Tomb Raider I - Featuring Lara Croft

How much patience do you have?

Do you adapt to specific control schemes?

Or are you incapable of trying non-standard controls?

Are you able to keep your cool when failing?
Can you try again and again with calm after that?

Would you forget what you did five minutes ago?

Will you get angry when you do end forgetting?

Those questions and more are what my mind thinks about the game 

I'll talk today, a type of game that defines the concept of "Trial & Error".

An experience as frustrating as it can be satisfying.

And a type of game that I simply do not see going 

successfully in this day and age, much to my dismay.

But that doesn't mean we can't enjoy it today.

Let's talk about the original Tomb Raider.

Created by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive in 1996, Tomb Raider combines methodical platforming with puzzle-solving sections to make a slow paced, yet satisfying Adventure game.

Core Design was a British video game studio that started operating in the later 80's, and being from the United Kingdom, their main platforms where the computers of that time, seeing that region didn't have as much interest for consoles back then. From their inception to the mid 90's, they did a lot of games, and they also dipped their toes on consoles (specially Sega systems). In 1994, they got bought by Eidos Interactive, and it's when they got the chicken of the golden eggs that proved Tomb Raider to be.

And funny enough, I never got into the original series! My first exposure to it was playing this, the first game, earlier this very year, 2018, on the second-hand PS2 I bought back in January after mine broke long ago. And I went in pretty much blind.

So let's get to it, shall we?

...What is this thing, exactly?

Tomb Raider takes place in an "Indiana Jones-que" version of our world (won't be the only mention to the classic adventure movies), meaning more or less a theatrical or romantic (no, not romantic as in love) version of it, with mysticism and ancient powers that remain a secret to most people. Our story starts in New Mexico, where a nuclear test unearths a strange old object buried long, long ago. The object also reacts to the explosion, opening up and showing that has what appears to be a person stored inside, frozen, or maybe just in suspended animation.

The CGI looks old for today's standards, but it has some neat creative stuff in it which makes it still have charm.

Far away, in the Imperial Hotel in Calcutta, we meet our protagonist, a young, daring archaeologist named Lara Croft, who is approached by a guy named Larson Conway in an attempt to hire her for a job. Well, not really him, he's not the big cheese, that's Jacqueline Natla, the owner of the obviously named Natla Technologies. At first glance, Lara seems to refuse the job, but then Jacqueline says the magic words, that is to say, that she would be exploring an incredibly challenging place in Peru, the ruins of Qualopec, full of all sorts of dangers, in look for a strange and ancient device named the Scion.

With such interesting offer being presented, Lara accepts and quickly finds herself in front of the doors of the ruins. After an incident revolving a pack of wolves, she enters the ancient place, only for the doors to close abruptly, leaving Lara trapped inside, not really knowing what she got herself into.

Oh boy, did this level make me a bit mad...

As the name of the game implies, you'll be doing a lot of raiding and exploring. You'll find yourself in many different places that will challenge you, areas hard to traverse and full of obstacles. The mention of Indiana Jones wasn't just because of the concept, the game has some very cool little moments that remembered me of the trilogy of old-adventure-serial-inspired movies, either those moments being thrilling little sections, or the mysterious ambiance and wonderment of these old places and their cultures.

While the ideas of exploring ancient places such as tombs and ruins as you avoid traps and all sorts of dangers can sound cool and exhilarating, make no mistake, because if you jump to this franchise (or at least, the original series of games) expecting to be an action-filled extravaganza, you're in for a rude awakening, as the original Tomb Raider is pretty much the polar opposite of what would yo call an  "Action" game, specially nowadays.

Just like I said earlier, Tomb Raider is not a game of constant shooting and moving, and a rush of energy. It's a game about calculating distances, about slow but precise movements, it's about memory and maintaining your cool. It's about being methodical, observant and patient. Simply put, the more I played Tomb Raider, the harder became for me to not see how close is to be a three-dimensional "spiritual successor" of the 2D classic video game, Prince of Persia.

