Thoughts on Tomb Raider

I never played the original Tomb Raider games.  I wasn't a big fan of action 3D platformers, and there were enough other games to keep my attention besides "that one with the woman with the big chest."

I did play some of the later games by Crystal Dynamics, though.  Tomb Raider: Legend, Tomb Raider: Underworld, and the reboot Tomb Raider were all games I enjoyed, but there was something that bothered me about Lara Croft in particular.

In the end, she's always alone.

"Row, row, row your boat, gently down the- okay, now you go!
Oh.  Right."

Erik Designs A Video Game: Long Haul

So this week I watched the preview video for the most mind-boggling game I've ever seen:  Spintires.

A few notes:

That music is much, much too exciting for something like "getting trucks stuck in the mud and trying to get them out again."

That background is gorgeous.

It looks like it would be entertaining for about an hour (two if you and your friends are drunk) but then would get tedious.

So, could we make a real game out of that?  I think we could.  Here's my pitch for Long Haul.

Ask Erik: Episode Eighteen

Here at Ask Erik, we've spent a lot of time reading books and comics, watching movies, and browsing through the Internet in the hopes of finding the answers to life's biggest mysteries.  What impact does Kickstarter have on smaller independent groups trying to get noticed?  Have we lost touch with simpler times with the bombardment of new technology? Does anybody else remember that the monster truck Bigfoot once was part of a cartoon cast of video game characters?

Having instead amassed a vault of useless knowledge stored in his head, Erik instead tackles your questions and tries to find the answers you care about (or a reasonable facsimile).  Or, if you don't care, he'll at least try to make you laugh and forget you just wasted time you could spend doing anything else.

Looking Back: Phantasy Star 3

With so many great video games coming out these days, it's easy to set aside the games of the past and embrace the advances in technology, storytelling, and technique that are being applied to games.  However, every now and again I spot something in a game that I feel might've been done once before.  Perhaps it was done better, perhaps it was done worse, or perhaps it was just done in a way so original that I haven't seen it done since.

In this article, I'm going to look at one example: Phantasy Star 3.