its a good analysis of why the controls in tomb raider are so precise. i advice you to do so if you hadn't.
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
Looking forward to this solely to re-experience TR1. The atmosphere in that game is still incredible. 1996...what a time in gaming. I remember my brother and I going back and forth between TR1 and SM64 endlessly. Debating on which was better. Obviously, SM64 holds up much better, but TR1 was more intriguing because of its atmosphere and sense of discovery.

Genuinely probably my single favourite piece of video game music of all time.




Just reminds me of a time when games unfolded in front of you without holding your hand, or blasting you with hyperactive shit. The feeling of solace, scale, and exploration in TR1 has never really been matched for me in anything since - other than maybe Elden Ring or BoTW.
 
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BigLee74

Gold Member
Day 1 day 1 day 1.

Quite intrigued at the modern controls implementation. Might start with that and see how much it affects gameplay.

Particularly excited by part 3, as I only ever played that once.

TR2 was always my favourite. I can still hear the ambient noises from Offshore Rig in my head!
 
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