While there are many games in the same vein, like Flashback or Blackthorne, the resemblance between Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia is astounding considering the shift in dimensions. Just like Prince of Persia, you need to think before you act, you have to take risky but well thought jumps, you need to not trust anything and you better have enough memory to not fall prey of that trap you managed to out-smart two rooms ago but you forgot when revisiting it. A mix of the frustration of failure and the satisfaction of triumph.

Well, at least I know that if I fail there's a chance to not die... Unless I manage to not land on the water, of course.

Like pretty much all games with that design philosophy, Tomb Raider is certainly not a pick-up and play sort of experience, specially during your first time with it. There's a need to not just know what button does what, but to "understand" the controls and how actions are performed, how the movement of the character does impact the result of your actions. The difference between jumping and slamming against a wall, only for falling to your doom right after, and jumping in a way that leaves you with enough space to stretch your arms and grab on a ledge, surviving the ordeal.

Because of the preciseness of the movements the game expects you to pull off throughout your adventure, Lara's controls feel initially rather stiff. It has the so called "Tank Controls" that Resident Evil made so popular to the general public; meaning that Up on the D-Pad moves you forward, while Down makes you jump backwards, and Left and Right make Lara rotate in that direction. The most important aspect of this control design is that the relation between character movements and your controls over it are reigned by one thing: The character's point of view.

You won't get anywhere until you understand that Lara will respond to your inputs always in the same way. If the camera is situated behind Lara, Up will make her move forward. If the camera is situated on the left of Lara, Up will move to your left, which is her forward. You need to get to a point where you're not looking from your angle but hers, and often times both points of view will differ.

Another big important thing to have in mind is that using only the D-Pad will make Lara run. This can be useful for long hallways or larger rooms, but can very, very easily kill you on tight spaces or when platforming around. That's why the R1 Trigger will make her to walk slowly, which not only gives much more precise movement for tiny spaces, it also makes Lara stop right on the ledges of the ground she's walking, effectively making impossible for you to fall off to your doom, which is also really, really useful while positioning yourself for jumps. Finally, while holding R2 & L2 Triggers Lara will also strafe left and right, which is also great.

Oh, talking about points of view, holding the L1 Trigger will put the camera close to Lara, and in a similar way to Super Mario 64, you'll be able look around more freely, which is most important to see the best course of action, or to find any important details, such as distances for jumps, or suspicious points to investigate and such.

You know, there's nothing quite like looking back on a game and seeing how much you improved your skills.

But of course, you'll do much more than just move around. Jumping is another vital element of the game and is done with the Square Button, and it's also something that needs lots of practice, as there are many ways to jump around.  By just pushing Square, Lara will first crouch, and then she will jump straight up, and it's useful specially for reaching ledges to hang from, as this jump reaches higher than others.

That crouching animation is not just for looks, it is important because it's what opens a window to input a direction for the jump if you so desire. Pushing the D-Pad + Square to jump in a certain direction at the same time would not be precise enough, as you could easily kill yourself if you pushed Up slightly before Square, making you walk forward and most probably off a platform and into your doom (this actually happened to me several times early on), or just waste your time because you pushed right or left slightly before and the only thing you're doing is spinning around. To do things right, you first need to push Square to make Lara prepare to jump and then input a direction for her to make the jump, and it works well.

Three types of Directional Jumps can be made while standing still, these being a forward jump pressing Up, a back-flip jump pressing Down, and the side jump done by pressing Left or Right. All of them can be really useful in different situations, like platforming for the forward one, avoiding dangers coming your way for the other two, specially the side jumps, as they make you go pretty high.

Lastly, of course, is the Running Jump, which is the longest and most difficult one, not to mention the one that reminds me about Prince of Persia the most. It requires a bit of a momentum to make it, so you'll need a certain amount of space to being able to do it successfully. If you can't run enough, you'll plunge yourself to your death by running of the surface you were walking of like a douche.

