Tomb Raider (1996)

In another bit of Tomb Raider news, I'm just now learning that the original game's modding community has made huge strides in recent years! They've got a brand new, open source level editor called the Tomb Engine, which seems pretty fully featured and has a whole series of tutorial videos on how to build your own levels. Always cool to see that modders are still out there and thriving.

Tomb Raider was, and always will be, a great classic. It revolutionized the platforming adventure and continue to do so to this day.

Sure, you got the Indiana Jones games on the NES and SNES already, something that Tomb Raider shares a resemblance with, but the introduction of a female character in minimal clothing, raiding temples, tombs and crypts was something completely different. Instead of using a piece of rope to whack people with, you got two badass guns to dispose of the many threats you encounter on your journeys.

Story wise, it is not that complicated. You are a famous archaeologist that can handle her own, and for this reason, you are hired by some chick named Jacqueline Natla to find an ancient artifact called the Scion of Atlantis. Four different part of this Scion are scattered in different tombs and it is your job to find them.

On your journeys, you find different weapons, ammo and health packs. Ammo is very scarce in this game so you need to use your resources wisely. Save the strongest weapons for difficult enemies and try to avoid unnecessary damage from falls and obvious traps. The search for this artifacts goes hand in hand with solving puzzles, go to hard to reach places, exploring environments and overcoming the dangers that guard the artifacts. And oh yeah, also watch out for the wildlife, like a freaking T-Rex for example, that casually walks back and forth in one of the levels.

The graphics in Tomb Raider are advanced for its time and aged fairly well. It is still playable today. Yes, Lara’s front rack can poke your eyes out, but the environments are still beautiful for a game this old.

The controls are a little stiff because they are “Tank Controls” and rotating Lara can be a chore sometimes. Also, when jumping and grabbing, your timing needs to be perfect or your adventure ends right here, on the floor of a eighty feet high cave.

There is no music whatsoever in Tomb Raider and for this game and its play style, it works perfectly. There is some dramatic music when a certain event happens, when you meet the casual T-Rex for example, but other than that, it is ambient sound of wind, birds and water. The sound effects are really nice and enhances the feeling of playing an adventure platforming game. The grunt sounds when Lara grabs on to a ledge, climbing up a ladder, takes damage and when she lands on a platform are just really well done. And then you have the death sounds the makes when falling from too high a platform or gets eaten by ten velociraptors. Just epic.

Tomb Raider is a long game, you don’t finish it in one setting. Only if you know exactly where you need to go can it be done, but the constant searching for the right path or solution to a puzzle, keeps you hooked up for hours.

This game kept amazing me. Just when I thought I had seen everything, I entered the temple of Atlantis and got attacked by half-eaten flesh mummies that jump everywhere and defeated a giant flesh/skeleton abomination. It blew my mind because it just did not fit in and came out of the blue.

That is just the magic of this game. I enjoyed every minute of it, and although it can be a little frustrating and confusing sometimes because of the many death traps this game has, it is just part of its charm.

Definitely recommend playing it.

PROS

• Unmatched atmosphere for its time with many frightening and tense moments that are still effective today
• Several iconic level designs filled with traps and puzzles that put most modern action-adventure games to shame
• Controls, though admittedly a bit clunky, are very well thought out
• Evokes vertigo like no other game I've ever played, I swear I get that balls-retreating-into-my-stomach feeling from some of the jumps in this game
• Slow, deliberate pace makes every button press a considered event
• Sparse, but beautiful soundtrack

CONS

• Level designs falter considerably toward the end (Natla's Mines is a nonsensical joke)
• Some sound effects are unduly annoying because of how quiet most of the game is
• Enemy behaviors and hit detection are chaotic and sloppy
• Dumb story barely makes any sense (but is thankfully quite minimal)
• Camera is utterly whack at times

Play the pc port. it has savestates and that can make your life a lot easier than the console versions. I can understand if someones says that this game is not for them, especially in 2018. It has really tricky mechanics, the jumps and the shooting are really far from something enjoyable, even back in 1996.

The levels are fairly big, and most of them are exploration and shooting some animals and later in the game bad guys.

You can feel the emptiness in each level. You can feel that is just Lara exploring by her own each place. And the fact that there is no music it has a lot to do with it. You only trigger it when you are in combat.

If you can stand the precision jumps, (the key feature of the game) then give it a try. If you can't tolerate the gameplay in the first level, just quit. All 15 levels use the same mechanics.

The first Tomb Raider game was a big step forward in terms of 3D graphics - animation-wise and created for the PSX and PC, it was quite impressive. Regardless of its importance, however, the design and execution of the game makes it quite a frustrating venture.

The game is split into 15 levels, each of them fairly large. They're mostly composed of Lara Croft jumping and climbing her way through blocky temples and structures to avoid traps or shoot monsters/bad guys. The shooting isn't memorable or interesting, as the creatures are merely bullet sponges and have a high advantage on killing Lara in most circumstances.

As for climbing, jumping, etc. the game does its best to ensure the player only manages the most perfect pixel jumps from blocky cavern to blocky corridor. The design is supremely unintuitive, forcing the player to guess where to go and not quite understand what can or can't be jumped on or grabbed on, with slightly more focus near the finish. This sin is most heinous on the Egypt levels but pops up in a few other areas. As for grabbing, the player must position Lara to be spot on constantly, slowly moving around and accidentally falling off on many an occasion.

This specific review is also for the iOS version - ironically enough, the game is slightly more suited to touch controls, with the various contextual ways to control Lara flung all over the controller it can be refreshing to have very clear buttons on screen to tell the player what to do.

Tomb Raider looked incredible on 1996, but even back then, it was sure a monster to play just right, and won't do you any favors. Skip the PSX version and get a port that supports save states; you'll be less frustrated from the constant death.