Games Inbox: Are the Tomb Raider games underrated?

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered – a welcome surprise (Picture: Aspyr)

The Wednesday letters page tries to predict what will be revealed in Xbox’s upcoming podcast, as one reader looks forward to Dragon’s Dogma 2.

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Paying respect

Great review of the Tomb Raider Remastered collection, I was actually expecting the worst given how little we’ve heard about it up till now, but it sounds like they did a bang up job. Seems like Embracer haven’t got any money left for marketing! I will definitely be getting this now and very much look forward to playing it at the weekend.

I also agree with the point in the review that the games are underappreciated, not only for their influence but their quality. The first one was doing things no other game had done and very few managed to equal for years after. For anyone that didn’t own a N64 it was the first time you’d ever seen a third person 3D game and to me at the time it was mind-blowing.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I hate the reboot trilogy, but they are very ordinary action adventures, which, as you say, don’t really play anything like the originals. I do accept that that kind of slow-paced puzzle platformer probably wouldn’t sell today but they could at least try to find a compromise. It’s unfortunate that the same mistakes that Tomb Raider 3 made are basically the same faults as the reboot trilogy: trying to turn Tomb Raider into a mindless action game.

So give Tomb Raider respect for something other than just the game that was Lara Croft’s big break, because at the moment it feels like it’s badly underrated and underappreciated.

Gregor

Unsafe hands

Super psyched to hear that the Tomb Raider remasters are good. I’ll be honest, it was quite a shock and everyone seems to have given it high scores, even GC. Although I’d claim myself to be a Tomb Raider fan I haven’t played any of the PS1 games for years and can’t wait to see how they look with these new graphics.

I don’t know what to expect from the new game though and worry that it’s going to be affected by cost cutting at Embracer and perhaps even cancelled. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me if Embracer sold the licence, and Crystal Dynamics, off to someone else to make their money back. I’d absolutely welcome that though, assuming it was a company that actually wanted to invest in the game and make it big again.

Lara deserves better than this and I’m going to naively hope that these remasters are the beginning of a return to greatness.

Logi

Good money after bad

I’m shocked to hear that EA paid $40 million for marketing of Immortals Of Aveum and that’s the best name they could come up with. It never had a chance based on that, let alone anything else. I mean, obviously I haven’t played it (curious to know if anyone reading this has) but based on the reviews, the trailers, the name, and just the general concept I had zero interest in it.

Call Of Duty but with magic bullets instead sounded like the lamest thing imaginable and as far as I can tell that’s what it is. The situation reminds me of people complaining about Phil Spencer, which I agree with, as this is the sort of executive call you have these people for. Someone from EA should’ve shut the game down years ago or even just before release, because why throw good money after bad with all that marketing money?

There seems to be a total lack of common sense amongst the people in charge of gaming and now that they can’t spend their way out of problems the chickens are coming home to roost.

Hammeriron

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No more immersion

How do gamer parents/mature gamers keep gaming? You have precious little leisure time while looking after children. After owning the Wii back in 2012 I basically sat gaming out – I felt modern games needed too much investment to enjoy without neglecting the important things. I mean, as much as I loved Xenoblade, who really has the 100 hours to spare level grinding? I skipped the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Although I kept an eye on what was happening.

By 2019, now a parent, I thought having a Nintendo Switch would be a good choice, as I wouldn’t be tethered to the TV and the games would require less investment – I thought. But Animal Crossing and Zelda: Breath Of The Wild are hardly light gaming, time wise. I find myself playing (and surprisingly enjoying) Fall Guys a lot, as I can also play it with the children. I think this is the solution: less games that are immersive, solitary experiences, and more that can be a shared experience that can be dipped in and out of.

I also recently started playing Fortnite, which seems to have the perfect balance of a game with quite a lot of depth, but also not having to devote your life to play – just a few battle royales. What do you think are good games for people with little time to play?

Piecez

Empty year

Just to change the subject from Xbox for a moment, are we seriously expecting Sony to go through the whole of this year without announcing or releasing a single first party game? As in something they made themselves and not just published for someone else.

