In many ways, Tomb Raider 2 represents a quantum leap forward for the series, and it's the title that cemented Lara Croft as an icon of pop culture. The first one build a foundation of glob trotting adventures, the sequel erected a monument. A quickly glued together monument as I soon found out. A monument that manages to amaze you but dont look too close or it will clearly show its many cracks due to a blazingly fast dev cycle. With design decisions that lead me to absolute controller snapping frustration at times. I was still determind to see it through to the end, be it do to my new found love for the first game or my general couristy for retro games. And as much as TR2 turned out to be a very cruel mistress, I wanted to see for myself why so many fans see this as the peak of the series.
Tomb Raider 2 starring Lara Croft has you follow the British adventurer to the Great Wall of China, where she hopes to uncover a mystical Chinese dagger. Upon finishing the first level, we are treated with a similar cutscene to the end of the first game's stage. Lara is ambushed by a henchman, and we get a brief exchange explaining what the goal of the rest of the game is going to be. Turns out theirs a Venetian cult after the Dagger as well, led by a man named MARCO BARTOLI! So the race is on to find the artifact before they do. The story is more fleshed out than before, but not by much in my opinion. There is more of a through line for the levels, but by the end Core Design have made it clear that this is only a vehicle to drive the exploration. You are here for the badass Girl on the cover and her no fucks given attitude. You bought the game to explore spectacular locations and shoot bad guys, and that's what your getting.
And spectacular locations they are indeed. Tomb Raider 2 tops the first game in big ways. From the Great Wall of China in the opening to giant underwater ship wrecks, the leap in quality is honestly incredible. The latter being my absolute favorite level in the game. Many people may pick Venice or the Temple of Xia as their number one but for me, it's the Maria Doria. Swim to the bottom of the ocean and enter an upside down wreck of a cruise liner ? Get out of here, that's too good. It represents the absolute gold standard Core Design can achieve with excellent level design. They really have managed to strike a great balance of linear levels and sprawling key hunts the player can just get lost in. Other highlights include the entire set of Venice stages, the Barkhang Monastery and the mad gauntlet when returning to the Temple of Xia. The atmosphere once again kills across all the levels. The finale in the Temple of Xia is especially strong, and it also represents the perfect segway to talk about the best and worst aspects of the gameplay.
There has been an overall increase in difficulty, and it expects much more from the player in terms of knowing Lara's improved move set. Croft Manor has therefore been greatly expanded. There are better opportunitys to test your skills in high stress situations with additions like the new assault course, and the manors many new secrets. I highly recommend you not skip this tutorial stage, not only because it will help teach you the controls, but also because it's a tone of fun. Don't forget to lock the butler in the freezer. Going into the actual levels though, as much as I applaud the new movement options, midair roll and all, the level design often seems to utterly hate you. There are many, many instances of traps you can't possibly see coming unless you died to them at least once. A specific slide in Offshore Rig comes to mind. Where Lara will slide straight into a spike trap unless the player knows to slide down the exact right way the designers intended and grab the ledge. Your ability to tolerate the many similar situations in almost every level is what will make or break the game for a lot of people in my opinion. I can also extend that olive branch of shit to the less than stellar vehicle segments. The boat in Venice was a neat idea, but I have to give a big shout-out to the fkn snowmobile in Tibetan Foothills. A seemingly weightless snowmobile made out of paper and fueled with dynamite that loves to send you speeding off cliffs when you just want Lara to go in a straight line. Hope you saved a lot. Tibetan Foothills is by far the worst stage in the game, and it even manages to be the shining lowpoint for another bad aspect of TR2: The combat. Combat needed serious improvements, Combat has in fact seen no improvements. Pretty much all it comes down to is that they increased to amount of enemies present in each stage aswell as how much ammo they tank. You do have more weapons now, like the M16 and Grenade Launcher, but that doesn't help when litteral armies of angry Italian men, various wildlife and ancient Chinese warriors have it out for you. You will see many familiar scenes of Lara being pushed into corners, riddled with bullets and getting speared to death followed by reloading. Hope you saved a lot.