You know, all these video game characters moving such big blocks of stone make us, real people, look like total wimps. 

Jumping alone won't get you everywhere, either, specially because most of the time you'll be jumping towards surfaces that are on a higher plane than you. That's when the Cross Button comes in handy, as it's the designed input for the generically named Action command.

Action is your all-purpose button that many of the action-adventure games like to use. The most basic one is to automatically grab onto a ledge you can reach on the ground and climb up, in a very similar fashion to the 3D Zelda titles. But of course, if the ledge is way to high, you won't be able to do it. Once hanging from a ledge, you can also shimmy to the sides if you need to. Cross is also used to interact with objects in the game, like switches, handles, buttons, or push and pull blocks, just as it is used to pick up items.

The biggest and most important thing about this button is while platforming, though. If you press Cross while in the middle of a jump, Lara will stretch her arms forward, in an attempt to grab on to a ledge, and it is vital for you to get used to it immediately. You will lose some momentum doing it, though, so don't push Cross with every jump, as it can send you to your death.

The Action command is also a big life-saver. Let's say that you are on a small platform, very high. You push Down to back up to try a Running Jump, but instead of walking by pressing R1, you do a normal back-jump and you overshoot it, and you're falling off. If you press Cross right at that time, Lara will hang onto the ledge, saving herself. This is not only a safe maneuver you will really love to have, it can also be pretty damn useful to descend from higher places, as the length of a fall will be reduced if you go down from the ledge instead of just going down from the platform you're on, sometimes letting you avoid fall damage all together. Of course, for all this to work, Lara must be looking at the where the ledge is.

With the Circle Button you will Roll. Rolling is a rather simple thing, as it main use is just to quickly change the direction Lara is looking at. It requires a bit of space, so using it in tight places is a big no... Unless you know what you're doing. You see, you can roll off a platform and press Cross to grab the ledge, which can be faster than doing it by a back-jump. Rolling is also useful to avoid certain traps.

But rolling around is for the most part useful when you have to defend yourself.

What? Me, a coward? Yeah, sure, you try to wrestle with the bear first.

As seen in the introduction of the game, Lara sports two pistols that she uses to fend off some wolves, and they're not just cutscene stuff, you have to use them through the game yourself.

By pushing the Triangle Button, you'll enter into a "Shooting Mode", very similar as how it happens on Prince of Persia, when you take out your sword to defend from Jaffar's men. In both games, it changes how the characters control. The Cross Button changes from the usual Action to be the shooting button. Lara will aim at anything that is around the direction she looks shooting, with both pistols, but if an enemy is way to the side, she'll still attack it with the gun closer to it. The lock-on is pretty good and very rarely let me down, and Lara keeps shooting if you hold the button, which is useful too. Now, when Lara has her guns out, she can't use her hands to climb or grab stuff, making going around with the guns in hands is not recommendable.

And that's the basic control stuff. If it sounds like a lot, don't get discouraged, because fortunately the developers thought about that.

While I already explained most of the control-related stuff, the game comes prepared too, as before getting into the game proper, you can choose to go to Lara's manor. This is a tutorial area, and she will explain to you how to do the basic stuff, like the different jumps and grabbing on ledges. This tutorial goes across different rooms, but is quite short. It's pretty nice to have a place to ease people into the game, and even Lara congratulates you when doing certain things correctly, which adds some charm. It even explains a few things I didn't mention, like swimming.

But let's move away from the controls, and talk about the game itself for a bit. Last thing I'll say is that, while initially stiff, once you think about how easily you would have died time and time again with more standard controls, and how the game is actually designed, I'm glad the game plays like it does.

I guess rich people can afford transforming their mansions into training areas... and having their riches in the open, too.