I cannot understand how it is possible for them to go from a smooth and regular release schedule at the PlayStation 5’s launch to the absolute nothing that they are presiding over now. The only thing that would explain it is if they had every single developer working on nothing but live service games 24/7, with the only exceptions being Insomniac and allowing Naughty Dog to make remakes.

Xbox fans may be feeling down right now but I still can’t believe the absolute state that PlayStation is in at the moment.

Supes

Partial disclosure

My prediction for Thursday’s Xbox apology podcast:

Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Sea Of Thieves, and Microsoft Flight Simulator. It’s probably too early to confirm, but I’d put money on Blade being multiformat. I think they will hold onto Indiana Jones, however.

If Xbox has a sense of humour, they’ll also announce Redfall for PlayStation 5. Ironically, that’s the sort of news which would get Xbox fans back on side.

If these titles are true, I think it’s partly to bolster their case against the FTC. None of those titles are necessarily a great get for other platforms. Hi-Fi Rush may do okay on Switch and Microsoft Flight Simulator has its niche audience. I can’t imagine there’s too many wanabee pilots on PlayStation 5.

Apparently, Microsoft are surprised by some of the rumours. Regardless of the outcome, I don’t anticipate full disclosure. Phil Spencer won’t get away with a ‘case-by-case basis’ this time.

I suspect it will only put a temporary block on the speculation. You can guarantee the next exclusive announcement from Xbox will be scrutinised by the gaming media and gamers in general. They only have themselves to blame. Even if the so-called insiders were spouting nonsense, they did nothing to put a stop to the rumours.

Anon

Late to the party

Why is Microsoft only now thinking about doing a Switch clone? The thing has been out for seven years now, there are dozens of other copycats around, and a follow-up console is probably going to be out before the end of the year. Is this just some panic decision based on things going wrong at Xbox?

Turning up a generation late with a copy of someone else’s idea really doesn’t sound like a shortcut to success to me. When Microsoft needs is games people care about. That’s always been the problem and they seem no closer to solving it.

Gazza

Mainstream appeal

During a long overdue catch up with some old friends I spotted a Wii under the TV. My friends are not really into gaming but bought into the zeitgeist of motion controls and the Wii, well Wii Bowling really. It’s a Wii Bowling machine to them and still gets turned on at Easter and Christmas.

This got me thinking about the struggles Nintendo has with each new console. A large part of its appeal is to the casual family audience. This demographic has a much lower attach rate for games, just the pack-in for my friends, as an example. They tend not to appreciate the advances in processing power and operating systems like your readership will and I would argue are a much harder audience to sway into upgrading to a newer console.

The Wii U failed in this regard and with such a strong userbase Nintendo are going to have to really market the New Switch 2, or whatever they call it, to communicate why it’s worth investing in.

I am, of course, making the assumption that very casual gamers who only play Mario Kart now and then, and are more than happy with their Switch as something to turn on at a family/friends’ gathering and then leave it unused for weeks. It must be a very real concern for Nintendo.

As the justification for new hardware gets harder with each new gen, especially as it seems to take years for generations to get going these days, I tend to agree with the recent Reader’s Feature. Something akin to an Xbox Series S is probably more than enough grunt for most gamers who aren’t looking at shaders, frame rates, ray-tracing, etc. and just want gameplay experiences first and foremost.

One thing is for sure, it will be interesting to see what marketing tact Nintendo use to woo their Switch userbase when they finally make the announcement.

Bristolpete

Inbox also-rans

Is it weird that my most anticipated game of the year is Dragon’s Dogma 2? Love the original and have been waiting for this sequel for years.

Len

I’m going to call it and say the Zelda movie will actually be. Just the feeling I have but that trailer for the new Apes film was good and the director guy sounds really enthusiastic.

Cranston

This week’s Hot Topic

The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Grackle, who asks what difficultly level do you usually play video games on?

Most, but not all, games have a difficulty setting but which do you usually start with? The default or lower or higher? What level of skill do you generally consider yourself to have with games and does your chosen difficultly usually suit you or do you often have to change it while playing?

Do games do enough to account for people of different skill levels and what features do you wish were included as standard? Have you ever found that the difficultly levels of a game don’t go low, or high, enough for your tastes?

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The small print

New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.

You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.

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