Recent reviews by Klow

Seriously broken. Play the N64 ROM instead.

I was pretty content with fan-patched versions of the old games or OpenLara so I didn't really have any specific expectations. Still, I'm disappointed. It's very pretty from afar but overall it doesn't add much to what the community has been working on for years now. They didn't go far enough. I opted for a refund even though I guess I could have waited for the first updates. I'm sure there'll be a lot in the next months. There's already a huge list of suggestions in the TR forums.

The negative:

- Ugly AI-upscaled FMVs, and sometimes with the wrong aspect ratio. There are many fan-made upscales out there that are much better.
- Typos, grammar mistakes and timing issues in the subtitles.
- For some reason they didn't remaster the SFX. I don't mind the compressed sound when playing the originals but here they really feel out of place with updated graphics. That's another thing fans are able to do with automated processes or AI, so I don't get it.
- No chapter access. Adding achievements is fun but it clashes with the archaic system of not having access to chapters to replay it each time you have completed it once. I know they wanted to keep the look of the old menus but this needed a compromise. Having to have manual saves ready in case you want to go back to get an achievement is nonsense. See the current version of Half-Life for a great modern menu that works with an authentic old game.
- Many models have glitchy animation, and the characters still shake their head when they speak. This was made to compensate the lack of facial animations, just like heavy makeup in silent movies to compensate the absence of the actors' voices. Now that facial animations have been added, the head shaking doesn't make sense. This is due to the fact that you're essentiallly playing a reskinned TR that you can switch from to the classic version, so it seems to be just a limitation.
- I'm used to the tank controls so I don't need the modern ones but many players legitimately complain about their implementation. I don't get how you wouldn't help players use their preferred controls if you want to woo a new generation. This should imply many changes in many levels, so if you can't implement it fully, just don't.
- No graphics settings. The games are very dark, and I also had to override the antialiasing myself because there's none. Just because it's an old game doesn't mean it can't have graphics settings, especially on PCs that are all different as opposed to uniform console software. In a fan-made game there would be plenty of things to tweak.

The positive:

- The games have been on Steam since 2012, so I didn't get right away the nostalgia overload for the PC players as if the games were lost up until now. Indeed they need to be patched to be fully enjoyable and not everyone is able to tinker with game files, so it's great that the games are playable again out-of-the-box for everyone. It's even better for console players.
- The overall look. As I said it's very pretty:
+ The newly-made models and facial animations are fresh.
+ The lightning is great. Dominant colors are reflected on everything. Draw distance is expanded.
+ The upscaling and redoing of the world textures is convincing. The upscaling seems to have been corrected by hand, as opposed to the botched GTA upscaling.
+ The newly added vegetation in the outdoors brings a lot of life to levels that were rather barren on that regard. TR3's India levels are the ones that benefit the most from this.
+ The attention given to remaking faithful loading screens from scratch is top-notch in contrast to the botched work on the FMVs.
- Achievements and a photo mode are always fun. It's not particularly necessary though, especially if the game still has room for improvement.
- Being able to play a polished and faithful classic version and being able to switch between the two on the fly is very good.
- Nostalgia is also strong in foreign countries that have dubbed dialogue. All original localizations are there by default, it's perfect.
- Since the core of the game wasn't changed, the often useful corner bug is still there!
- Changing the sound when Lara is barefoot is also a nice addition.

I wish all remasters were as good as Grim Fandango or Dark Forces. Of course we're very far from the disaster of the GTA remasters, but still, I can't recommend it for now. I'll keep playing the fan-patched versions until they make substantial updates, but I'm afraid they'll just fix bugs here and there and not much else though.

The game is riddled with bugs: the exterior ambient sounds are missing; the original credits with the map of Europe have been removed; some cutscenes are unskippable (it's supposed to be skippable if you've already seen them or if you just died); the game sometimes records more mouse clicks than you actually did and sends you too far; and overall the mouse movements and clicks are sometimes awkward and imprecise while they were as smooth as you get in the original game.

No new patches and barely any support is given from the new developer despite many people reporting these very issues over the years. I don't really mind the changes made by the new developer (different menu and item navigation system, achievements), but at least don't remove or break features, especially if this version gets to be called "Gold". While the menu and item navigation system work like a charm in the original game, I suppose they were remade to accommodate the mobile version of the game, which is reportedly even worse. Play the original version on GOG instead, it works just fine on modern setups.

It's ok

This is where it all started. Just play it!