About classic Tomb Raider games

[SvennoJ]

JohnVG said:

LOL. I just talked about that in a recent post, comparing that game controls with SM64 ones, in 1996.

Yes, they are. And it is what it is in all the original series. So far, so "good", sorry man XD.

Look, the disgusting and incredulous feeling about the gameplay you are experiencing, is what many people already had more than 20 years ago, with TR6, the first game of the series for a new generation (TR Angel of Darkness, for PS2 in 2003): a total disbelief in those horrible controls. So... that hyper-hyped game in the media during its various years of development, crushed the series forever as a big franchise XD

In fact, its original development studio and the creators of the franchise, Core, were pushed aside by its parent company Eidos, and never developed any other TR again. 

What Tomb Raider and Resident Evil series for PSX shows you, is how difficult it was to make a good 3D controls in 1996.
And also, how GENIUS and pure gameplay art Super Mario 64 was, by then. And in fact, still is.

PSX users were amused by what they got... because many of them never played N64 games. By PS2 years... the same public rejected those prehistoric and very convoluted 3D controls.

And yet, I finished TR1 to TR3, Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil, Grim Fandango without any issues, but never managed to finished Mario 64 at the time, getting too frustrated with the controls and camera in the ice world. Never got past that... OoT was great, but Mario 64 I couldn't get along with.

It's all relative I guess, but there was never total disbelief in the controls. TR was originally a PC game, thus made for digital input. It worked well on PS1 too but wasn't made for analog controls when PS2 came out. Core did absolutely the wrong thing with Angel of Darkness. Instead of bringing the controls into a new era, they fucked up the identity of the games instead.