How come Tomb Raider gets away with it?

[Mylinkay Asdara]

In 2010, 2K games announced that they would be reviving the X-COM franchise in the form of a first person shooter. This was met with much rage, due to 2K taking a beloved old franchise and turning it into something vastly different that had nothing to do with the previous games except for its name and having aliens invade earth. As we all know, 2K received so much negative feedback that they decided to make a much more fitting game, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and the XCOM FPS was never heard from again to this day.

For some reason, Tomb Raider doesn't get the same response. Lara Croft is a completely different character - she doesn't look, sound or act like the way she was liked/disliked for (depends on personal taste), and the gameplay is now about on shooting and sneaking rather than platforming and puzzle solving - basically changing genre from action-adventure to third person shooter with stealth elements.

I'd like to say that this doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the game, but whether it was right to call it a Tomb Raider game, when it's different to the point where under a different name it wouldn't be seen as such. Can you imagine this game being called a Tomb Raider successor/clone/ripoff if it had a different name?

So, is it as similar to the X-COM case as I think it is? If so, why didn't it get the same reaction?

Did you by some odd chance miss the outrage about what was done to Lara and the talk about her breasts and the whole molestation and traumatic backstory because that's how chicks become strong rage storm that blew through here when announcements were being made? I bet a quick search might turn most of that up if you want to take a slog through some of the Escapist's darker hours.

The fact that the outrage took a feminist vs. anti-feminist tone probably has something to do with why it didn't generate the same impact the Xcom from strategy to shooter outrage managed. Just my guess.

 

[lacktheknack]

Because the original franchise died twice (or once-and-a-half, depending on how bad you thought Underworld was).

It's hard to get upset about them changing up a franchise that's already pooped on its glory days. That didn't stop some people, though. I saw quite a bit of fan rage over "new Lara", but me and quite a few other people were ready for change.

We got it.

 

[synobal]

Ahh so the new Tomb Raider game is a third person shooter I just thought it was a frustrating sequence of quick time events spaced by shots of Lara sitting by a fire.

 

[Doom972]

In 2010, 2K games announced that they would be reviving the X-COM franchise in the form of a first person shooter. This was met with much rage, due to 2K taking a beloved old franchise and turning it into something vastly different that had nothing to do with the previous games except for its name and having aliens invade earth. As we all know, 2K received so much negative feedback that they decided to make a much more fitting game, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and the XCOM FPS was never heard from again to this day.

For some reason, Tomb Raider doesn't get the same response. Lara Croft is a completely different character - she doesn't look, sound or act like the way she was liked/disliked for (depends on personal taste), and the gameplay is now about on shooting and sneaking rather than platforming and puzzle solving - basically changing genre from action-adventure to third person shooter with stealth elements.

I'd like to say that this doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the game, but whether it was right to call it a Tomb Raider game, when it's different to the point where under a different name it wouldn't be seen as such. Can you imagine this game being called a Tomb Raider successor/clone/ripoff if it had a different name?

So, is it as similar to the X-COM case as I think it is? If so, why didn't it get the same reaction?

Because the xcom shooter changed everything, including genre. Tomb raider is a reboot, and while its gameplay has been updated and a better story applied, its the same type of game.
Basically its tomato and oranges, a better example is how well XCOM: EU was received, as like Tomb Raider its a reboot/remake of the older game.

In this game everything was changed too, including genre. It changed from action-adventure to third person shooter with stealth. The XCOM shooter was also intended as a reboot.

 

[Bat Vader]

This new Lara is just a female Nathan Drake, it's ridiculous. There are hardly any puzzles, the game is constant handholding and "Press X not to die" situations and the shooting is mediocre.

It's a very, very mediocre game, nothing to write home about if they didn't use the TR brand.

Lara is nothing like Nathan drake...

