A ground-breaking game

I missed Tomb Raider when it first came out (back in 1996). I'd seen the media comments about Lara Croft and the associated hype, but discounted the game itself. Did I ever miss out ... I finally picked up a cheap copy of the game late last year while browsing in a local games store. It took maybe ten minutes before I was hooked.

Tomb Raider recounts Lara Croft's adventures while trying to recover the Scion of Atlantis. This task takes some sixteen levels of 3D caverns, tombs and ruins, during which she encounters a variety of dangerous wild creatures, henchmen, mummies, mutants and evil industrialists. She also has to deal with spike-filled pits, lava, rolling boulders, the risk of drowning, puzzles, switches and sliding blocks, not to mention running, jumping and swimming around the levels. You get an over-Lara's-shoulder view of the proceedings.

The game's graphics and play were ground-breaking in 1996 and they're still not too shabby. Lara Croft is well-animated. There are some nice touches: her head and torso twist about as you look around. as you look around The emphasis is more on puzzle-solving than combat. Puzzles range from quite obvious to extremely involved, some requiring that most of a level be explored before all the pieces of the solution can be found.

There are some truly memorable scenes in the game: a heart-stopping moment when a tyrannosaur appears and chases Lara down; looking over the edge of the cavern under St Francis' Folly. There are also some chilling animations and sound effects: Lara writhing as she drowns and the crunch as she hits the ground from a great height stick in my mind.

Unlike most games of this genre, you're not finished once the boss monster has been defeated; there's still the escape to the outside world to finish.

Whatever about the gameplay, the game engine has some faults. The VGA version has visibility problems: portions of the level vanish as you move through the level. This problem isn't apparent in the version for the 3DFX video card, although that version occasionally crashed during a save of the game.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the game. On several occasions I was so engrossed that I didn't realise that I'd been playing for some hours. The only other game to do that to me was Half-Life. Tomb Raider is securely on my list of great computer games.