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Quality vs Authenticity (Patreon)

Published:
2015-11-01 09:42:56
Imported:
2021-03

Content

I can't decide which Tomb Raider to use for Game Maker's Toolkit, and would love your thoughts on the subject.

Do I pick the nostalgic but low-res PS1 version? The high-res PC edition? Or the widescreen iOS edition?


I always go back and forth between making a game look as good as possible, and making it look as authentic as possible (in this case, most people will identify Tomb Raider 1 with PS1 era visuals).


Also - iOS isn't ideal as you can only get Tomb Raider 1 and 2 on the App Store, and I think this video will need some footage of the other retro Tomb Raider games. 

Files

Tomb Raider Test

Can't decide which Tomb Raider to use for Game Maker's Toolkit. Do I pick the nostalgic but low-res PS1 version? The high-res PC edition? Or the widescreen iOS edition?

Comments

Anonymous

I for one have not played those old Tomb Raider games so I wouldn't be able to appreciate those PS1 era graphics and I think that might apply to a lot of your viewerbase as well so I'd say go with iOS if possible otherwise go with PC.

Anonymous

I'm in favor of authenticity when possible. It's important to capture what they were at the time of their release. So PS1 or PC and not iOS. Personally I would prefer PS1 because this is how I experienced it.

TJ Michael

Try and see if you can get the pc version running without triliner\biliner texture filtering. Most games from the era weren't made for it and their low res pixel art textures look terrible with filters. If you can't manually disable them you can try running in software mode which was never updated to support them. That should give everything a more authentic look. You could also try looking for a legacy PC version from when the games first came out.

Anonymous

ps1 for sure, the others just dont have the nostalgia factor for me

Anonymous

I'd go with the PC version if there is the possibility of making the textures accurate to the original look. Otherwise I'd go with the PS1 version. Authenticity is more interesting to me than Quality in this case. PC and PS1 both had the original version I think, so they are both equally "Authentic" but the PC will look better.

Anonymous

I haven't played this game before, but the iOS version doesn't really look that much better. So I'd go with the PS1 or PC version.

Anonymous

I'm bias as I owned a pc and not ps1 but I feel like they're close enough that the pc version works best.

Vesselin Jilov

Tomb Raider 1 and Tomb Raider 2 are very weird from a design standpoint. Their level designers - Neal Boyd and Heather Gibson, who later did the level design of Project Eden - tend to make expansive, exhausting levels. Very interesting to explore, very interconnected, but on the other hand things like pacing, interactivity, clues, are ignored. It's interesting that even though every subsequent game in the series was done by other people, they somehow manage to keep this spirit of interrelated exploration to this day, even if they fail in some areas. But, to answer your question, I played Tomb Raider 1 on PC, with the Glidos software (which essentially an emulator that turns on 3D acceleration that was part of the game but didn't cover modern cards, only the 3dfx Voodoo card - I think this is how it looked back in 1996 for the people who could afford it: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtBFM5_hLPo)." rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtBFM5_hLPo).</a> To me, this is authentic, because it looks like Tomb Raider 2 with 3D acceleration which was released 1 year later with no Z-Buffering glitches, well filtered textures. There's nothing "authentic" about the Z-Buffering glitches, they just couldn't fix them at the time for barebones PC DOS and Playstation 1 and after that they used OpenGL and Direct3D for the second game. There's also nothing "authentic" about the low-res textures. They are not drawn with the low-res aesthetic in mind (like the textures in Quake 1, which use the pixels and the 256 colour palette as a part of their style, which makes the Quake DOS original look prettier than any HD stuff on Quake 1 done later). I recommend the Glidos version simply because this is exactly what the original team would have done (and did one year later with the sequel). The iOS version is definitely out IMO because the overpainted HD textures don't follow the style. BTW regarding authenticity, you said you're maybe going to do an episode on making remakes, if you do, I'd recommend watching this video on Oddworld's remake. It's a very good demonstration of how the original style and *message* of a game gets lost and it's done with rigour that's similar to yours. <a href="https://youtu.be/QkhDrngAQZ0" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/QkhDrngAQZ0</a> I actually don't remember a remake that doesn't have this problem. Another World remake has "HD" backgrounds which are not vector based and ruin the style of the game. Grim Fandango remake keeps the style, but is full of bugs and glitches. I'm fine with all kinds of HD enhancements as long as they follow the style and this is where most people who do the remakes fail.

Anonymous

I don't think widescreen is as important as authenticity or good graphics. PS1 and PC are both equally valid choices, but seeing how the differences are so negligible, it really boils down to which one you'd prefer to use.

Anonymous

Vesselin , I don't really understand why you consider the lack of Z-Buffer and low resolution texture not authentic. It was the technical limitation at the time and this is what the developer worked on and what artist were seeing when they run the game on the hardware of the time. This is simply what Tomb raider looked like at the time.

Anonymous

+1 PS1 (even though I played it on PC).

Anonymous

DOS or PS1

Anonymous

It depends on the purpose honestly. If you're in any way referencing the time the games came out then "authenticity" (PS1) would weigh harder. If you just talk about gameplay and stuff then maybe quality (iOS) would be better. If you do use more games than are available on iOS then use PS1 to make it consistent timeline-wise.

Vesselin Jilov
>>942454

Because at the very same time (1996) people who had a Voodoo videocard on their PC could run the game with no Z-fighting issues and softer textures, and higher resolution, just like the Glidos emulation does (and just like Tomb Raider 2 did in 1997). Objects showing through floors and walls, and walls wobbling about, unsure whether they are in front or in the back are something super glitchy and buggy - they couldn't fix it in-engine, because they didn't have Carmack on board, but as 3D videocards became more widespread they just used their built-in fix. And this built-in fix they used is not an anachronism, it was available at the time for people who could pay for a high-end PC.

Anonymous

4:3 on PS1 would convey the point across easier.

Anonymous

I like the PS1 version best. With the others the movement and animation look forced.