Lara Croft sets out on an quest to uncover the pieces of a lost artifact. In the process, she finds herself entangled in the plot of the nefarious Nalta Corporation. Only her wits, her upper body strength, and the trusty dual pistols she carries stands between her and the destruction of the known the world as she travels the world in a race to find The Lost City of Atlantis.
Fully remastered in 16:9 widescreen and playable with a fresh coat of paint in arbitrary framerates, Tomb Raider arrives as part of the Tomb Raider 1+2+3 Remastered collection largely unscathed by the sand of time. It stands as proudly as it did in 1996 as a pillar of accessible 3D platforming that emphasizes a slow pace and deliberate planning in order to traverse the game's 15 increasingly elaborate levels.
Each tomb is packed to the gills with levers to pull, platforming to pull off, enemies to shoot, and environmental obstacles to navigate around as you climb through each tomb to retrieve an artifact. These increasingly larger and more elaborate tombs are designed around the most archaic component of this game: Lara Croft was designed to be manipulated by a 1996 keyboard, a Playstation controller, and a Sega Saturn controller - Tomb Raider uses slow, heavily weighted tank controls. Much of your success depends on your willingness to negotiate with this control scheme straight outta 96 and these controls are SENSITIVE as heck. Even with a full grasp of Lara's car-like maneuverability, a mistap or an extra tap of your D-Pad WILL get you killed. And you will die a LOT in the process of raiding these tombs. Perseverance is key to completing this journey as these tank controls will test your will to live, and test it often. That isn't to say the controls are bad; they're perfectly suited to the level design of each tomb. Don't mess with the "modern control scheme." The original controls are the way to go. And they are, in their own way, perfect.
The levels themselves challenge you to check every corner, move every stone, as try your luck jumping to every possible ledge you can in order to find levers, keys, and other various items that will help you on your journey. Even in the remastered version of the game, the game playfully balances tricky visual design and intuitive placement of objects to consistently challenge you as you move onwards. As you become more familiar with the various patterns that run throughout, the game adds additional layers of complexity to puzzles and spreads challenges out over greater distances to keep things engaging.
Unfortunately, though its legacy is well deserved, there are elements of Tomb Raider that have grown old with time - the shooting combat is straight up busted. The only element of it you control is the direction Lara is pointed in; the rest of it is handled with an auto aim system that really only feels like a suggestion of what you might want Lara to do. It is the result of the limitation of the control scheme of the era, but having played it on DOS and the Sega Saturn previously, it still feels like something to grapple with, rather than something to use effectively. And the increasing scope and scale of the game's levels does make the pacing of the game slow down significantly as you get into the back third - I found myself completely exhausted as credits rolled.
These elements considered, Tomb Raider is a triumph in its newly remastered form. Even if you only make your way through a handful of levels, you owe yourself some time with this legendary game. You can see its influence permeate out through the rest of the 90s in tasteful ways, and its sense of discovery is second to none. It will never feel truly modern, but it will always be one of the great games of all time.
Fully remastered in 16:9 widescreen and playable with a fresh coat of paint in arbitrary framerates, Tomb Raider arrives as part of the Tomb Raider 1+2+3 Remastered collection largely unscathed by the sand of time. It stands as proudly as it did in 1996 as a pillar of accessible 3D platforming that emphasizes a slow pace and deliberate planning in order to traverse the game's 15 increasingly elaborate levels.
Each tomb is packed to the gills with levers to pull, platforming to pull off, enemies to shoot, and environmental obstacles to navigate around as you climb through each tomb to retrieve an artifact. These increasingly larger and more elaborate tombs are designed around the most archaic component of this game: Lara Croft was designed to be manipulated by a 1996 keyboard, a Playstation controller, and a Sega Saturn controller - Tomb Raider uses slow, heavily weighted tank controls. Much of your success depends on your willingness to negotiate with this control scheme straight outta 96 and these controls are SENSITIVE as heck. Even with a full grasp of Lara's car-like maneuverability, a mistap or an extra tap of your D-Pad WILL get you killed. And you will die a LOT in the process of raiding these tombs. Perseverance is key to completing this journey as these tank controls will test your will to live, and test it often. That isn't to say the controls are bad; they're perfectly suited to the level design of each tomb. Don't mess with the "modern control scheme." The original controls are the way to go. And they are, in their own way, perfect.
The levels themselves challenge you to check every corner, move every stone, as try your luck jumping to every possible ledge you can in order to find levers, keys, and other various items that will help you on your journey. Even in the remastered version of the game, the game playfully balances tricky visual design and intuitive placement of objects to consistently challenge you as you move onwards. As you become more familiar with the various patterns that run throughout, the game adds additional layers of complexity to puzzles and spreads challenges out over greater distances to keep things engaging.
Unfortunately, though its legacy is well deserved, there are elements of Tomb Raider that have grown old with time - the shooting combat is straight up busted. The only element of it you control is the direction Lara is pointed in; the rest of it is handled with an auto aim system that really only feels like a suggestion of what you might want Lara to do. It is the result of the limitation of the control scheme of the era, but having played it on DOS and the Sega Saturn previously, it still feels like something to grapple with, rather than something to use effectively. And the increasing scope and scale of the game's levels does make the pacing of the game slow down significantly as you get into the back third - I found myself completely exhausted as credits rolled.
These elements considered, Tomb Raider is a triumph in its newly remastered form. Even if you only make your way through a handful of levels, you owe yourself some time with this legendary game. You can see its influence permeate out through the rest of the 90s in tasteful ways, and its sense of discovery is second to none. It will never feel truly modern, but it will always be one of the great games of all time.