Nathan Drake is a shallow dumbass of a charachter who spouts "funny" lines through out the entire thing and whose problems/drama boil down to "I'M UNHAPPY NOW! WAAAAAAHHHH"

Lara is somone put into an extreme situation, she struggles and reacts like a normal person would, but has the strength to pull through

as far as gameplay goes its similar but better than uncharted

It's also worth noting that new Tomb Raider is an origin story. Everything was done intentionally with a sequel in mind. Raiding tombs was secondary because it just doesn't work as a primary goal in the story. Lara is yet to become an actual tomb raider. I think the next installment will have more original Tomb Raider elements. Now they have a very large audience because both the old fans and newcomers love new Lara and they can do a lot more with the IP.

my inner cynic tells me gameplaywise it would still remain very "unchartedy"

not that I mind too much

As long as they keep the new Lara Croft with depth and character development than I am fine with the Uncharted like gameplay. It was pretty fun.

 

[RicoADF]

In 2010, 2K games announced that they would be reviving the X-COM franchise in the form of a first person shooter. This was met with much rage, due to 2K taking a beloved old franchise and turning it into something vastly different that had nothing to do with the previous games except for its name and having aliens invade earth. As we all know, 2K received so much negative feedback that they decided to make a much more fitting game, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and the XCOM FPS was never heard from again to this day.

For some reason, Tomb Raider doesn't get the same response. Lara Croft is a completely different character - she doesn't look, sound or act like the way she was liked/disliked for (depends on personal taste), and the gameplay is now about on shooting and sneaking rather than platforming and puzzle solving - basically changing genre from action-adventure to third person shooter with stealth elements.

I'd like to say that this doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the game, but whether it was right to call it a Tomb Raider game, when it's different to the point where under a different name it wouldn't be seen as such. Can you imagine this game being called a Tomb Raider successor/clone/ripoff if it had a different name?

So, is it as similar to the X-COM case as I think it is? If so, why didn't it get the same reaction?

Because the xcom shooter changed everything, including genre. Tomb raider is a reboot, and while its gameplay has been updated and a better story applied, its the same type of game.
Basically its tomato and oranges, a better example is how well XCOM: EU was received, as like Tomb Raider its a reboot/remake of the older game.

In this game everything was changed too, including genre. It changed from action-adventure to third person shooter with stealth. The XCOM shooter was also intended as a reboot.

Action/adventure games can be third person shooters and have stealth. It's close enough to be interchangeable. Strategy to shooter is completely different types of games. It would be like if tomb raider was made into a flight sim, theres no relivance at all.

 

[lacktheknack]

Well, for one, the original Xcom was a huge classic whereas tomb raider was...yeah.

Are you kidding me? Comparing Tomb Raider 1996 to XCOM: UFO Defense for popularity is like comparing Mario to Fire Emblem. Yes, XCOM (and Fire Emblem) are great and decently well known, but Lara Croft actually hit the mainstream.

She was in Playboy. PLAYBOY. Plus, she had TWO blockbuster movies made for her franchise. TWO. The only game series that got more than that was Resident Evil, I think.

Furthermore, the original XCOM franchise sold, as a whole, about 90,000 units before getting a big rebound with digital sales (it was even abandonware for a brief period). Tomb Raider as a whole, however, sold about 30.5 million units, not including digital distribution. Ten million of these sales were in the first two games alone. (Source: VGChartz)

So good try, but make sure your perspective is on right before dismissing one of gaming's juggernauts.

 

[zinho73]

It is very different.
New XCOM was meant to be an entire different genre of game; The difference was atrocious. Tomb Raider is an adventure game at least - with several things in common with the old series I might add, although ultimately much more combat oriented.

In any case, reboots are created to present something different, normally to revitalize a series. Regardless of the quality of the new game though, it is bound to enrage the old fans, that just want more of the same.

The problem, I think is the dumbing down that most games are suffering in the process of being revitalized. XCOM is a good example - a great game, but nowhere near as ambitious as the first iteration.

I liked the new Tomb Raider. I can easily see this young Lara becoming the more controlled, confident, mature and sarcastic Lara that we know.

