Have You Played: Tomb Raider

Now here's where I make a confession – I didn't actually play the game. Realise that, at the time, I was only eight or nine. Instead, my mum played it while my brother and I sat back and helped her. That sounds horribly embarrassing now that I think about it. A game like Tomb Raider is an action-puzzler I suppose, and looking back it never seemed hugely challenging, even for my mum, the gameplay being more adventure focussed than on actually killing people/wolves/flying Egyptian mummies. In many ways, gameplay is almost similar to that of the dungeon sections of the 3D Legend of Zelda games, though arguably much more linear. It's puzzle-based gameplay at its finest, made all the simpler by the all-pervasive grid system of the game engine, which from a 2011 perspective makes it look sort of like Minecraft. Despite the relative simplicity of the engine, you can nevertheless have some pretty interesting puzzles; I'm still of the opinion that the “gold bar” puzzle in the King Midas' Palace level is one of the finest in video games. I won't spoil it for those who haven't played, or who want to play the 2007 remake. Other than this, gameplay broadly consists of jumping around a lot, swimming, killing various endangered species, finding keys and collecting artefacts. My archaeologist housemate seems to resent people labelling Lara Croft as an archaeologist for some reason.

Of course, you can't talk about Tomb Raider without talking about the large pyramids at the end. And I'm not talking about the climax of the game. In her time, Lara Croft was an iconic female video-game hero, famously created when someone accidentally increased the breast size of the character model and decided it looked better that way. Of course, the fact that they're pointy is just a limitation of the gaming engine, which nevertheless is actually pretty nice looking, even looking back on it today. It was a full 3D game at a time when most consoles were getting by with sprites. Of course, I can't talk about this without mentioning the remake, Tomb Raider Anniversary. This was the second title by new development studio Crystal Dynamics, and is a pretty faithful remake of the original. My housemate brought it to uni with them, and I've recently been watching my other housemate struggle with the puzzles. Even though I've never played or seen this version, it's actually a pretty damn faithful remake, and looks a lot better than the original. It's certainly nice to see that what I originally thought were just square blocks in a yellow room were actually pillars in the foyer of a church.

As we go into 2011, it seems Tomb Raider is going to be rebooted for the second time, grittily, as is the current fashion. With recent titles unable to capture the magic of the originals, perhaps we can hope that something good will come out of Crystal Dynamics reshuffle.

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