Tomb Raider Forums  

Go Back   Tomb Raider Forums > General Forums > Fan and Community Showcase

Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 08-07-19, 21:28   #11
Trenton
Member
 
Trenton's Avatar
 
Joined: Feb 2014
Posts: 19,214
Default

Excellent work!
Trenton is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-07-19, 23:13   #12
PGunnii
Member
 
Joined: Jul 2019
Posts: 4
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by tomblover View Post
I watched this last night and was going to make a thread about it, come to find out you already have!

What a delightful watch it was too, excellent work.

It's so refreshing to see someone who knows TR so well, making a video essay about it. YouTube is rife with TR thinkpieces, but IMO they've all struggled to express what the essence of TR is among fans, because their interest is often superficial, or they've just misinterpreted the point (insofar as there is one) of the game.

(to be fair, that came off very elitist - I'm just saying you seem to understand the game on the same level as many of us here on the forum, who love the series so deeply )

You really hit the nail on the head, though. Snaps for you, and thank you for bringing this to a wider audience, that they might feel the magic too.
This means the world to me - I've more or less felt the same. I think a lot of people were distracted by Lara on more of a superficial/surface level, which I think is a little unfair. I grew up in a household of strong women, and I only remember idolizing Lara (along with characters like Crash and Spyro) because I associate her so closely with my older sister. Now as an adult I think I also simply love the absolute fire and badassery of classic Lara. She fits so snugly with late 90's girl power!
PGunnii is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-07-19, 01:38   #13
tomblover
Member
 
tomblover's Avatar
 
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 26,258
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by PGunnii View Post
This means the world to me - I've more or less felt the same. I think a lot of people were distracted by Lara on more of a superficial/surface level, which I think is a little unfair. I grew up in a household of strong women, and I only remember idolizing Lara (along with characters like Crash and Spyro) because I associate her so closely with my older sister. Now as an adult I think I also simply love the absolute fire and badassery of classic Lara. She fits so snugly with late 90's girl power!
To be honest, I'm not sure the reception was entirely Lara's fault - even though there was, as you brought up, a sexual misdirection (ooooh, band name ) to the promotional art for the game.

Just because the game was a proto-cinematic experience, it gets retroactively fitted with the modern definition of an action-adventure game, similar to Uncharted, or indeed reboot TR - which are both cinematic experiences, as action-adventure games have been for a decade now.

That's unfair, though, because in the 90s, video games didn't suffer under nearly as much convention as they do today. TR1 was an action-adventure title, sure, but that didn't really mean anything at the time.

Nowadays, the game gets judged for half-heartedly occupying a niche that people somehow don't realise was invented long after its original release. I think that's where the ignorance (if that isn't too dramatic to say) stems from.

(and then there's the sexualization of Lara, as briefly discussed, but I don't think that's truly done anything on its own to hurt the series - it's only been a handy excuse to put the games down as "lesser than" because it's seemingly compensating with T&A)

Uncharted clearly does the cinematic experience better - where TR, whether classic or reboot IMO, has always focused more on gameplay - and so Lara's legacy is relegated to a footnote that paved the way for Drake...

I'm really glad you spoke about that dissonance. It's like finally someone's doing us ****ing justice for sticking with Lara.

All I can say for myself is that Lara was my best friend, growing up. I didn't even idolize her, necessarily - I just had no friends when I was a kid, so to be able to go on adventures with her, then, meant so much to me...

Today, she's the reason I am who I am, and that's so incredibly cheesy, isn't it, but it's true. The character of Lara Croft (and the world of Tomb Raider, generally) was profoundly formative to my childhood.

People can say what they'd like about the reboots, but I'm just glad my best friend's still around, you know? I don't care for all the in-fighting. I wouldn't be myself if I didn't have her.

Yikes, this got deep...

Last edited by tomblover; 09-07-19 at 02:01. Reason: this is a whole mess of words but hopefully i'm making sense jfc
tomblover is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-07-19, 13:39   #14
FearEffect
Member
 
FearEffect's Avatar
 
Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 5,729
Default

What an amazing video. I love everything about it. I was about to go to bed and I ended up watching a 40 minutes long-video. This video describes with precision what TR1 made me feel when I was a kid and what how it still makes me feel while playing it today. It's so well written and edited. Bravo!
FearEffect is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-07-19, 07:49   #15
Heartache
Member
 
Heartache's Avatar
 
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 3,424
Default

i've seen the video before this post and i can just say how absolutely stunning this video is.
i enjoyed every second of it, keep this up, you are awesome
Heartache is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-07-19, 08:06   #16
Craig Michaels
Member
 
Craig Michaels's Avatar
 
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 1,517
Default

Awesome video! And I agree with you: you GET it!

I think the comparison to horror is spot on, although I hadn’t thought of that before. I had always thought the isolation and silence of the first game made it an incredible experience, and both of those things *do* come up a lot in horror films and games.

I also like how you put your finger on the game’s great balance of the expected and the unexpected. By the end you know just how and where to move, you can so often see your path ahead (something later perfected with all the transparencies in Unfinished Business), and yet that mummy or gorilla or raptor can still jar you out of the mechanics and cause you to jump in your seat. The fact that Lara Croft cooly dispatches monsters with a backflip and uzis blazing is all the more fun because you, the player, just got scared by a pixelated creature spawning on your screen.

Looking forward to watching more videos of yours.
Craig Michaels is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-07-19, 17:24   #17
laracroftswest
Member
 
laracroftswest's Avatar
 
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 4,902
Default

Loved every second of your video. So well done! Subscribed btw

Were you planning on making any more for the series?
laracroftswest is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-07-19, 12:20   #18
CheshireBitch
Member
 
CheshireBitch's Avatar
 
Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 2,446
Default

best TR1 video I've ever saw honestly !
CheshireBitch is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 12-07-19, 18:21   #19
Samz
Member
 
Samz's Avatar
 
Joined: Jun 2018
Posts: 6,529
Default

He's currently live-streaming TR2 if anyone's interested on youtube.
Samz is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 12-07-19, 20:54   #20
Cat Woman
Member
 
Cat Woman's Avatar
 
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 1,843
Cool

Quote:
Originally Posted by ANoDE View Post
This is such a great video. Wonderful piece of work. Thanks so much for making and sharing it
Quote:
Originally Posted by boubouk View Post
This is very very well made, i had a great time watching it
Quote:
Originally Posted by tlr online View Post
Welcome to the forum.
All the above. lol.
Cat Woman is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off



All times are GMT. The time now is 14:25.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Tomb Raider Forums is not owned or operated by CDE Entertainment Ltd.
Lara Croft and Tomb Raider are trademarks of CDE Entertainment Ltd.