Remaster version like the other 2

Definitely the weakest entry of the 3, it has some good highs, some good puzzles, a good balance of combat, but the lows are pretty low, especially some vehicle sections. The level design can be extremely cheap and gotcha, with some puzzles being way too cryptic and some secrets probably impossible to find without a guide.

Still decent, and it wouldn't take too much to make it way better. I liked the "pick your adventure" aspect, and it kept the locations fresh.
A bit weird that the remaster didn't fix a soft lock I encountered in the infamous aldwych level, forcing me to restart the level after an hour of exploration.

Reaching the end of a trilogy is always exciting to me. Ideally, it's the conclusion of all the previous lessons learned and the moment everything gets tied together into one satisfying bundle. The PS1 is probably the console I think of the most when it comes to looking back at trilogies by single developers, simply because it had so many different ones during its life-span. Crash, Spyro, Resident Evil and even to some extent Final Fantasy. I think there is something special about seeing a game series in different stages of refinement, clearly being able to observe how a developer's ideas evolve over time. And yes, of course Tomb Raider went through that aswell. With the continued smash hit of TR2, Lara Croft was now without question video game royalty and Core Design was yet again given no breaks in pumping out another sequel for publisher Eidos Interactive. Setting aside the undoubtedly horrid working conditions at Core Design during the development process, I find it once again incredible how TR3 released only a year after its predecessor. And after my new-found love for this franchise was only reinforced by how much I enjoyed TR2, I was excited to jump into Lara's third adventure.

Sadly, as you can already guess from the rating, this turned out to be a massive disappointment. As the hours passed and the downward spiral of bad level design began, I became more and more miserable having to put up with everything Tomb Raider 3 was throwing at me. I was worn down and finally broken when I reached the end. I don't want this to be a rant about how much I hate this game. I still do, but there are so many fantastic qualities here that I can not even stoop so low as to call this a lazy sequel. Core Design really cared. It's just that all the visible care and love gets utterly crushed under the weight of unfair difficulty and a lack of polish, most likely due to razor tight deadlines along with an overworked staff. So let me go through the positives first before I start falling down the rabbit hole that has become my absolute hatred for this game.

Tomb Raider 3 has the best locations in the series so far. There is an incredible leap in art design at display here. Be it the opening trek through the jungles of India, the massive canyons in Nevada or looking out over the rooftops of Nighttime London. Levels feel lived in, in a way Tomb Raider 2 was still struggling with. The updated engine makes everything look so much less blocky, which the designers take full advantage off. I love the lighting, the colors and the great texture work. The atmosphere is so good, and I wish more games would take what Core Design accomplished here as an example. Really, in terms of atmosphere, TR3 doesn't miss even once. I love just standing in these maps and soaking it all in, ready to be pulled along into more adventures. It helps of course that the soundtrack is amazing aswell. There is a tone of ambiance to each location, of course classic series leitmotifs return and new tracks have been added that round everything out. It doesn't matter if it's discovering ancient ruins or if you find yourself face to face with horrifying creatures. It always fits, and I'm in love with the overall sound of TR3.

When it comes to the story, we find our favorite adventurer once again on the trail of a mysterious artifact. While on a treasure hunt deep in the jungles of India, she encounters a scientist named Dr Willard. He is looking for the missing pieces of a meteor that crashed down on earth millions of years ago, is responsible for having whipped out the Dinosaurs and starting the chain reaction of modern evolution. Supposedly these pieces also contain mysterious powers, once even being worshiped by Polynesian trips for their god like properties. And that's all we need to trot across the Globe. It's a dumb story even for the schlocky standards of classic Tomb Raider, but I still very much enjoyed it. The increased focus on cutscenes and Lara having more fun interactions with different characters helps the story flow much better than it did previously. This finally feels like a continues narrative and not just a semi connected sequence of video game stages. There is of course the obvious issue in how Lara has now been fully reduced to nothing more then what can only be described as a full on sociopath. More than ever before, she is an absolute bitch that cares about no one but herself and is willing to kill anybody that just so much as glances at her wrong. I'm still somewhat fine with her because the point was always to have an uncompromising action heroine, but previous games at least gave her some shred of humanity. The absolute girl boss attitude I fell in love is still present, but there is certainly a discussion to be had about crossing the line from girl boss to unlikeable cunt. This crosses that line way to often. TR2 is also guilty of this to a lesser extent, but toed the line in keeping her likeable much better in my opinion.

