Tomb Raider (1996)

INTRODUCTION

Tomb Raider was released on 25th October in 1996. It is the 1st installment of the series. It's an action-adventure game developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive for MS-DOS, Saturn, and PlayStation. It was also released worldwide for Steam on 30th May in 2012.

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PLOT



The game starts with an explosion in Los Alamos, New Mexico. A huge aircraft-like object crashing on the ground, where seems like a mysterious woman inside of it.

On the other side, Lara Croft, the main protagonist of the game was having a good time in the Imperial Hotel of Calcutta. Jacqueline Natla, a wealthy businesswoman suddenly called Lara to hand her a job. She discovered an ancient mysterious artifact underneath the tomb of Qualopec. She hires Lara to bring it and offers her a huge amount of money. The mysterious artifact can be found within the mountains of Peru, buried in the tomb of the ancient ruler of Atlantis. It is known as Scion.

The next day, Lara went to the mountains with a local hiker to search for the artifact. There was a huge door blocking them to get through it. There was a switch on top of it which can be used to open the door. She then reached for the switch by her grappling and pushed it. The door opened up slowly. The hiker was in front of the door. When the door opened up wide, he saw some glowing eyes staring at him. Suddenly some dog-like creatures came out to attack him. Lara tried to save him by killing those creatures with her dual pistols. But she was unable to save him by the time she got down on the ground. This is how Lara's journey begins as an archaeologist adventurer.


GAMEPLAY



The gameplay has a learning curve. It's based on precise timing, jumping, and shooting. Lara has control over 4 different weapons. The Duel Pistols, Shotgun, Dual Magnums, and the Duel UZIs. The Dual Pistols are the primary weapon to kill a large number of enemies that attack Lara from a distance of 15-50 meters. If they get close to her, she can use the shotgun to kill them in 1 or 2 shots. The duel UZIs are the best weapons in the game. It takes only 2-3 bullets to kill an enemy depending on its level. Though this weapon can only be found in the last segment of the game. You can also find various types of items throughout the world such as health kits, ammunitions, and collectibles.

The console versions have input delays. It takes about 1.8 seconds to register a button. This is probably because the game was locked in 15 fps and the consoles were simply not strong enough to handle the CPU load. Though the Steam version is perfect in almost every perspective. It doesn't have input delays as the consoles have.

By today's standard, you might call this a frustrating game. But if you look at the release date, it's 1996 we're talking about.


CONCLUSION



This certainly is not the game for everyone's likeness. It has a dedicated fan base who will always appreciate its existence. This is an extremely hard game to play. The controls were not easy to master, the environments were made from blocks of polygons. Graphically the game looks very simple due to the hardware limitations back in the days. The game is filled with deadly but fun puzzles.

Based on critics, Tomb Raider is described as one of the greatest video games ever made. If you're a fan of Uncharted, well, be thankful. It wouldn't be a thing if there were no Tomb Raider.