I bought this remastered collection from GOG in the weekend.
I hadn’t played the original Tomb Raider properly for a long time (I still have my original copy of Tomb Raider for the Saturn though). I must say, despite the awkwardness of the controls and high difficulty, the game holds up well and exploration and progressing through a level feels rewarding in of itself (without a deep story to entice the player along), something that a lot of modern games lack.
And I forgot how great the atmosphere and feeling of solitude is in the first Tomb Raider. The later games feel too full of people.
The new visuals give the game a much needed coat of paint, while still obviously being based around blocks to support the fundamentals of the game design.
Thankfully you can save anywhere with this version, so a badly timed jump doesn’t mean going all the way back the last save crystal (presumably it is based on the PC version). I never finished the original and didn’t play the two sequels which I’m looking forward to trying.
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I was thinking about picking this up myself as I loved the 1st game on the Saturn and really enjoyed the sequel on my bothers PS.
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Wait until you see the 65 word warning/disclaimer/apology message that appears before you play the game by current franchise owners Embracer Group/Eidos, telling everyone how racist and offending the original games are…
Thank god they didn’t completely change and ruin the original games since a different developer made the remaster. And the only thing we have to deal with is that ridiculous message at the start.
The trouble is in today’s WOKE world this game will be seen as offensive, even SEGA been made to change stuff in Yakuza remakes. It’s beyond pathetic.
I’ve finished playing through the first Tomb Raider. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Although these games now look a lot better, one side effect is that they use more realistic lighting, so some of the rooms are a lot darker. As a result, I often ended up switching to the original graphics in order to see where Lara was going, a sort of low polygon torch. Rooms that originally had closed ceilings often contain small openings that allow for beams of light to enter the various caves and tombs, with the light rendered closer to how it would in real life. I can understand why these changes were made, because realistically most of original levels should have been pitch black. We also have night skyboxes in the Lost Valley and Colosseum, rather than a black void.
The collectable items are also a lot smaller. No gigantic keys. Initially this caused some of the items to be quite hard to detect in the environment, so I’d end up switching to the original graphics in order to see them. However, the recent patch (released in a last week or two) introduced an icon when you step over an item or face a switch, making it more obvious that an action can be taken. This icon can be toggled off in the menu if you want a more immersive experience.
I didn’t notice any potentially offensive depictions in the first Tomb Raider, but perhaps those come in the later instalments. Anyway, a simple warning message seems preferable to tampering with the original games. They are faithful remasters, and you definitely check them out if you want to re-experience these older titles.
Onward to Tomb Raider 2…
I couldn’t agree more leave the games alone. There’s nothing really offensive in any of the Tomb Raider games it was just a product of its time like the old James Bond films.
It’s still amazing how good the 1st TR game is and how it was made by a tiny UK studio and showed up other bigger developers for an early 3D game.
It’s still amazing when you see the T- Rex like monster for the 1st time. I miss the days of playing games like this alright on my Saturn. They were brilliant times
Apparently they’re censoring Tomb Raider Remastered post-launch with a sneak patch…
FWIW, on GOG it’s not entirely not clear if you can roll back to an earlier version for this game. The changelog mentions two versions:
- Patch 2 - April 11th 2024
- Patch 1 - March 13th 2024
And the downloads list looks like this:
I’ll probably just go with the latest version the get bugfixes etc. But I think it’s important to have the option to rollback for preservation reasons.
We have to careful complaining about content changes in patches though, because sometimes those patches can significantly improve the game (e.g. No Man’s Sky). Ideally some kind of semantic versioning would be nice so that you know if you’re downloading a content change or a fix (with the line between the two sometimes being blurry).
The problem is, if they can do this, what more are they going to do in future patches?: cover Lara up with more clothes, change her character model to be less attractive, remove voice acting lines and dialogue? Where is the line going to be drawn? Embracer is stealthfully hijacking the game.
Locker images completely removed in latest patch:
