Mitsota Reviews: Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider is an action platformer developed by Core and published by Edios in 1996 for PS1, DOS, and Saturn. I played the 1.6 PS1 releases, although all versions of Tomb Raider or more or less the same, including the iOS version, and the surprisingly easy-to-find Nokia version.

And you thought touch controls were bad.

The plot centers on Lara Croft, an english "archeologist" (ya know, like how Indiana Jones is an archeologist) and in-universe celebrity figure, known for her many solo expeditions into unmapped caves and tombs; as well as her recent discovery (and slaughter) of bigfoot. Lara is approached by Jacqueline Natla with a job offer, promising Lara a large amount of money. Lara agrees to this job not when offered large sums of cash, but when told how dangerous the expedition will be, implying that she'd be happy to do it for free if it seemed a challenge.

Dispite basically being told she wouldn't have to pay Lara anything, Natla has a would-be assassin try to kill Lara on her way back out of the temple, which is how Lara learns that what she recovered is only one piece of a larger artifact, and that Natla hired another adventurer to collect the rest of the pieces. After a quick stop at Natla's office to steal her notes, Lara heads out to find the rest of the artifact.

The story is kinda stupid, but in a fun popcorn action movie kinda way. Let's get to the gameplay instead. You could be forgiven for saying that this game controls like garbage, it kinda does by today's standards; (You'll notice my screenshots are of considerably lower quality then usual, it's because the game cannot detect Duelshock controllers, so I needed to use a different emulator than normal.) But once you get a feel for it it's very satisfying to navigate the terrain, doing cool flips, ledge grabs, and swan dives as you explore maze-like caves and temples. The fun of the game really comes from exploring and mapping these areas yourself, I personally tried to avoid using a walkthrough at all, although it's necessary for 1 or 2 of the stages.

That hole you can't see? Rest of the level's in there.

The game's not all switch flipping and key hunting though, as you'll be harassed by killer gorillas, lions, wolves, dinosaurs, and a (apparently) bulletproof french guy. Not to worry though, Lara's packin' some serious firepower. Duel unlimited ammo pistols will be your best friend in the caves, but you can also find a powerful shotgun, a set of .45s, some Uzis, and you look hard enough, you might even find a grenade launcher tucked away somewhere. A little overkill for animal control, but fuck it, it's fun!

Speaking of overkill; I remember people complaining in the new Tomb Raider that the deaths were really graphic and it wasn't in line with the series, but I disagree: Deaths here in Tomb Raider 1 were kinda fucked up, bearing in mind that these were some pretty cutting edge graphics. For example, when Lara falls on spikes the music cuts out as she reaches out to try and push off the spikes, letting out a gurgle as blood sprays everywhere, then she sinks to the base of the spikes. The camera just hangs on the scene until you hit a button. Kinda harsh for a "Teen" rating.

You can also die in stupid ways, like being turned to gold~

I suppose I should talk about the combat now, it being about half the game and all. The combat's kind of a mixed bag; Lara moves slowly and slugishly on-foot, so for the most part you'll be trying to do flips to get out of reach of animals. This works fine enough in larger areas, where you can pull off neat-looking wall kicks and backflips; but in more cramped spaces you'll be fighting the camera more than your enemy while you blindly mash the fire button, pumping lead into a wall while jumping up in down in place like an asshole. Still, you can always fall back on climbing up onto a ledge and raining death on the helpless animals who very rarely have the ability to follow you upwards.

In conclusion, I'd like to say that I'd say that I really enjoyed playing through Tomb Raider, and I would have sunk months into this game if I had it as a kid, easily. While it's a little rough around the edges, Tomb Raider is still a fun game with a lot to offer, boasting high-poly environments packed with unique areas to explore; tense chaise scenes, devious traps, and tough platforming challenges, Tomb Raider is a great title and a solid addition to anyone's PS1 collection.

7/10, clunky but fun!