Well, it made Angelina Jolie a superstar. Few remember her films before Tomb Raider. Who sees "Gia" or "Pushing Tin" any more?
Hackers.
Was Hackers actually a hit at the time or did it grow into one?
Tomb Raider
51–60 of 121 posts
Re: Tomb Raider
#52My problem with the Tomb Raider design is that they swapped out Lara Croft for someone else. Lara used to have the same consistent design till Tomb Raider 6 (The Angel of Darkness). Her iconic face, known from countless magazine covers, posters, ads, and even music videos (in German speaking countries she appeared in a Die Ärzte music video which topped the charts for weeks [1]). Her trade mark braid hair style, too.…
Game design is limited by the technology of its time. Lara Croft's face was poorly defined, and her features were exaggerated partly because it wasn't possible to render an attractive quasi-realistic character before the first generation of 3D hardware. The renders shown in promos and cover art were done in much higher quality, and the Lara in those hardly resembled the in-game Lara either. > That's like Nintendo dec…
Venom, Solid, Solidus, Liquid, and Naked Snake are all different people. Naked becomes Big Boss. Solid, Solidus, Liquid are clones of Big Boss. Venom thinks he's Big Boss. I don't understand what's so confusing? :)
Re: Tomb Raider
#53My problem with the Tomb Raider design is that they swapped out Lara Croft for someone else. Lara used to have the same consistent design till Tomb Raider 6 (The Angel of Darkness). Her iconic face, known from countless magazine covers, posters, ads, and even music videos (in German speaking countries she appeared in a Die Ärzte music video which topped the charts for weeks [1]). Her trade mark braid hair style, too.…
Game design is limited by the technology of its time. Lara Croft's face was poorly defined, and her features were exaggerated partly because it wasn't possible to render an attractive quasi-realistic character before the first generation of 3D hardware. The renders shown in promos and cover art were done in much higher quality, and the Lara in those hardly resembled the in-game Lara either. > That's like Nintendo dec…
> Game design is limited by the technology of its time. Lara Croft's face was poorly defined, and her features were exaggerated partly because it wasn't possible to render an attractive quasi-realistic character before the first generation of 3D hardware. The renders shown in promos and cover art were done in much higher quality, and the Lara in those hardly resembled the in-game Lara either.
Well, the article explicitly shows an early sketch where she looked even more comic-like than in the final renders. The character was never intended to look realistic, that wasn't just a technical limitation of the hardware the game run on. In fact even for Tomb Raider 6 the renders didn't look realistic:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/laracroft/images/e/e4/Tr6-...
> You're saying that Mario and Snake didn't also change from their initial 2D sprites to their later 3D models? Mario's nose and signature cap were hardly distinguishable in the early games, and just weren't important compared to the gameplay.
There were some early changes, but Mario looks basically exactly like he did on the cover of Super Mario Bros 3 some 25 years ago:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/8csAAOSwH9JeGgLT/s-l1600.jpg
Even Tomb Raider 1 - 6 did not have that much continuity.
> Her defining features are being an upper-class explorer and overall badass, which is part of every TR game.
That could also be someone else. Lara Croft now looks like a completely different woman. And very generic too, nothing like the distinctive face (and with the braids, and the exaggerated proportions) she had before. The continuity of the first six games is simply lost, it's like replacing Homer Simpson with some different, slimmer, more average looking character, while still calling him Homer Simpson.
Maybe they wanted the series to have more realistic graphics, which wouldn't fit her classic stylized design. But I'm sure they could have come up with a design that looked at least similar to the old Lara. Even cosplayers do a decent job:
https://prd-rteditorial.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-conten...
Re: Tomb Raider
#54For those who played Tomb Raider when it was released, you know it was a hit because the game was great, movement was smooth and the sense of freedom felt amazing. Lara as a sex symbol was the cherry on top and free marketing for the game, all the media talked about the game and made more or less obvious jokes about Lara's chest (90s jokes, you know).
For interest, I think it's in this documentary: https://youtu.be/eeMFdrIrdZY where the creator of Croft, Toby Gard, hated how Croft was turned by the marketing department into a sex symbol.
[deleted]
Re: Tomb Raider
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Game design is limited by the technology of its time. Lara Croft's face was poorly defined, and her features were exaggerated partly because it wasn't possible to render an attractive quasi-realistic character before the first generation of 3D hardware. The renders shown in promos and cover art were done in much higher quality, and the Lara in those hardly resembled the in-game Lara either. > That's like Nintendo dec…
Venom, Solid, Solidus, Liquid, and Naked Snake are all different people. Naked becomes Big Boss. Solid, Solidus, Liquid are clones of Big Boss. Venom thinks he's Big Boss. I don't understand what's so confusing? :)
Also don't forget that Venom went under surgery to look exactly like Big Boss.
Re: Tomb Raider
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, that argument is simply misguided. It's like me demanding, as a man, to change male characters in Sailor Moon, Felicity, or 50 Shades of Grey. Those male characters behave (and sometimes look) like female fantasies of men, not like men view themselves. But that doesn't give me any right to demand changing them, after all, they are created for girls/women. I'm not the intended recipient! For the same reason it i…
The difference is that there are tons of male characters in anime and Hollywood movies, but there were no female characters in games except this one.
Well, is it more likely that the lack of female main characters caused few girls to play videogames, or that the lack of videogame playing girls caused the lack of female main characters? Arguably the latter, since boys form also the majority at most games without any main character. Boys just like video games more, it's not that alleged sexism sacres the girls away.
Re: Tomb Raider
#57Any discussion of classic Tomb Raider is incomplete without mentioning that the first Tomb Raider games are essentially exact copies of the original Prince of Persia game, translated to 3D. Not the level layout or story, but the control scheme – very distinct and not used by any other games – is identical . Also the standard traps are replicated, like collapsing tiles and spikes emerging from tiles. Tomb Raider does…
Thank you for noticing this. This was obvious to me the moment I first played it, but it has always gone totally unmentioned. The later 3D games are often branded Tomb Raider clones, which is backwards.
Re: Tomb Raider
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hackers.
Was Hackers actually a hit at the time or did it grow into one?
I don't think so, even after time it was never a hit but more a cult-classic.
Shame really, you can't replace the quality of hovering over circuity and giant glass towers throwing out I/O.
Re: Tomb Raider
#59Any discussion of classic Tomb Raider is incomplete without mentioning that the first Tomb Raider games are essentially exact copies of the original Prince of Persia game, translated to 3D. Not the level layout or story, but the control scheme – very distinct and not used by any other games – is identical . Also the standard traps are replicated, like collapsing tiles and spikes emerging from tiles. Tomb Raider does…
Arent all games derivative? Or is this uncorking that "inspiration vs plagirism" discussion that resolves in everyone having a contest to see who can smugly name what the earliest derivation is... eventually going back to cave paintings
Re: Tomb Raider
#60Any discussion of classic Tomb Raider is incomplete without mentioning that the first Tomb Raider games are essentially exact copies of the original Prince of Persia game, translated to 3D. Not the level layout or story, but the control scheme – very distinct and not used by any other games – is identical . Also the standard traps are replicated, like collapsing tiles and spikes emerging from tiles. Tomb Raider does…
Yeah, basically grid-based, no precise movement. It had some unique innovations though. The camera always stayed behind the main character but without the camera moving into a wall: If there was an obstruction behind Lara, the camera moved closer. Modern third-person games still use this get-closer trick. (Though they use the Mario 64 controls with free camera instead of the tank controls used in Tomb Raider.)