Well, it's not like the Tomb Raider series can get much worse... maybe, just maybe it'll get better.

This comment was edited on Feb 29, 10:33.

could be worse...could be PHIL Spector...

"aid" as in "destroy"?

_____________________________________________
Give me slack. Or kill me.

Fortunatly theres not much left for him to destroy, but god forbid he gets his hands on a decent franchise.

Half Life 2 - Now with added Spector!

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Leading the "Support our Arrow keys" movement!

Let's see. He destroyed the Deus Ex series, will destroy Thief in a few months. Tomb Raider already sucks, so anything he does will probably improve the series. Way to appeal to the lowest common denominator, Warren! Must be an ego thing.

Funny how one bad release has ruined any fan faith in this man.

Then again, aside from Deus Ex and System Shock, I've never been overly impressed with his resume.

Repeat after me.

HARVEY SMITH ruined Deus Ex. Not Warren Spector. The worst thing that WS did was lie to his fans about what was going to be in Ex Deus : IW, he didn't design it. In the end, I think he just chose to spew good relations over his game, even though they were lies, because it was THEIR product. He could've hardly gone and said "Yeah, I think it sucks too, fuck Harvey Smith." right?

However, I don't really see what Warren can bring to Tomb Raider, as it's not the style of game he's been developing over the past 15 years. Unless he wants to add a lot more complexity to the basic formula.

I think Eidos just needs to wake up and accept the fact that Tombraider is a dead franchise. People have played 1, 2 - 5 games in it, and now they're bored with it. No franchise endures forever, and you can only do the same thing so many times before everyone just gets plain bored with it.

Tombraider is dead, Eidos. Move on.

Creston

There are plenty of interviews out there where Spector explains the decisions were all either his, or ones he approved and agreed with.

Will people stop yelling at Warren Spector for that? For cripes' sake, DX:IW is NOT a Warren Spector game, it's a Harvey Smith game. He even says in a <a href="http://www.gamespy.com/interviews/february03/spectordx2/">Gamespy Interview from February</a> that he was kind of unsure of some of the choices that Harvey made. He also talks about the supposed "dumbing down" of the game in that interview...

And come on people, he CREATED games Thief, Deus Ex and System Shock... Even if DX:IW really *is* that bad because of his direct involvement (haven't played it, my rig is too old), you have to give the man credit for having a pretty freakin' high batting average.

Spector is a great guy.. he has given the gaming community several classics. What he will do with this withered turd of Tomb Raider remains to be seen, but at least it can't be dumbed down or made more console like than it already is!

Starting at the bottom, you can only go up!

Repeat after me: Warren Spector approved every major design decision that Harvey Smith put forth. He oversaw the whole project, and is responsible for what crap was put forward. The fact that harvey did the dirty work is inconsequential.

EIDOS ruined DX:IW just like it will ruin Thief. Instead of doing a decent job on each platform, cheapo Eidos made them develop everything simultaneously. They probably made a deal with Microsoft that guaranteed identical content, e.g., same textures, models and microlevels for both. Then they made them rush it out the door with no QA for the PC at all. I guess they feel like they got burned on the original DX, having to scrap and redo so much of what they did when they made the PS2 port. I imagine that was a tremendous of work and it probably didn't sell none too well either. But a quality product usually requires a lot of extra work.

Seems like most of the bad decisions they made were for the sake of making the game "accessible." I.e., appeal to XBox gamers. Thank Eidos for that too. Now Thief 3 doesn't even have rope arrows anymore. One of the most beloved features of the original game. Too hard to aim and shoot a rope arrow with an XBox controller I guess.

This Tomb Raider thing doesn't come as any surprise. Spector has sold out, heart and soul.
This comment was edited on Feb 29, 12:25.

Boy there are some real bitter idiots on this forum!

Warren Spector's a great guy and an innovative designer. To think that one cannot take the Tomb Raider formula and add some interesting innovation is the height of ignorance. Look at what was done with the Prince of Persia series - a few nice little innovative features combined with the original game made it a very compelling and great game.

Harvey Smith ruined DX Invisible War - not Warren Spector. This is fairly well known, but I always enjoy watching idiots blame Spector... gives me a chuckle.

this may be hideously old, this is most likely definitely heading off-topic..

www.thief3.org

I hadn't noticed before that everyone has sort of jumped ship with their position on Spector. And over what? A few design choices for Invisible War that didn't turn out to be what everyone was hoping for? The game was still great, maybe a bit rough in some areas and lacking the impact the original had, but it was a sequel and was being designed for two systems, and for the type of game that DX2 is, i'm glad they got this far. It's just surprising to see that people are actually saying that he has ruined the Deus Ex franchise (which he hasn't), that he is solely responsible for that (which he isn't), and apparently is now a bad designer (which is just too stupid to comment on). At least wait until the guy's track record reflects that of being a bad designer before you comment on him.


- Erratic
This comment was edited on Feb 29, 12:52.

People say Tomb Raider is dead, yet they continue to buy EA's lousy sports games one year after another, plus Quake games which have never been anything but technology demos anyway. I've never been a big fan of Tomb Raider (even during the period when people said it was good), but if that franchise is dead, surely many of these other ones that people keep buying into, in spite of them offering nothing innovative must be getting old as well.

Parallax Abstraction

Here here Erratic - wise words.

Spector has an excellent track record. And Invisible War was not so bad... sure - maybe an 80/100, but to have his biggest mistake be an average but still good game, well that's not too shabby.

DX:IW was designed for the XBox. It was ported to the PC simply because the PC crowd wanted the game since that's the platform it originally came out for. The game controls and runs terribly on the PC. Warren Spector still has a good history and perhaps everyone being ready to lynch him is a bit too much, but the fact is that even though he didn't design the game, he oversaw it as the studio director and was in a position to correct many of the bad decisions that were made. Granted, Eidos was likely in him with a whip and preventing him from implementing some of those decisions, but it's ultimately his responsibility to ensure that his studio doesn't crnak out crap. He not only didn't do that, but he promoted the Hell out of this product. That's a strike at least.

Parallax Abstraction

DX: IW is a fine game. Shodan the helicopter pilot makes it more than worthwhile.

Aye... I agree that it's Harvey Smiths fault that DX:IW is a POS.

However... Warren was really dumb to let Harvey do what he did... Warren is STILL in charge of Ion.

As for Tomb Raider... though I don't like the series... my wife and daughter does. (Guess it's a female thing). So, though I agree that Tomb Raider isn't Warren's style for a game... I don't think he could fuck it up any worse than the other teams that have. Who Knows... maybe Warren's design style could bring something good out of it.