Tomb Raider is structured in a rather classic manner, being a lineal experience all the way through. The game is composed of 15 Levels grouped in different areas around the world. But that said, just because the structure of the game is a simple A to B affair does not mean that the game itself is the same, quite the contrary, in fact.

Take the first area for example, Qualopec. While the first few minutes inside this tomb will be spent running through a rocky hallway, soon enough you will find yourself going across an ornamented man-made tunnel with bridges that take you to what seems to be an underground ancient city, or at least a place where people lived (and animals, seeing there is a tiny barn), formed by a collection of interconnected rooms of varying sizes and passages, some of them underwater, and that's not the end of this place. Then you add to it the search for items to progress and also secrets sprinkled all around and you have a pretty enjoyable depth.

Other Levels in later areas, like St. Francis Folly, are also pretty intimidating places. Imagine yourself a multiple-floored dungeon, with a central room that you have to climb with extreme carefulness, as it is in very poor shape, and in each floor there's a smaller chambers with its own dangers and traps created in honor of several deities. This area is probably one of the hardest in the game, and the single place that gave me the most troubles, dying time and time again. But also was incredibly memorable because the satisfaction of triumphing over it was also very enjoyable.

As I mentioned, there are secrets. In fact each Level has a number of secret areas you can discover by what I call "your usual video game gut feeling". That sensation you feel when you catch something suspicious as you look around, like a strange terrain formation that could lead somewhere, or when in a platformer you see a questionable formation of coins, fruits, rings or whatever item you collect that may indicate there's something fishy about that spot.
That feeling.

Tomb Raider is filled with it. Some are more obvious, but others are quite well hidden. And thankfully they have goodies for you to take. Most commonly you will find first aid kits, which you can collect and use when necessary and they let you heal a certain amount of life depending of their size. Other times you will find ammunition.

"But hey!" you'd be saying, "I thought the pistols had infinite ammo, you said it!". And that's true.
See, throughout your journey you can get ahold of other fire arms. The first one you'd probably find is the Shotgun, acting like your usual FPS, high damage at close range. There are others out there too. All of them can be quite useful, but you must be mindful of not wasting ammo too.

Talking about that, your only cause of deaths won't be by falling or because of traps. You will be also attacked by wild animals, and they want you dead badly. Early on you'll see Bats, which are easily dealt with, but making honor to their Video Game Bat reputation, can be extremely annoying and even cause you to fail jumps. Wolves and even Bears are also there in the early game, the first ones attacking in packs, while the other being dangerous enough alone. There's a decent variety of wildlife in the game, waiting to get to you, and sometimes in high numbers (making certain moments a bit ridiculous). Personally, I'm slightly bothered by the amount of animals that you end up killing to survive when I stop and think about it, but that's just me, and that feeling kind of dissipates when I see four or five full grown critters coming from the same room and I chuckle a bit. That said, there's more than just animals, but I won't say more.

In fact, I'd rather leave it at there as far as talking about specific parts of the game, as a big part of the charm is finding them yourself. And thing is, you're dropped into these places left to your own devices to explore and survive, there's pretty much no hand-holding at all. And I was so glad about that.

Aaaah, where's Christopher Walken when you need him?!

You see, it may be just me, but I've grown very, very tired of how over-informed we are nowadays while playing certain games. For some genres, being given all sorts of information can be great to make choices or assumptions, like in a simulation or strategy game.

But I feel there's a point when the level of information starts to work against certain types of games by how it impacts the player's way to see the game, specially if you want your game to evoke feelings and sensations; sometimes it can ruin the entire experience. When a game about giving the player a feeling of wonderment and a desire for exploration boils down to follow the arrow to the "next place", it kinda defeats the purpose of the game itself. It's a similar thing with how easier games have become, and you see things like when a game about surviving gives you constant check-points, pretty much removing any feel of anxiety or urgency. I understand why they are there, but at the same time, I feel it can kill the magic of a game extremely quickly and become just "time killer entertainment". But I suppose only weirdos like me care about this stuff.

