Before we begin, we must talk about sprucing this PC port up since it is a 1996 game and we have the tech to make it better. After getting it on either GOG or Steam, you'll need the Automated Fix installer someone made. Basically gives you all that's needed to make the game work as intended: OG PS1 water color, the Unfinished Business expansion that for some reason isn't bundled by default, the whole soundtrack, higher resolution, etc etc, some of which being customizable. That alone should suffice some, but if you're like me and want some extra pizzazz, you'll need one of those engine thingamabobs, a more modern iteration I used being Tomb1Main. This has loads more custom options, like re-activating the PS1 and Saturn versions' save crystals, using control tweaks TR2 and 3 have, allow for enemy health bars, extended draw distance and more. Again, all customizable, so if you're really just aiming to have it look and run better with extra polish, you can opt to use little to none.
Tomb Raider 1996. Another entry in my long list of "I've heard, watched, and looked up everything related to this classic while yet to have actually gone through it". I dunno what exactly compelled me to finally give it a look, but I suspect it might have to do with the fact I got hit with a cinematic platformer bug and this happens to fall inline, albeit more as an adventure title. Whatever the case, I'm pretty glad I did cause quite honestly? It's supremely dope, and despite what I have to say, no amount of "aged" or "clunk" could undermine how surprising of a heavy hitter this ended up being.
In fact, I'm gonna say right now, I struggle to really agree with some of these people regarding the mechanics and operation within the environment and overall lateral edges and blocks you interact with. Just seems like one of those "It's slow and deliberate which equates to having to grapple and learn the feel and rhythm of the movement to get the most out of it, which I don't like nor want to do" cases, which funnily enough is probably the reason I ended up grooving to the control scheme to the same level as tank controls; just becomes second nature in terms of what could be jumped via a standard or running start, sidestep and/or walking around to orient yourself, and bouncing around chaining all these sorts of maneuvers together. I'm also rather pleased to say the camera's also commendable for the most part, opting to stay behind you while you move around and follow along from there. There's a Look option you have to press and hold down in case you need to see what's above and below, and this also works when you're in tight spots and aren't quite sure what's safe and what isn't, so it goes without saying that it's one of the most vital tools in your kit. In fairness to those I mocked though, I'll concede in that some moments, particularly near the end of the game, do end up getting too rambunctious to properly handle the challenge and flow of what lies ahead, but rarely is it because of the platforming predicament and more on the combat and enemies, but I'll save that for later.
Indiana Jones is always brought up as a point of reference to the series, but there's a couple of other influences that helped give Toby Gard the concept and design plan needed to create Lara Croft, and it's something that especially clicks in if you're familiar with it: Ultima Underworld. The play-by-play of the environment and the trappings within it, interactions with objects, puzzles, and other action-based pulls and levers, and that whole boxy dungeon feel is present throughout as it goes along, and doubling with the whole spelunking atmosphere, if the controls weren't doing so already, this gives a lot of weight in selling the idea that she's been going through this multiple times. It's also just, funny as someone who's only experience was the 2013 reboot, to see this Lara gleefully blowtorch an elevator cable up to the rooftop of the villain's Big Office Building, invade their office, and then read their hired goon's journal in a manner that makes it seem like she's the one in charge. Also, that motorcycle stunt she does during the ending Egypt FMV? Hilarious, probably the best thing about the whole package right there. I don't aim to knock the Modern Era games just yet, but it's wild to see how different these two interpretations are irregardless of the time difference between them.
Another aspect I grew to appreciate was the framing of discoveries. For example, after going through the beginning portion of St. Francis' Folly, you come across a corridor that, at the end of it, you'll then need to climb up on. After this, you'll then see a Jenga-like tower construct, with the music beginning to play while you go on over and examine it, all while fighting off bats and getting a timed secret that reveals after activating a specific panel. Upon closer inspection, you find four levels of four different Greek Go- oh wait, Toby messed up and accidentally added in Neptune, a Roman god, and Thor, a Norse god, into the mix. Whoops! At least he amends that blunder in the remake. Anyway, four levels, four puzzle rooms based on each deity's strength and iconographies, each containing a key needed to unlock a door at the bottom, where at some point you'll also encounter Frenchmen Pierre as he learns about your arrival and aims to stop you dead. It's a fantastic setpiece and layer of design mechanically, in the soundscape, and visual feedback, culminating in one of my favorite levels in the game.