When it comes to combat, I'm happy to say that Core massively overhauled their approach to how you fight enemies. The fundamental controls are the same, but enemie encounters are spread out way smarter. Gone are the days of spawning goons right on top of the player.  There are often spots you can jump to that give Lara a clear advantage, and even late game foes can be taken down with just a bit of effort and only the standard handguns. And that's basically all I wanted to see, and I'm glad they at least took the time to improve an aspect of the series that desperately needed a revision. Croft Manor now has been expanded with a shooting range as well. This version of Croft Manor is for sure the best one. Many secrets to find and all the tutorials you could ever need. Lara's home is practically its own giant level now. Once again I fully recommend you play around in the tutorial not only because it's a lot of fun but because it will also helps in familiarizing you with the expanded move set. Lara can now crawl, grab on to certain ceilings in order to use them as monkey bars, and is able to use a short dash that can be ended on a quick roll forward. These added options are mostly used to great effect, but I will admit that the dash stays fairly underutilized. There are only very few spots where it's actually needed, and even then I find those challenges more annoying than anything else.

And that's about all the positives I can think of. For all the love I can express for TR3, it just wouldn't be honest if I omitted all my frustrations and all the reasons why I ultimately came away with the conclusion that this is simply a very bad video game.

Starting off with the basic structure: You're now allowed to pick between locations in between the opening chapter and the finale. What sounds cool on paper, turns out to be a nightmare in reality. The three places you can pick from: Nevada, the South Pacific Islands and London vary so wildly in complexity and challenge that you're most likely going to fuck yourself over if you happen to choose wrong. Pro-tip: Always start with Nevada. I didn't, and it screwed me over hard by the final stretch. Nevada contains the easiest and most enjoyable set of levels, and most importantly: There is a similar bit to TR1 and 2 where all your items will be taken away from you, as Lara is once again captured by armed guards. Unlike previous games there is a high chance you will not get most of your inventory back, meaning that if you happen to pick Nevada last, you might lose hours of collected guns, ammo and med packs. At that point, you are just stuck desperately searching for scraps during the final 4 segments of Antarctica. It's a horrible design decision that I despise with a passion, and they should have either ditched the level select entirely or put actual effort in balancing each locations difficulty. And while the South Pacific Islands are a mostly tolerable set of levels, London is where the game fully backflips into of pit of rusty spicks.

London is a confusing labyrinth of dark hallways that loop around in the most unintuitive ways. I got lost so many times just backtracking, not knowing what my goal even was, and finding crucial progression items in spots that made me scream in agony. Of course, one of the keys needed to progress in on top of a mining drill you just escaped from in order to not get crushed to death. It's not like every sane human being would see the section now occupied by the giant death drill as blocked off for good. Add to that weird angled jumps that shouldn't work, but sometimes just do, and hard to make out wall texture that are supposse to signal climbable surfaces. Trust me, you will run past those surfaces for a couple of hours before looking up a guide and then promptly feeling the primal urge to buy a gun along with a time machine in order to pay Core Designs studio a friendly visit back in the late 90s. All that misery and I haven't even mentioned the vehicle sections yet. Oh, the fucking vehicles. TR2 had the exact same issue, but the meaningful difference is again that this was limited to only 2 sections. We had a boat, that controlled fine, and a snowmobile that controlled like shit. TR3 on the other hand has at least one vehicle for each location. There is an ATV, a kayak, a weird underwater robot, a Donkey Kong style minecart ride and another boat. I don't know which one is the worst for me, but it has to be a tie between the kayak and the minecart. Paddling the kayak through the rapids of the south pacific rain forest is pure luck, as you can't really control it and are at the mercy of the game's geometry in order for Lara to not straight up smash into a pile of rocks and drown. The minecart on the other hand will make you randomly fly off the tracks if you happen to pull the break at the wrong time, that is if you even know where to fucking go in the nightmare labyrinth known as the RX Tech Mines. Either way, the conclusion is always: try to get somewhere, die, reload, repeat that step about 50 times per stage until you get that one lucky try that lets you progress.

I hate Tomb Raider 3. I can't recommend it to anyone ever. The final boss was a giant spider mutant that makes you run around in a circle for 40 minutes so you can pick up some shinny rocks. Watch the game end with Lara shooting a totally innocent Helicopter pilot in the face and a shot of her ass while the credits play. Fuck this game, I need to game something good next.

Tomb Raider III is the red-headed stepchild of the series. For the general public, it's the most inaccessible, and for me, it's the only game in the series I have no substantial childhood memories of; I went into this game with none of the emotional connection the other titles have for me.

Which is just as well. This game hates you. When people say this is the hardest game in the series, they're lying. Tomb Raider II is hard. Tomb Raider III is 'go fuck yourself.' Actual combat is fairly easy, and the last half of the game is surprisingly devoid of devious traps or narrow escapes. Instead, this game is deeply tedious: it's player-unfriendly to the point that I'm convinced the point was to get people to buy the strategy guide (GameFAQs didn't exist back then). I dare anyone, in the year of our Lord 2024, to beat this game without referring once to Stella's Tomb Raider site for a walkthrough. God bless that lady. It simply can't be done.

