TOMB RAIDER
limitations will always inform intent, whether it's time, staff, budget, tech, and/or anything else; they contextualize it, they don't negate it. even in instances where it can be assumed or even known that intent had at one point been different, new intent is always formed and adjusted to within the changing reality of creation. intent is no less meaningful or present just because it's not some perfectly pure static target operating under ideal circumstances -- that's not how art works. when one aspect is altered the intent moves with it; this is obvious to anyone who's ever made a game, a song, a painting, a mothers day card, or a bead bracelet
folks love to say shit like "if the artists could've done x or y they would've!!", often even citing the artists' retrospective appraisal of their own work in an appeal to authority, which is invariably raised to launder condescension and downplay intent while conveniently sidestepping the arduous task of actually engaging with the material and critiquing it accordingly. but hypotheticals have no relevance to the material intent of a material work within the material conditions it was made. frankly, there's no use in entertaining wholly decontextualized speculation at all. of course if an artist made art in a different context it'd be different, but art doesn't just appear out of the ether, it's born of a series of choices and compromises bound to a vast number of variables, many of which are constantly shifting throughout the duration of its creation. i find it thoroughly uninteresting to ponder the choices that might've been made under impossible conditions, especially when it comes at the cost of dismissing the choices that were made under real and tangible conditions
the medium & its audience's omnipresent inferiority complex means that everyone's champing at the bit to dig up ebert so he can play bioshock infinite or clair de lune 33 or whatever the fuck, validate the medium, and silence the bullies once and for all, but also, everything made 20+ years ago can be handwaved as a sad compromise, developers made it bad because they had zero agency, and it all needs a remake. bespoke control schemes and laboured artistic choices... i think you mean outmoded, antiquated, and primitive caveshit that disrespects my time. i only have 20 seconds to game per week thanks to my shrew wife and our gremlin spawn, i don't have time to "learn" things. i am here to absorb them into my cultural folds, buddy. i'm here to gorge and churn
the funny thing about complaints about tomb raider in particular is that it's the ps1 equivalent of a massive pop album. do you know who was playing tomb raider just fine in 1996? my fucking mum. a god gamer known for her love of the sims, the sims2, the sims3, and the sims4. this wasn't and isn't some arcane object of pure black energy, it's a wildly commercially successful thing that everyone and their literal mum enjoyed without a second thought. i don't state this to vouch for its quality, which is self-evident, but to express how ridiculous it is that this has somehow taken on the reputation of being some unwieldy nightmare software
controls didn't age poorly, you did. before these things were focused tested to death folks spent three minutes reading the manual, another three minutes fiddling with the controller, and then they just played the game. they met things half way and tried to understand the distinct language of interaction. as these things have been homogenized everyone's lost their appreciation and understanding of the single most integral aspect of the medium: the way you directly interface with it. there's nothing that can bind the player to the experience more significantly or provide more expression, and yet it's been deemed optimal for everything to play the exact same because John Deskjob can't figure out shit that knee high children managed to successfully navigate without complaint
saying this controls bad is like saying math controls bad. input and output have never had such perfect parity, and the level of unambiguous command it provides is unheard of within the 3D space. this is a game about neat and tidy binaries that are as crisp and clean and manicured as anything's ever been; a machine that produces only the desired outcome without even the slightest potential for error when wielded properly. it's fabulous stuff, probably the single greatest control scheme ever devised; a work of unerring dependability that has you sashaying thru the dream of lost history with the utmost grace and poise. every bone, muscle, and tendon in supreme alignment with the world; digital solipsism as flawless vehicle for the sublime
tomb raider will never die, but you will