Still arguably one of the greatest early 3D action/adventure games in history! Tomb Raider needs no introduction, but in case you are mistaking it for that laughable new series, here is one anyway. Tomb Raider features a billionaire woman named Lara Croft who takes a job because she finds it interesting. The whole plot hinges on her flare for adventure and her love for the great unknown. She uses her money and power to go on frequent trips all over the globe to collect artifacts and dodge breath-taking dangers in ruins and temples.
That’s right, folks, this is not the Lara Croft we are introduced to in the remake series. She didn’t have to make a big deal out of her first kill, nor did she have to do all of those monotonous sneak missions to get food and survive in the wilderness. We actually knew very little about her in the beginning, and that worked in her favor. The original game is not complicated in its mechanics and it doesn’t take a great deal of time to get use to the controls. In fact, the controls are more than intuitive, they are amazingly easy.
The biggest challenge you have in this game is the direction and free roaming exploring that can get you lost. Anyone who played the original game can tell you all about the tiger cave. You shoot the tiger with your twin pistols, and then after that you spend four hours trying to find the way out. The puzzles can also be a little challenging to figure out, it can take some brain power and a little more than common sense.
The game just feels good to play, and getting lost in the experience is very easy to do. The only thing that may pull you out of it nowadays is the graphics. The game itself is no spring chicken, and the graphics aged just about as well as you would expect. Still, that doesn’t really matter. The graphics still function properly and the best part about it is they look the part while also not dragging down any framerates.
This, my friends, is a game that should have been studied much more before they went and made their own Lara Croft for this generation of games. It didn’t take three whole games for her to be “The Tomb Raider.” She started out as the Tomb Raider, and she was badass! Lara Croft became something of a sex symbol (even given her triangular chest) and has been hailed as one of the best game characters ever created. That was this Lara, not the new one. Then there’s the fact that it is still the most successful game in the entire franchise.
You can go into everything that spawned from this game. It was so successful that it took only five years for them to come out with a film. Despite the movie’s quality, it was still very impressive for a brand new franchise and showcases just how well this one video game did. It was a marvel of its time and just about everything it did screamed “genius!”
It really goes to show you how enginuity can outweigh the benefits of having a big budget. Creative minds think a lot better than cash does, for sure. Gaming today doesn’t seem to understand that sort of thing. You can have your so-called “new Lara Croft” but as for us retro gamers, we’ll stick to polygon mammaries, blocky caves and superior gameplay. Accept no substitutes. Virtua Dive