But it's no fun playing a game you have to Alt-Tab out of every few minutes to make sure you're on the right path or not. It's no fun reading ahead to make sure you won't be fucked over by the game's myriad asspulls, and it's no fun wondering to yourself if it's really worth doing this instead of just YouTubing the cutscenes and calling it a day. I tried, I honestly tried, to beat the game honestly - that was part of my intention with marathoning this series. But I also want to do it while I'm still in my twenties, and without developing hypertension. Halfway through, I caved.

If the first Tomb Raider was about the joy of exploration, Tomb Raider III is about the misery of being lost. This is a game where you do not want to find secrets, because it means you're not on the right path. And all of this is by design. When you pulled a lever or pressed a switch in the first two games, the camera would show you which door had opened so you'd know where to go. Tomb Raider III often eschews this in favour of leaving you to wander around wondering, "Now what did that switch do? Did it even do anything?"

Right from the beginning levels you know the game hates you, where certain sections of the walls are actually movable blocks - except they have the same texture as the walls on either side, and no context clue to suggest they can be interacted with. Going around tapping on walls on the off chance there will be some way out of here isn't what I play this series for. Neither is being forced to backtrack and re-do the entire level because I missed a key somewhere. The first two games were really good about closing off areas once you were done with them, and only letting you pass certain sections if you had all the items you needed. Not so in this game.

And yet, you can see they put so much effort into it. This game clearly wasn't half-assed. Everything that crazy animated Lara promised is here. The music and graphics are amazing, the environments are varied and detailed, there are so many particle effects - primitive now, revolutionary then. There's rain and snow and footprints and the fogging of Lara's breath in cold areas. There are so many vehicles to drive (the kayak level is ass though), so many outfits, so many places to visit. There are so many cinematic sequences that looks incredible for 1998. There are stealth elements (though it's no Metal Gear Solid), vengeful Hindu deities, aliens, ATVs, mutant zombies, Pacific Islanders portrayed through the extremely racist caricature of being ooga booga cannibals... This game is absolutely huge. And yet the game is so unwilling to let you enjoy it.

The story is a funny thing. Our heroine is an absolute fucking psychopath here. In the past, enemies she killed were animals trying to tear out her throat, monsters, mobsters, and genuine villains. This game, however, positions her squarely as the bad guy - there's no way around it. Without mercy, Lara kills security guards who are just doing their job, homeless people, and tribesmen who are simply defending their domain. She breaks some dangerous criminals out of an Area 51 prison to kill the guards who arrested her for trespassing, and breezily comments about how Pacific Islanders are fond of 'white meat.' It's so cartoonish it makes me laugh. This is 1998, remember. Video games no longer had the excuse of amorality.

It's a shame, but I really can't recommend Tomb Raider III to any but the most dedicated fans, who are willing to put up with it. There's no real reward to playing through this game, except learning about Lara's comically dark side, perhaps. The thought of Tomb Raider III is far, far more exciting than the actual experience. There are so many great ideas in here, and the technology is leaps and bounds above its predecessors. But the fun factor simply isn't there; it's buried under its obfuscating nature. Some folks tell me this game is better on a second playthrough. I suspect they're the same guys who told Sony, "Re-release Morbius in theatres. It'll be a massive hit."

I remember how magazines were writing at that time: well, people were starting to get tired of Tomb Raider games since they were not changed, and Eidos sold us the same game again and again.
Just remind you that professional reviewers never play games and tell random words about everything.
While Tomb Raider 1 was a perfect game, and Tomb Raider 2 was action-based DLC with fresh ideas in levels, Tomb Raider 3 is sadistic torture for a healthy mind.
I had a good first impression, and I remember from being a kid how different stories, levels, and costumes in this one. So I thought: ok, probably at the end of the day I will give it good review with a mark "can't recommend but I loved it".
I still can't recommend it and I don't love it. I dropped it right before last chapter, or I should say I rage-quitted it and going to never touch this piece again.
People often remember how brutal traps are in here, there are many places where the game doesn't give a chance to the player and one-shot him just because it is funny I believe. It is not a big problem since we can save game any time.
But endless backtracking and total lack of sense or logic, these things killed me before I completed it.
And this makes me mad. On paper, Tomb Raider 3 is great, it has enough good ideas and features, and it felt different from previous entries. But it is insanely painful to play, to rinse and repeat many areas, to wander around without any clue about what the last button opened.