In any case, it was this what actually made me feel way more immersed in the game. When you have to remember the overall structure of a Level, what areas are explored and which ones are yet untouched, and each little thing by yourself while you try to not fail, and having to repeat all of it again, it makes the connection between the game and the person playing it more, let's say, intimate.

Also, truth to be told, I even undervalued the size of the game initially, as each Level can be quite expansive, or at least, bigger than I expected them to be, with multiple things to do to reach the end. Stages, at least during my blind playthrough, were of variant length, with some of them being over an hour longer to go through. In fact I'd say the adventure took me around 15 hours, playing at my own pace as I looked carefully around often, trying to find as much as possible, and not counting the many, many deaths I suffered... Or caused myself.

Oh, so here you were, you little bugger , I've been wishing to find you for ten minutes!

Because of the length of most Levels, the game (at least on PS1 and Sega Saturn) sprinkles a few Save Points around each stage, in the form of Blue Crystals. This let you save your progress in a Stage up until the very moment you saved, but be warned, as each Crystal will disappear after being used, meaning that you have a fixed number of saves through a Stage depending on the number of Crystals there are.

Knowing that you can only save once, saving becomes a sort of "risk". Sometimes, a Stage needs you to do a bunch of tasks in order to advance, with a central, big area and different rooms, each with its own dangers. Reaching this big area can be a tricky thing by itself, so you would want to save, even if it is just to not repeat the journey to it, but if there's only one Crystal there, you may want to wait a bit and get more things done before saving; in case you die and have to repeat more stuff.

It reminds me of the Ink Ribbons on the classic Resident Evil series, and how you want to make the most of each. Saving at each Crystal as soon as you reach it can be a waste sometimes, and you could even make things hard for you on the long run, so thinking about it twice kind of goes along with the Prince of Persia-esque, Trial & Error gameplay.

In fact I like that there are limited saves. Compared to the "Save Anywhere" feature on the PC version, makes every action more important, forces me to put much more attention to what I do and what surrounds me, making me feel way more immersed, and there's a much higher feeling of accomplishment when things go well, even with the frustration you can feel when failing.

Being able to save at each single step you make completely removes the excitement to me, specially in a game that's all about precision, calculated moves and thinking before acting. Tomb Raider, just like Price of Persia, are games you have to master before you deserve to see the ending, and getting through by saving each time you get lucky (or as you English-speaking folks call it, "save scumming")  is quite honestly a pretty boring way to progress through, if you ask me.

Wishing to reach the next save point and being extra careful and even a bit paranoid about what trap could spring towards me is something you don't really get with mainstream games today, and one I felt glad to live again. It makes for memorable moments. I'm not going to remember much of that one FPS I played with constant checkpoints, so if I died I'll only go back to the previous room and it will be like nothing ever happened. I will remember when I got stuck in St. Francis Folly and its thematic rooms, dying more times that I want to admit as I climbed, losing my patience a bit even, until I got everything nailed down, and as a reward I felt that warm sensation of victory.

That said, the amount of Blue Crystals in each stage can vary quite a bit, sometimes you will feel the shortage, while others you may feel there are more than enough.

You have to wonder who's been losing all this medical equipment that's in good condition and functional all around the world.

For 1996, this game looks pretty decent overall. While it will obviously look better on PC thanks to a bigger resolution, I did have no problems with the PS1 version I did play. There's a nice visual variety between the different areas you'll explore, and even in each singular area the different Levels may look quite apart from one another. Lara herself sports nice animations for the most part too. And just like I said with Vandal Hearts, the game looks much sharper than what these blurry screenshots.