Sadly though, that's what a lot of my favorite events in the game end up as: moments. Like, everyone knows about the random appearance of dinosaurs in Lost Valley as one example, and there's this random outburst during the endgame of Tomb Of Tihocan where an experimented Atlantean Centaur comes to life and starts firing explosive at you, or pretty much the final levels doubling down on horror aspects of body gore and weird meat as you see these enemies burst to life... but the actual game ends up being just good enough in most cases. Like, Peru's set starts the venture off good, then Greece became slightly gooder than it, then Egypt became the goodest set, and Atlantis starts off good but then ends slightly less good. I've had dips and peaks between them - Palace Midas and The Great Pyramid ended up as my least favorites while I love the aforementioned St. Francis' Folly, Natla's Mines, and Sanctuary of the Scion - but there wasn't a specific stretch where I can say the game achieves greatness, if that makes sense.
The curve and exposure feels very rocky, due to having times where I've had a smooth ride from one area to the next, then suddenly got slammed headfirst into Padding Zones that serve more so to waste resources and time than to heighten the danger and mystique of these tombs I be raiding. I'm largely glad combat isn't entirely the main focus and it does showcase the puzzle, the platforming, or a mixture of both at most circumstances, but it gets a bizarre sense of focus willy-nilly in ways that I don't feel is quite right. It's especially at its worse when the Atlanteans become the common enemy and not the bats, crocs, and other standard animal wildlife since not only are they spongey no matter if you use the unlimited Pistol, the strong and reliable Shotgun, the quick yet efficient Magnums, and the beastly Uzi, there's also plain obnoxious, more often choosing to hone in to your location and claw at you repeatedly, a few times even getting you stuck due to positioning or cause they're the culprits making the camera freak out and start losing track of what's important. They also explode after death, but considering how surprisingly easy it is to stock up on small and large medpacks even without secret hunting like I did, this becomes a moot quirk of theirs.
Enemies aren't the only thing that can make things exhausting. When there's a consistent string of tough challenges after tough challenges, the toll starts to weigh in heavily, something I even debate on being worsened if I turned on the Save Crystal feature (while I did save scum near the end, for a grand majority I opted to do checkpoint-like saves, doing it at the beginning then doing another once I deemed necessary, culminating in about 3-4 usually being done). In Palace Midas, there's three challenge rooms you have to do in order to get lead bars that you then turn into gold thanks to Midas' "hand". One of these was pretty alright, save for a pretty bad Gotcha! right at the end, but the other two were pure slogs, due to requiring tightly-made jumps, shimmies, what have you. Despite being only 20-30 minutes, it took me almost triple that just to be able to finish it due to all this. It can be quite exhausting at points, and while thankfully it's a rare occurrence, it still feels like an unfortunate blemish regardless, but in this instance, it probably didn't help that I marathon most of the levels within a particular region in about a day, sometimes almost immediately after getting home from work.
Still, I do want to stress and underline something. This was a game released in 1996 developed within 18 months, the tailend also suffering from a bit of crunch overload (a thing that will seem to be a constant baggage for Core Design as a whole...), with a budget of at the time £440,000 - I believe this becomes like £810,034.51, or roughly 976kUSD when adjusted for inflation - largely developed by six people, those being Gavin Rummery, Jason Gosling, Toby Gard, Heather Gibson, Neal Boyd and Paul Douglas, with some extra work such as composer Nathan McCree and the OG Trailblazer for many Lara voices to come, Shelley Blond. Everything considered, it seriously does begin to show how much of a genuine marvel this was once it hit the shelves in the same year as Super Mario 64, as well as being two years shy before Ocarina Of Time did its whole song and dance. Lara Croft may not have been the first female lead in gaming, but she sure as hell gave a giant push for the medium nonetheless. That's powerful, and in some respects this gave me an even larger impression and scope to the strengths this does manage to achieve. I'm pretty in-the-dark as to how the OG Timeline sequels fair, but I'd be more willing to give a look now. For now though, I'm aiming to look at the remake next.
