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Tomb Raider Chronicles ~ Marathon Infinity?
Posted By: Loren PetrichDate: 7/26/01 2:45 p.m.

It's hard to find any first-person shooter or similar third-person game with a premise or backstory even half as imaginative as Marathon's, at least IMO, but there are a few examples that almost make it, and I think I've found a few examples.

Back to my main subject. I've just finished TRC, and I am struck with some of its similarities to Marathon Infinity. Here goes:

* The previous game had ended in a triumph marred by disaster.

-- Moo: Marathon 2: A crushing defeat of the Pfhor fleet marred by the Pfhor using the Trih Xeem on Lh'owon's sun.

-- TRC: TR Last Revelation: Lara imprisons the god Set in the Great Pyramid, but she falls into a pit on the way out.

* The game features looking back into time.

-- Moo: You relieve the events of Marathon 2 in different timelines.

-- TRC: Some of Lara's old friends have reminiscences of some of Lara's adventures, which you then experience.

* The game features an effort to undo that disaster.

-- Moo: One hopes to find a timeline that does not feature a successfully-used Trih Xeem or some other such Pfhor triumph.

-- TRC: One of Lara's friends is in Egypt, searching for her in the Great Pyramid.

* The game has some levels where you must evade enemies that you cannot hurt.

-- Moo: The invisible-Spht level in "Where are monsters in dreams", and the beginning of "By Committee".

-- TRC: Some levels where you appear as 16-year-old Lara on an Irish island haunted by ghosts and demons.

* The game comes with editing tools.

-- Moo: Forge and Anvil.

-- TRC: The "Room Editor" for levels and a few small utilities

* The game is something of an afterthought, but one that took on a life of its own.

* Its creators wanted to move onward to fancier projects

-- Moo: Bungie decided to create "The Giant Bloody War Game", which became the Myth series; Double Aught went on to work on its ill-fated "Duality" project.

-- TRC: Some TR-ish game with a fancier engine that will not have the constraint of having to run on the original Playstation, as all the TR's have done.

* Where are they now?

-- Moo: Bungie is now working on the Marathon-ish Halo. Myth has been taken over by Mumbo Jumbo, which is now working on Myth 3. DA is now broken up.

-- TRC: Core Design, TR's creators, are still working on what they've codenamed "Tomb Raider: Next Generation"; however, they have produced several other games, and they are working on one which might interest some of you people: "Project Eden". It's set in a future overpopulated Earth, and one day, something bad happens to the "Real Meat" factory...



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