Retro|Spective 124R: Tomb Raider

[Asura]

the game did get a bit messy towards the end

I had totally forgotten until I looked it up recently - the story goes absolutely bonkers. You fight an evil fleshy clone of Lara made by aliens in Atlantis

[QualityChimp]

Definitely felt some of those deaths though, yikes!

The crunch of a croc, the punch of a gorilla, the glub as she drowns and does that final twitch then floats up, slowly turning gold on Midas' hand, impaled on the swords of Damocles or floor spikes, the dino's chomp and that sickening crunch when she plummets to her doom and twists like a pretzel.

[wakka]

Been meaning to play TR1 through properly for some years now. I had it at the time, but I was too young for it and found it too difficult.

Although the tank controls are clunky they're incredibly precise and were very well thought out, as others have said.

Definitely going to do it properly soon.

Just had a look to see if it's been source ported to modern Macs and, yeah, it has, plus you can run it in your browser here if you like:

http://xproger.info/projects/OpenLara/

[Neon Ignition]

Game 02 - Tomb Raider II
Without skipping a beat, the very next year brought the sequel that made more use of multi-roomed areas and some vehicle sections. The game also received an expansion called The Golden Mask. Developed in less than eight months, the game pushed the developers to their limits but despite the pressure heaped upon them the final product received critical acclaim and success like its predecessor.




A 1990's miracle?

[Asura]

It certainly was for Core. I heard many of the developers would, soon after, buy houses outright with their bonus.

[Cepp]

The first level of Tomb Raider 2 is so good, builds on the first game brilliantly. Then you reach Venice and it's just ****. Far too much fighting which was always the worst aspect of the original. I think you get attacked almost the moment the level starts in fact. I first played it on PSX and remember getting frustrated with the limited save crystal system.

It's also far too long. By the time I reached the shaolin-type temple I was more than ready for it to end but it just kept on going.

I do love that first level though.

[nakamura]

Yep. Great first level and Venice is utterly ****e. Core never recovered in my opinion. Never made a game that matched TR. Many good games before it, but peaked there.

[beecee]

i had left the Playstation when TR2 came out, i haven't actually played it, next tomb raider game i played was Legend on the OG Xbox

i have them all on the PS, so might give it a spin over the holidays.

[Neon Ignition]

Game 03 - Tomb Raider III
Having pulled off the trick with the sequel, Core and Eidos went all in to repeat it again with a third game arriving the very next year. Lara searches for pieces of a meteorite with the games engine being updated to allow for more lighting and geometry. Core attempted to pull the series back from the amount of action in the second game, focusing more on puzzles again but this time some criticism came in from similar it was to the prior games as well as the difficulty being pitched too high. Two years after its release a stand alone expansion was released called The Lost Artefact.







Third times the charm?

[Hirst]

TR2 was basically more of the same but not quite as good, I remember it being patchy in places and I didn't bother finishing it.

TR3 I couldn't even last an hour on it - whether it was that the formula had become stale or just that the opening stages weren't much fun, that was me and the series done.

[Cepp]

I booted this up last night after my post. Not played it since it came out. I got to the London level I think originally.

It starts with an odd FMV that doesn't include Lara and then drops you into a jungle with her standng at the top of a mountain with no explanation as to why. The moment you step forward you're sliding down and jumping over spikes. I remember getting skewered by them on my very first playthrough. To your left there's a ledge with a medipack. If you jump to it a boulder rolls down behind you. More spikes at the bottom. Very soon after I jumped in some water and was dragged under a cave by the current. There's a small exit with a long tunnel but its not the easiest to see. I was down to about 20% air when I surfaced. Then I entered a room, pulled a lever and got speared by a fast moving spiked wall. You're suppose to quickly exit the room but its a small enclosed space with bad camera angles and I didnt manage it.

And thats the first 5 minutes of the game! At least you can spam saves on PC. I'm probably going to play through this one in the near future but it does look to be a little cheap.

I was done with the original series after this and didn't try another one until the first batch of remakes.

This was peak Lara nude codes time IIRC, lots of schoolyard talk and mags talking about it.

[Asura]

This was peak Lara nude codes time IIRC, lots of schoolyard talk and mags talking about it.

Did we get this far before someone mentioned this?

[Cepp]

It was everywhere, couldn't escape it haha. I have a distinct memory of reading about it in a mag while playing the first level. Probably PlayStation Plus or some similar magazine.

[wakka]

Yeah rumours of a nude cheat were absolutely everywhere at the time. Hard to imagine how titillating it could have been considering the relative crudity of the graphics!

[Asura]

Hard to imagine how titillating it could have been considering the relative crudity of the graphics!

Thing is, people will joke today - and rightfully so - but I'm not sure a teenager in 2022 can ever appreciate how difficult it was to see a naked person in 1996 Even if you were an adult, if you weren't seeing someone you probably had to go buy a razz mag (I say probably because I never bought one; I think they'd already pretty much died off by the time I was an adult).