CLASSIC GAMING
Tomb Raider
Developer:  Core Design
Publisher:  Eidos Interactive
Genre:  Third-person shooter/Action-Adventure
Year:  1996
System:  Playstation/Sega Saturn/PC


Archaeology has always been a romantically adventurous occupation.  Exploring ancient tombs that man's feet haven't touched for thousands of years, the possibilities of new startling information on ancient civilisations lives and beliefs, as well as priceless historically important treasures guarded by possibly still working traps of ingenious or simplistically working design.  Since the finding of Tutankhamen's Tomb it has become seen as an exciting career, helped further by the likes of Indiana Jones, and of course, this very game has helped in turn.

Story - Tomb Raider puts you into the hiking boots of Lara Croft, an English aristocratically-raised woman who after surviving a plane crash in the Himalayas and with early fascinations in archaeology, has turned away from the posh life to become an archaeologist.  She is hired by the business mogul Jacqueline Natla of Natla Technologies to find a hidden treasure within the tomb of Qualopec in Peru, an artifact known as the Atlantean Scion, a powerful ancient artifact created supposedly by those of the mystic city of Atlantis that could generate infinite volumes of unbridled energy.  Lara heads through many levels throughout four different parts of the world, each one filled with deadly cunning traps and wild beasts.


Gameplay - Tomb Raider offers one of the most complex and intriguing amounts of gameplay in the mid 90s.  Lara can move in every direction as well as jump in four directions quite acrobatically, swim above and below water, dive (even an impressive swan dive if you know how), climb, shimmy along cracks in walls and activate buttons, levers or switches.  Most of the environment within the game is free for exploring with little restrictions on movements.  Lara also has her array of weaponry, starting almost always with her weak but reliable dual pistols of infinite ammo against the enemies she encounters, but later gainging shotguns and uzis and so forth.  She also has a health bar which can be recovered by health packs collected throughout the level to be stored in your inventory.  She also has an oxygen meter for when she's underwater.
The game offers a tutorial for you to adjust to Lara's controls before taking on the real adventure that lies ahead.  Although she's formidable she is not invincible as she can die like any human (say, if you fell from a great height).
Saving is limited however (in the Playstation and Saturn versions only while the PC versions allows you to save anytime) to special floating crystals in the levels that you can activate to save, which admittedly makes things very frustrating when you finish some long slog of puzzles and die and have to do it all over again as there are very few of these crystals in each level.


Graphics - Blockiness is the name for this game's graphics.  Compared to now, they are of course very outdated looking, with Lara looking quite butch and with a bosom like two large Toblerone pieces and enemies also looking very Lego now and again.  What is good about this game's graphics however is the scenery.  The environments of the tombs are quite astounding now and again, when you enter a new large tomb brimming with promised death and glory every step you walk.  The graphics may not give beauty but they do offer majesty.  Water effects are very nice too (really, the water is the most impressive graphic effect of the whole game) with the nice pale aquamarine shimmering effect on walls that are surrounding any reasonably sized body of water.


Music/Sound - The music by Nathan McCree is compelling at times with its sense of (I say again) majesty in the ancient settings.  When you enter a large moss-adorned room with several odd rooms that seem likely to have housed Incans once, there comes a stirringly short choir piece that brings the sense of ancient history into the screen.  The main theme is soft and soothing to listen to always and there are also pieces of alerting danger that do manage to stir the blood in feeling the tension.
Sounds are generally ambient enough yet repetitive.  You will hear many of the same skidding against rock, and squeaking of bat, the sound bite of the wolf gnashing at your heels will never change and neither will its whine when you shoot it dead.  It's the minimum you need to get into the atmosphere of the ruins around you.


Tomb Raider is one of the great classics which spawned a mostly successful series of games as well as a large franchise and the videogame industry's first sex icon.  But do not remember Tomb Raider for that.  Instead, remember it for a fantastic series (or at least a best-selling trilogy) that may even have brought forth interest of history to gamers, even if it's not accurate at all with it.  Lara Croft is one of the most memorable characters in gaming history.  A strong independent woman of a cultured background undertaking expeditions and discoveries to broaden the mind rather than stuff it full of etiquette nonsense.  In a way she can be a role model.
Tomb Raider received the attention it deserves by the marginally successful release of Tomb Raider: Legend, reviving Lara from the dead essentially and the Tomb Raider: Anniversary edition that brings back interest in the first and perhaps greatest adventure of Miss Croft's exploits due to be out in Spring 2007.

Final's Final Rating - 8/10

In related news Eidos, makers of Laura Croft bring you a 3rd movie installment by Paramount Pictures, as well as a Tomb Raider Anniversary video game that juices up Lara Croft once more on a higher scale towards next gen console power.

Once again they turn Laura from an already upgraded version to an even much more human like quality.

I still have it too. Never got it to work.

Well Caboose you win for that posting the vid.  Thanks a lot, it does genuinely look awesome.

the metal ones or the fleshy ones?

Just Survival of the Fittest here.  She wants to live, she has to kill.  The animals can either go at her or stay away.  if you hunt them down, THEN they're innocent.