Tomb Raider - Dagger of Xian [TR2 remake in UE4] Demo out now

BID0 wrote:

deathofcows wrote:
I think TR:A might have my all-time favourite game lighting and look.

You should pick up Underworld. It continues the story and looks and plays even better than Anniversary.

I've played it (and Legend and the first of the revamps) and found it worse. It looked great, but I found its gameplay feel was more jittery and skittish, and the in-ear companionship/conversations (or was that just Legend?) I found took away from the mood. Definitely still good though.

I think the lack of adornment in anniversary's look (like underworld's foliage, bump-mapped textures etc) actually highlights the scale and cavernous nature of the spaces - just sheer geometry and lighting uncluttered by detail.

EDIT: Also TR: A is big on silence - except for the enemy music it's mostly just environmental sounds, like echoing footsteps and so on - and it works great.

EDIT 2: P.S. It may also be the controls - played using mouselook with jump mapped to a mouse button (e.g. right click) - it changes the feel drastically, without the need for the broken camera-jump-camera-jump of playing using a controller with one thumb for camera and jumping. Sort-of like how Mirror's Edge put jump on the shoulder buttons for that seamless continuity of movement - it transforms the game and feels great. If I remember correctly I couldn't do it in Underworld Steam (might be wrong).

Can you lock the terrifying clinky clanky butler in the freezer on this? God the adrenaline rush I used to get as a lad doing that, immense

deathofcows wrote:

BID0 wrote:

deathofcows wrote:
I think TR:A might have my all-time favourite game lighting and look.

You should pick up Underworld. It continues the story and looks and plays even better than Anniversary.

I've played it (and Legend and the first of the revamps) and found it worse. It looked great, but I found its gameplay feel was more jittery and skittish, and the in-ear companionship/conversations (or was that just Legend?) I found took away from the mood. Definitely still good though.

I think the lack of adornment in anniversary's look (like underworld's foliage, bump-mapped textures etc) actually highlights the scale and cavernous nature of the spaces - just sheer geometry and lighting uncluttered by detail.

EDIT: Also TR: A is big on silence - except for the enemy music it's mostly just environmental sounds, like echoing footsteps and so on - and it works great.

EDIT 2: P.S. It may also be the controls - played using mouselook with jump mapped to a mouse button (e.g. right click) - it changes the feel drastically, without the need for the broken camera-jump-camera-jump of playing using a controller with one thumb for camera and jumping. Sort-of like how Mirror's Edge put jump on the shoulder buttons for that seamless continuity of movement - it transforms the game and feels great. If I remember correctly I couldn't do it in Underworld Steam (might be wrong).

Underworld was the last in the Legends story (Legends > Anniversary > Underworld) before it got rebooted.

They all played the same so I'm not sure, but I've always used a controller. Underworld matched Anniversary's environment sizes too. I think Underworld was the only one of the three games to have a team of people talking to you. Legends had the worst QTEs. Underworld had some really great puzzles.