Now, as far as frame rate goes, on PS1 Tomb Raider is a 30 FPS game, like the vast majority of games during this generation, as it was the early steps of 3D gaming. While on Sega Saturn the frame rate is really not that great, on PS1 it's quite better. It maintains itself at 30 FPS most of the time, but it dips a bit when looking around in big open rooms, most usually the central area of a Level. It does not happen in every Level, mind you, but certain places can make the game chug a bit while the camera tries to show a lot of space from these rooms. It's the only real blemish I see, and all things considered, it's not too big of a deal, and I'm saying this as someone that truly despises unstable frame rates, not just because it makes things less fun to play, but because it actively makes my head hurt and eyes get tired.

Sound wise, the game is mostly quiet, with only the sound effects that you, enemies, or the environment (like running water) cause being a constant through the game. They go along rather well with the game in question, as they create a nice ambiance that goes really well with the loneliness and slow-paced, methodical gameplay. Silence does not get the merit it deserves. But Tomb Raider has a few music tracks too though, composed by Nathan McCree, which also worked in other games like Chime, Silent Hill : Downpour or several Lego games, besides other Tomb Raider games, of course.

His work here is small, but effective and well used. Music in Tomb Raider is mostly used as a Sting, as something that suddenly appears whenever you enter mysterious or important places, or do something of relevance, to accentuate the situation. Because of the constant quietness, when these musical pieces appear, they really make an effect. Not to mention, they fit very nicely with the concept of the game.

The music itself is rather quaint too, and I say this in a good way. There's no bombastic orchestra or rock 'n roll-ish tunes. The music is calm, for example the Main Theme that sets the mood greatly, using a Classical Choral style that really goes along with the idea of walking around these ancient places from old cultures adding some truly great personality to the places you explore. Other themes, though, won't be there to make you wonder but to give you a bigger sense of distant danger, as something might be getting close to you. Overall the work on the sound is nice, and while I love my catchy music a whole lot, I can also appreciate this approach to it!

You can check the soundtrack by clicking here!

Despite the low resolution, sometimes this game still looks neat... Even if this capture makes no justice to what I say.

I have to say, I went into this game with no expectations, which I think is the best way to go into a game, movie, or what have you. I died a lot, I killed myself even more times, and I got frustrated here and there. And I can't stop smiling because when I look back, those unfortunate moments made the good ones sweeter. I enjoyed a lot my time with Tomb Raider, something I really didn't expect.

The simple premise worked to its favor, but at the same time there were a few mysteries that kept me thinking about while exploring around, and the characters have that 80's Action Movie sort of charm. The game does not take it too seriously either, for example Lara has fun while talking to other people, having some sass and some one liners here and there, with a rather charming British accent, and Larson Conway, from the very first word he says in the intro lets you know what type of guy is, with his thick stereotypical Southern U.S. accent. It's lighthearted fun, and I kinda miss that these days.

The adventure itself felt rewarding and made me want to explore as much as possible. Once thing I liked too is that, once you beat the game, you can save and use that file to choose any Level you want to play, and try to find all the secrets in an area. That said, in this day and age, it's not going to be for anyone. It requires to have patience, something that probably is not as abundant as it was back then, specially when we have thousands of thousands of hours of entertainment in our hands that we can change as fast as moving a finger.

Now, having said I never played any of the original games, you may be asking if I played any of the rebooted ones. Yeah, I did. I tried the second one, and I beat the 2013 game.. And if you ask my humble opinion, it didn't stick with me. While I couldn't call it bad by any means (I think "bad" and "garbage" are used waaay too freely and most of the time used in very dumb hyperbolic ways), I felt it was non-special, and too focused on chasing trends; but of course, I can't bring myself to care much about Shooters in general in the first place, specially when I've been feeling the burnout for the genre for more than a decade now, thanks to the constant over-exposition since the jump to HD.

But Anyway... I'm kinda excited to try the other games in the original series now! In fact, until writing this entry I thought there were only three games on the PS1, but there are actually four entries for it, so there are more games than I thought!

I'll see what I think about the others, but I don't know when that will be. Until then, I still have loads of games to talk about so... Until next time!