Even all that controller snapping frustration, I still came away loving the game more than the original by the time I reached the surprisingly cheeky ending. Maybe I contracted a sever case of stockholm syndrome but I think it once again speaks volumes about Core Designs masterful ability to make absolutely engrossing levels, a compelling main character and a journey that clearly showed me why Lara's fan base has stayed so loyal to her. Tomb Raider 2 kept me deeply hooked like no other game and while I'm still going to take a break from the series for a bit, I can not wait to return and see what Tomb Raider 3 has in store for me.
Tomb Raider 2 starring Lara Croft has you follow the British adventurer to the Great Wall of China, where she hopes to uncover a mystical Chinese dagger. Upon finishing the first level, we are treated with a similar cutscene to the end of the first game's stage. Lara is ambushed by a henchman, and we get a brief exchange explaining what the goal of the rest of the game is going to be. Turns out theirs a Venetian cult after the Dagger as well, led by a man named MARCO BARTOLI! So the race is on to find the artifact before they do. The story is more fleshed out than before, but not by much in my opinion. There is more of a through line for the levels, but by the end Core Design have made it clear that this is only a vehicle to drive the exploration. You are here for the badass Girl on the cover and her no fucks given attitude. You bought the game to explore spectacular locations and shoot bad guys, and that's what your getting.
And spectacular locations they are indeed. Tomb Raider 2 tops the first game in big ways. From the Great Wall of China in the opening to giant underwater ship wrecks, the leap in quality is honestly incredible. The latter being my absolute favorite level in the game. Many people may pick Venice or the Temple of Xia as their number one but for me, it's the Maria Doria. Swim to the bottom of the ocean and enter an upside down wreck of a cruise liner ? Get out of here, that's too good. It represents the absolute gold standard Core Design can achieve with excellent level design. They really have managed to strike a great balance of linear levels and sprawling key hunts the player can just get lost in. Other highlights include the entire set of Venice stages, the Barkhang Monastery and the mad gauntlet when returning to the Temple of Xia. The atmosphere once again kills across all the levels. The finale in the Temple of Xia is especially strong, and it also represents the perfect segway to talk about the best and worst aspects of the gameplay.
There has been an overall increase in difficulty, and it expects much more from the player in terms of knowing Lara's improved move set. Croft Manor has therefore been greatly expanded. There are better opportunitys to test your skills in high stress situations with additions like the new assault course, and the manors many new secrets. I highly recommend you not skip this tutorial stage, not only because it will help teach you the controls, but also because it's a tone of fun. Don't forget to lock the butler in the freezer. Going into the actual levels though, as much as I applaud the new movement options, midair roll and all, the level design often seems to utterly hate you. There are many, many instances of traps you can't possibly see coming unless you died to them at least once. A specific slide in Offshore Rig comes to mind. Where Lara will slide straight into a spike trap unless the player knows to slide down the exact right way the designers intended and grab the ledge. Your ability to tolerate the many similar situations in almost every level is what will make or break the game for a lot of people in my opinion. I can also extend that olive branch of shit to the less than stellar vehicle segments. The boat in Venice was a neat idea, but I have to give a big shout-out to the fkn snowmobile in Tibetan Foothills. A seemingly weightless snowmobile made out of paper and fueled with dynamite that loves to send you speeding off cliffs when you just want Lara to go in a straight line. Hope you saved a lot. Tibetan Foothills is by far the worst stage in the game, and it even manages to be the shining lowpoint for another bad aspect of TR2: The combat. Combat needed serious improvements, Combat has in fact seen no improvements. Pretty much all it comes down to is that they increased to amount of enemies present in each stage aswell as how much ammo they tank. You do have more weapons now, like the M16 and Grenade Launcher, but that doesn't help when litteral armies of angry Italian men, various wildlife and ancient Chinese warriors have it out for you. You will see many familiar scenes of Lara being pushed into corners, riddled with bullets and getting speared to death followed by reloading. Hope you saved a lot.
Even all that controller snapping frustration, I still came away loving the game more than the original by the time I reached the surprisingly cheeky ending. Maybe I contracted a sever case of stockholm syndrome but I think it once again speaks volumes about Core Designs masterful ability to make absolutely engrossing levels, a compelling main character and a journey that clearly showed me why Lara's fan base has stayed so loyal to her. Tomb Raider 2 kept me deeply hooked like no other game and while I'm still going to take a break from the series for a bit, I can not wait to return and see what Tomb Raider 3 has in store for me.