EXPANSION: UNFINISHED BUSINESS
NEXT TIME: TOMB RAIDER ANNIVERSARY
Tomb Raider 1996. Another entry in my long list of "I've heard, watched, and looked up everything related to this classic while yet to have actually gone through it". I dunno what exactly compelled me to finally give it a look, but I suspect it might have to do with the fact I got hit with a cinematic platformer bug and this happens to fall inline, albeit more as an adventure title. Whatever the case, I'm pretty glad I did cause quite honestly? It's supremely dope, and despite what I have to say, no amount of "aged" or "clunk" could undermine how surprising of a heavy hitter this ended up being.
In fact, I'm gonna say right now, I struggle to really agree with some of these people regarding the mechanics and operation within the environment and overall lateral edges and blocks you interact with. Just seems like one of those "It's slow and deliberate which equates to having to grapple and learn the feel and rhythm of the movement to get the most out of it, which I don't like nor want to do" cases, which funnily enough is probably the reason I ended up grooving to the control scheme to the same level as tank controls; just becomes second nature in terms of what could be jumped via a standard or running start, sidestep and/or walking around to orient yourself, and bouncing around chaining all these sorts of maneuvers together. I'm also rather pleased to say the camera's also commendable for the most part, opting to stay behind you while you move around and follow along from there. There's a Look option you have to press and hold down in case you need to see what's above and below, and this also works when you're in tight spots and aren't quite sure what's safe and what isn't, so it goes without saying that it's one of the most vital tools in your kit. In fairness to those I mocked though, I'll concede in that some moments, particularly near the end of the game, do end up getting too rambunctious to properly handle the challenge and flow of what lies ahead, but rarely is it because of the platforming predicament and more on the combat and enemies, but I'll save that for later.
Indiana Jones is always brought up as a point of reference to the series, but there's a couple of other influences that helped give Toby Gard the concept and design plan needed to create Lara Croft, and it's something that especially clicks in if you're familiar with it: Ultima Underworld. The play-by-play of the environment and the trappings within it, interactions with objects, puzzles, and other action-based pulls and levers, and that whole boxy dungeon feel is present throughout as it goes along, and doubling with the whole spelunking atmosphere, if the controls weren't doing so already, this gives a lot of weight in selling the idea that she's been going through this multiple times. It's also just, funny as someone who's only experience was the 2013 reboot, to see this Lara gleefully blowtorch an elevator cable up to the rooftop of the villain's Big Office Building, invade their office, and then read their hired goon's journal in a manner that makes it seem like she's the one in charge. Also, that motorcycle stunt she does during the ending Egypt FMV? Hilarious, probably the best thing about the whole package right there. I don't aim to knock the Modern Era games just yet, but it's wild to see how different these two interpretations are irregardless of the time difference between them.
Another aspect I grew to appreciate was the framing of discoveries. For example, after going through the beginning portion of St. Francis' Folly, you come across a corridor that, at the end of it, you'll then need to climb up on. After this, you'll then see a Jenga-like tower construct, with the music beginning to play while you go on over and examine it, all while fighting off bats and getting a timed secret that reveals after activating a specific panel. Upon closer inspection, you find four levels of four different Greek Go- oh wait, Toby messed up and accidentally added in Neptune, a Roman god, and Thor, a Norse god, into the mix. Whoops! At least he amends that blunder in the remake. Anyway, four levels, four puzzle rooms based on each deity's strength and iconographies, each containing a key needed to unlock a door at the bottom, where at some point you'll also encounter Frenchmen Pierre as he learns about your arrival and aims to stop you dead. It's a fantastic setpiece and layer of design mechanically, in the soundscape, and visual feedback, culminating in one of my favorite levels in the game.
Sadly though, that's what a lot of my favorite events in the game end up as: moments. Like, everyone knows about the random appearance of dinosaurs in Lost Valley as one example, and there's this random outburst during the endgame of Tomb Of Tihocan where an experimented Atlantean Centaur comes to life and starts firing explosive at you, or pretty much the final levels doubling down on horror aspects of body gore and weird meat as you see these enemies burst to life... but the actual game ends up being just good enough in most cases. Like, Peru's set starts the venture off good, then Greece became slightly gooder than it, then Egypt became the goodest set, and Atlantis starts off good but then ends slightly less good. I've had dips and peaks between them - Palace Midas and The Great Pyramid ended up as my least favorites while I love the aforementioned St. Francis' Folly, Natla's Mines, and Sanctuary of the Scion - but there wasn't a specific stretch where I can say the game achieves greatness, if that makes sense.