The new Dante, on the other hand...

 

[shadow skill]

It is very different.
New XCOM was meant to be an entire different genre of game; The difference was atrocious. Tomb Raider is an adventure game at least - with several things in common with the old series I might add, although ultimately much more combat oriented.

In any case, reboots are created to present something different, normally to revitalize a series. Regardless of the quality of the new game though, it is bound to enrage the old fans, that just want more of the same.

The problem, I think is the dumbing down that most games are suffering in the process of being revitalized. XCOM is a good example - a great game, but nowhere near as ambitious as the first iteration.

I liked the new Tomb Raider. I can easily see this young Lara becoming the more controlled, confident, mature and sarcastic Lara that we know.

The new Dante, on the other hand...

Let's not talk about the new Dante.

 

[XMark]

Tomb Raider gets away with it because they really had no choice. They would NOT have gotten away with just another regular Tomb Raider game. Classic Tomb Raider games were selling worse and worse with each new game. Interest in the character dwindled. Anyone who was into Lara just for the T&A suddenly realized there's lots of other sources of T&A on the internet, so her boobs were no longer a selling point. A re-imagination was necessary for the series to come back to life.

That said, I do think they may have gone a bit too far... I'd like the next game to dial back the cover-based shooting a wee bit and get some more of the platforming puzzle element back. Also dinosaurs.

 

[Doom972]

Tomb Raider gets away with it because they really had no choice. They would NOT have gotten away with just another regular Tomb Raider game. Classic Tomb Raider games were selling worse and worse with each new game. Interest in the character dwindled. Anyone who was into Lara just for the T&A suddenly realized there's lots of other sources of T&A on the internet, so her boobs were no longer a selling point. A re-imagination was necessary for the series to come back to life.

That said, I do think they may have gone a bit too far... I'd like the next game to dial back the cover-based shooting a wee bit and get some more of the platforming puzzle element back. Also dinosaurs.

It doesn't look like a reimagining to me. It looks like a completely different new game. Again, this thread is not about whether this is better, but whether you can still call it Tomb Raider when it has almost nothing to do with the established franchise.

Also, I doubt we'll see dinosaurs in this gritty realistic "reimagining".

 

[William Dickbringer]

-Snip-

because of the characterization that the game does for luara sweeps everything under the rug comparing xcom is different you are not a character you are a commander but that's it you're not john who had his family captured by aliens and xcom gives you the resolve to kill them all no you're the general with little to no characterization tomb raider is different though because it's more character focused

I guess a better question might be, why does "metal gear rising" get away with it?

because it was raiden who appeared in MGS 4 as a cyborg ninja pretty much and since that was established character in the future then it makes sense if it was snake then there would be uproar enough to make the whole dante redesign pale in comparison

 

[XMark]

It doesn't look like a reimagining to me. It looks like a completely different new game. Again, this thread is not about whether this is better, but whether you can still call it Tomb Raider when it has almost nothing to do with the established franchise.

Also, I doubt we'll see dinosaurs in this gritty realistic "reimagining".

Well, we had samurai zombie demons and a storm-summoning ghost princess in this game, so I wouldn't put dinosaurs out of the realm of possibility.

I actually found the game to be quite similar to the other Tomb Raider games thematically. I just think they needed to tweak the ratio of dudes shot in the face to tombs raided a little bit.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

1.) Because X-Com was a weird, unique thing with a devoted cult following that was being remade into something which was not unique and weird, while Tomb Raider was a fairly standard 3D action game with puzzles that became a new kind of fairly standard 3D action game with puzzles.

2.) Because this isn't even the first time Tomb Raider has been remade or rebooted from the ground up, so people have already gotten most of the backlash over that out of their systems. X-Com, on the other hand, was one game and then the same game underwater a long time ago, so everyone who still cares about X-Com is fanatically devoted to that vision of what the game should be and have spent so long getting used to every eccentricity of its mechanics that any deviation sticks out like a sore thumb to them.

