Be Excellent To Each Other

Oh my. In this Twitter post, Gamespot UK writer Guy Cocker says


That's a massive accusation, which I think makes it unlikely to be simply made up. What a pack of fucks.

Is it 1997 again? That was the last time I gave a fuck about Tomb Raider, frankly.

But yes, this stinks. Horribly.

Surely not? Wouldn't that just guarantee that the news would be leaked almost instantly?

What a crazy decision, total madness and also dishonest behaviour.

Easy way to get around that. Tomb Raider: 8.3/100

Games industry. Rotten fucks, the lot of em.

Gee, isn't it positively bucolic in here

Weird really because judging by the demo it's at least as good as Legend, which was comfortably better than 80%.

Eurgamer gave it 7/10 days ago.

I'd like to see someone like Eurogamer slag it off all the way through and then give it 8/10.

Sorry, what?

Tomb Raider 1: Wow, big tits. And the wolves! And the runny jumpy climby! AAAARGH A TREX! But the combat is pissing me off - just leap around holding down fire until they're dead. And it's a bit muddy. Bleh. No more.

Tomb Raider 2: A boat! Wheeee! SMASH! But there's SO MANY ENEMIES and they just fall SPLAT and die in the most unconvincing way! Still, an upside down ship! But now it's snowy! And the free guide in PC Gamer suggests it's just nothing but another six levels of ugly ice textures. No more!

Tomb Raider 3: Horribly blocky levels that are meant to be London? Not going to bother. Ever again.

http://tinyurl.com/tombraiding

The PR firm in question has confirmed the story; this article mentions the 7/10 from EuroGamer caused "problems".

Which is a shame because Legend is excellent and Underworld seems so.

Wasn't Legend just the first one again?

No, that was Anniversary, which did indeed suffer from those story constraints.

My apologies.

Perhaps, but after all the virtually identical Playstation-era sequels I never wanted to play another Tomb Raider game ever again. Watching a badly drawn woman slowly climbing up walls as I endlessly retraced my steps through each level searching for the badly textured lever in the ugly graphics stopped being fun about halfway through the first two games, hence I never bothered with the third onwards.

I want to stick up for the series and say that the first two were genuinely good games in their own right, and without any mega-marketing would still have gone on to be considered cult gems.

Yeah, I quite like TR and may well pick up Underworld when it drops in price in a few weeks.

Also, you lot, if you think this is an isolated incident then you're spending too much time in here being all warm and fuzzy. This shit goes on all the time. Every PR or marketing firm is expected to cajole, brow beat and coerce with literal and figurative pressure to get the best possible exposure for their clients. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen emails from PRs along the lines of "Give this five stars or we'll pull all access to our client base in future".

I'm going to sound like an elitist wanna-be, but i was eagerly waiting for the first Tomb Raider for a long time and following previews closely. Core Design made great games and it looked great on the previews. The game turned out to be ok but wayy frustrating and should have been left in 96. I remember some 3d adventures games being so much better in every possible way, like both Little big adventure games (ok, they are more like isometric false 3d) are favorite of mine, and no one talks about them anymore. Many years later Prince of Persia:SoT made the Tomb Raider games even more irrelevant. Tomb Raider just showed that boobs sell. And even though i'm very much into big breasts, they still don't appeal to me.

And this thread just made me want to play Little big adventure 1 & 2 all over again

Fucking adored the first two games, very much enjoyed Legend.

I quite enjoyed the Xbox 360 versions. I had the original on PC but never really got in to it.

My mum and my sister both got copies of the new one today so I might check it out.

All this talk of early Tomb Raider has just reminded me of a total rip off which appeared on the PlayStation around the same time. Anyone remember Excalibur 2555AD? I used to play through every demo disc I could get my hands on back then because I could very rarely afford to buy full games, so I trudged all the way through a level and it was fucking dire.

Switchblade on the GX4000 > Rick Dangerous > Tomb Raider > Hitler.

This has always happened in different forms. It was bad enough when the magazines wouldn't have a back bone and stand up the games companies, despite the companies needing the magazines more than the magazines needed them. But now that so many blog/fan/indie/semi-professional review sites are all aquiver with the nerdy joy of getting sent free games, the companies basically have willing lap dogs terrified they'll lose their insider access.

(No offensive our blog/fan/indie/semi-professional review sites makers in residence!)

Fixed.

73%

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Chinny Trufax: Speccy Switchblade is a port of the GX4000 version. The GX version was done first and was out before Christmas 1990 (I got my copy early December) and then ported to the standard CPC and Speccy. The games are essentially the same except the GX4000 version has more colour.

A score of no less than 8 bananas? I think we can manage that good sirs.

In the style of certain past magazines, I haven't played the game or even know anything about it but I award it a full 9 bananas. Hell, lets go crazy and give it 10 bananas!

Noice!

I was about to complain... but yes. Noice indoid.

I only visit RAM Raider once a year out of principle - what's he said?

"Eidos are naughty" basically. Very good bit on it.

Aye, RR was quite decent.

Now he's got the quality one out of his system, I don't need to read it for another year or so.

My biggest problem with the game is the idiots glued the free art book to the case, so now it's got two rips on the back.

I wonder if that means the C64 version was the only one coded from scratch? I assume Amiga and ST were ported from one another, of course.