>>259704
>I've only played the early games, but it's always been a mystery to me how this mediocre-to-outright-bad series managed to get so many games. Maybe the formula changed at some point, but those games really failed to impress me. Are tits really that effective in marketing?
Tomb Raider: Legend changes the formula of the original games a bit, with much better controls, while still staying somewhat faithful to Tomb Raider's and Lara's identities.
Try that one, then maybe go for TR: Underworld
>>259710
>>259711
>Eidos did all sorts of aggressive strongarming and other fuckery against Core Design to burn out their developers and turn over dev teams. Eventually when they had sucked the life completely out of Core Design, they dumped them, took over the IP, and whored it out to another developer with a goal of annual releases. Tomb Raider as a series is practically a case study in the kinds of cynical, greedy publisher behavior we've come to expect in modern games development. The first thing that ought to pop in people's minds when they think of Tomb Raider is some asshole in a suit bullying the life out of developers--rather than how sexy Lara Craft is.
The reason Tomb Raider started selling less and less was exactly due to this.
Too many games in such a small amount of times caused both the developers and the players to burn out.
TR was kinda the Ass Creed of its time, poz excluded.
It reminds me of when Crapcom felt that RE had to change (at the time of 4) because people didn't like RE anymore, but the truth was, that you can't release the same fucking game over and over again with such a short span of time between each title and expect thei sales to never go down (or even more delusionally, increase)
You can do that for 2 tiles, or maybe a trilogy, then you must let the series rest for a while (at least 5 years if not more) and work on something different before bringing the series back.
Suits don't understand this.
>>259713
>They had very impressive graphics when they released but I always thought they controlled like ass. Also, as unbelievable as it might sound today with that low poly count; tits.
>>259724
>The control scheme definitely sucked even back in the 90s, but the gigantic maps and overall atmosphere more than made up for it. Nothing beats the rush of exploring tombs and caves knowing you're at the mercy of whatever lurks inside, TR1 especially perfected this.
>TR2-5 were "more of the same" with increasingly retarded mechanics and a decreasing number of actual tombs.
Lara's tits and sex appeal definitely played a considerable part in the series success, but not the only reason.
I played the original games more or less when they came out on the first PlayStation and even back then i remember thinking that the controls were ass and not intuitive at all.
I had a feeling the devs were aware of it, that's why they used put an obstacle course to get players used to the awful controls before getting started.
Anyway, apart from Lara's tits, another reason the games were so successful is because, when they came out, polygonal games were still a novelty, and playing a 3D game where you could freely explore some caverns without knowing what was waiting for you inside of it, was very exicting and pretty much groundbreaking for its time.
Even my kid self back then, despite finding the controls awkward, still wanted to play the game for that reason, and as i said, moving a 3D character in a 3D environment was still a novelty.
Sure if TR came out 10 years later, it wouldn't have been AS successful.
The timing of its release couldn't have been more perfect for that game, and ultimately is what really turned the game into a success.