3.) Because the latest Tomb Raider reboot aimed to address concerns which were shared by at least a portion of the fan base and to make changes that at least a portion of its fan base wanted, whereas no pre-existing X-Com fans wanted it to become an FPS.

 

[lacktheknack]

Well, for one, the original Xcom was a huge classic whereas tomb raider was...yeah.

Are you kidding me? Comparing Tomb Raider 1996 to XCOM: UFO Defense for popularity is like comparing Mario to Fire Emblem. Yes, XCOM (and Fire Emblem) are great and decently well known, but Lara Croft actually hit the mainstream.

She was in Playboy. PLAYBOY. Plus, she had TWO blockbuster movies made for her franchise. TWO. The only game series that got more than that was Resident Evil, I think.

Furthermore, the original XCOM franchise sold, as a whole, about 90,000 units before getting a big rebound with digital sales (it was even abandonware for a brief period). Tomb Raider as a whole, however, sold about 30.5 million units, not including digital distribution. Ten million of these sales were in the first two games alone. (Source: VGChartz)

So good try, but make sure your perspective is on right before dismissing one of gaming's juggernauts.

Tomb Raider was mediocre at best. She got on Playboy thanks to her tits, and the films weren't exactly all that great, Angelina Jolie is what sold it and the movies being "blockbusters" is just as easily about seeing hot chick in tight suits as it is its story (which most every early Tomb Raider game lacked) or overall quality...

And speaking of game films...
House of the Dead
Dungeon Siege
BloodRayne
Resident Evil
Silent Hill
Final Fantasy (technically)
Street Fighter

All had at the very least two movies made for them.


Also, VGCharts is spotty at best with its sales numbers, and can easily be over or under the actual amount sold. It is far from the best source of sales. You'd want NPD data for that, and you have to pay for that information. Part of the reason Tomb Raider even has so many games, though, is the number of games sold for it that have been released. It isn't hard to hit 30 million when you have at least several titles out there.


You are making the horribly idiotic mistake of assuming that simply because the game was popular "Back then", that it HAD to be amazing. Having owned all those games, having played all those games, and having beaten all those games? Sorry to tell you, but they were nowhere near the pinnacle of "puzzle solving" or platforming. It had some fancy flips to be sure, but that was about it. The characters had no substance to them, the plots are all forgettable, and overall they weren't as impressive to even warrant a comparison to Mario, or in this topics case, X-Com.


Fact of the matter is, that the games were going nowhere. Tomb Raider was already incorporating more FPS/TPS styled gameplay into its mechanics well before the rebooted Tomb Raider recently released, and the games have always struggled with a level of mediocrity that had started to plague them.
They decided to do what Tomb Raider: The Last Revelations did, and go back into her past to flesh out her character, which was badly needed.

So of course Tomb Raider "gets away with it", because its doing absolutely nothing wrong. It isn't trying to dramatically alter its mechanics ala X-Com strategy to X-com shooter. Its expanding further on the concepts and mechanics that have been introduced over time into the games already. The only radical shift here, is that there is now some decent writing behind her character.

Oh, give it a rest.

I think Tomb Raider is bloody fantastic, and a ton of people agree with me. I also only listed Resident Evil as "more than two (BLOCKBUSTER) movies" because it was all that sprang to mind (Uwe Boll's three Bloodrayne films are neither blockbuster films, nor are they even worth remembering).

Even if VGChartz isn't perfect (I DID mention that digital sales aren't included), are you going to argue they can make a mistake of such magnitude that "90,000 vs 30,000,000" is inaccurate to the point that it invalidates my argument? (Hint: Statistically, it's borderline impossible.)

Also, YOU make the "horribly idiotic" mistake that I haven't played the Tomb Raider games. I HAVE. I've even bought Tomb Raider 3 no less than four times. I've played every last game all the way through multiple times (except the new one and AoD, which glitched to death). They're excellent (except AoD), and even though the characters and stories aren't worth mentioning until the Crystal Dynamics days, they're very creative, accessible and well-presented adventures, and they have a large following for a good reason. Just because you didn't care for them all that much doesn't make their importance in gaming and their giant fanbase disappear.

I'll agree with you on the rest, except for the "mediocrity" part (which didn't show until AoD and some parts of Underworld).

 

[Last Hugh Alive]

Lara's characterisation turned out fine and the game is overall presented beautfully, though where the game truly takes off is when you get to roam around in the vast, outdoor playgrounds, experimenting with Lara's more refined parkour system.

That said, playing through Tomb Raider was kind of an "up and down" experience for me. The first hour or so, gameplay is largely scripted with Lara pressing X to not die once every minute and my grip on characters and events was loose, compensated by really impressive set design. The next couple of hours were more fun as the world and game mechanics opened up and we see more of Lara's drive and humble personality.

Where TR takes a bit of a downturn is when it relies more and more on Lara to progress through cover based shooting. I'll admit that it's at least unique and quite fun to swing around the environment like a monkey during combat, but it trips over too many of the typical hurdles: Murky colours making it hard to distinguish enemies in less well lit areas, jerkey hit detection, indoor environments that restrict gameplay, lousy stealth elements... Okay it's really not as bad as it sounds but it's so much less imaginative than most of what the game has to offer.

And on the narrative side, I have no problem suspending disbelief but it was still kind of jarring how suddenly capable Lara became when handling her first human enemies given the way she was characterised up to that point. If her combat expertise was explained in an audio log or something, I must have missed it.

So there's a few problems that stand out when eyeing that game critically but overall Tomb Raider was very enjoyable, the running and jumping is all very smooth and I could play it for hours on end (though the campaign felt a tad short with little post-game SP content). I too am surprised not as many people are bothered by the generic shooting sections but plenty of other things in the game make up for this I reckon.

 

[VanQ]

There's plenty of platforming and puzzle solving in Tomb Raider 2013. Are you just here to complain about a game you haven't played? Or perhaps you just plowed through the story and ignored and and all Tombs along the way? And the new Lara is way better than the old one, not many people were sad to see the old Lara go.

 

[Darth Rahu]

Nope. Totally different. XCOM was an RTS franchise, that's where it lies. Making it into a shooter was just out of left field. When Tomb Raider came out it was trying to be a third-person action game with platforming and puzzles. The new Tomb Raider is a third-person action game with platforming and puzzles, just with modern design elements implemented. If Tomb Raider from the 90s becoming Tomb Raider 2013 is like spending a whole summer getting an old Charger into working order again, Turning XCOM UFO Defense into XCOM The Shooter would be disassembling that charger and turning it into an abstract junk art sculpture with vague allusions to the female form. Calm down, Tomb Raider didn't get away with it, Tomb Raider just got it right.

 

[Yopaz]

As others have already said, it's not really that different from the original games. Making a SRPG into a FPS is as different as you can make a game. Making a platform game with some puzzles and some shooting focus a little more on shooting and stealth is kinda small.

Also there has been rage about changing Lara, but it died down after a while and it was covered by the hatred and controversy about rape in an AAA title.

 

[Twilight_guy]

1. Tomb Raiders games weren't really all that good, at least not good enough to be super nostalgic over.

2. Tomb raider doesn't have the same kind of fanbase. In fact Its rare to hear of a tomb raider fan as opposed to a fan of obscure old game X.

3. Tomb raider has had a series of games, none of which have been really that good, up to this point so a reboot isn't a sudden change from popular and good to new or remaking of an older property, both of which are common to fan "BETRAYAL" cries.

4. Actually there was some outcry but the game has a smaller group of fans so its a smaller outcry. They also probably got drowned out int he ocean of shrill whining over Mass effect, or some new DRM, or horse armor, or some other crap that becomes a hot topic and fills the forum with dozens of threads.