The curve and exposure feels very rocky, due to having times where I've had a smooth ride from one area to the next, then suddenly got slammed headfirst into Padding Zones that serve more so to waste resources and time than to heighten the danger and mystique of these tombs I be raiding. I'm largely glad combat isn't entirely the main focus and it does showcase the puzzle, the platforming, or a mixture of both at most circumstances, but it gets a bizarre sense of focus willy-nilly in ways that I don't feel is quite right. It's especially at its worse when the Atlanteans become the common enemy and not the bats, crocs, and other standard animal wildlife since not only are they spongey no matter if you use the unlimited Pistol, the strong and reliable Shotgun, the quick yet efficient Magnums, and the beastly Uzi, there's also plain obnoxious, more often choosing to hone in to your location and claw at you repeatedly, a few times even getting you stuck due to positioning or cause they're the culprits making the camera freak out and start losing track of what's important. They also explode after death, but considering how surprisingly easy it is to stock up on small and large medpacks even without secret hunting like I did, this becomes a moot quirk of theirs.
Enemies aren't the only thing that can make things exhausting. When there's a consistent string of tough challenges after tough challenges, the toll starts to weigh in heavily, something I even debate on being worsened if I turned on the Save Crystal feature (while I did save scum near the end, for a grand majority I opted to do checkpoint-like saves, doing it at the beginning then doing another once I deemed necessary, culminating in about 3-4 usually being done). In Palace Midas, there's three challenge rooms you have to do in order to get lead bars that you then turn into gold thanks to Midas' "hand". One of these was pretty alright, save for a pretty bad Gotcha! right at the end, but the other two were pure slogs, due to requiring tightly-made jumps, shimmies, what have you. Despite being only 20-30 minutes, it took me almost triple that just to be able to finish it due to all this. It can be quite exhausting at points, and while thankfully it's a rare occurrence, it still feels like an unfortunate blemish regardless, but in this instance, it probably didn't help that I marathon most of the levels within a particular region in about a day, sometimes almost immediately after getting home from work.
Still, I do want to stress and underline something. This was a game released in 1996 developed within 18 months, the tailend also suffering from a bit of crunch overload (a thing that will seem to be a constant baggage for Core Design as a whole...), with a budget of at the time £440,000 - I believe this becomes like £810,034.51, or roughly 976kUSD when adjusted for inflation - largely developed by six people, those being Gavin Rummery, Jason Gosling, Toby Gard, Heather Gibson, Neal Boyd and Paul Douglas, with some extra work such as composer Nathan McCree and the OG Trailblazer for many Lara voices to come, Shelley Blond. Everything considered, it seriously does begin to show how much of a genuine marvel this was once it hit the shelves in the same year as Super Mario 64, as well as being two years shy before Ocarina Of Time did its whole song and dance. Lara Croft may not have been the first female lead in gaming, but she sure as hell gave a giant push for the medium nonetheless. That's powerful, and in some respects this gave me an even larger impression and scope to the strengths this does manage to achieve. I'm pretty in-the-dark as to how the OG Timeline sequels fair, but I'd be more willing to give a look now. For now though, I'm aiming to look at the remake next.
EXPANSION: UNFINISHED BUSINESS
NEXT TIME: TOMB RAIDER ANNIVERSARY
8 Comments
Thanks for pointing out all the necessary PC mods, gonna be a godsend when my friends peer pressure me into playing yet another tank controls game (that I secretly wanted to play too)
@FallenGrace It will always be funny to me that despite being heavily associated with the Playstation branding, it actually first released for the Saturn in the PAL regions back in late October. It's been a while since I've seen footage of that particular version, but I do remember thinking it was an even more impressive graphical showcase for that system as well.
@Drax No problem, and like I said in regards to Tomb1Main it's very customizable. There's a config tool that'll do most of the basic options and tweaks, but if you want stuff like the save crystals and draw distance increase, you'll have to change the gameflow.cfg file located in the cfg folder. Not really needed of course, but I figured it's worth mentioning just in case.
@Drax No problem, and like I said in regards to Tomb1Main it's very customizable. There's a config tool that'll do most of the basic options and tweaks, but if you want stuff like the save crystals and draw distance increase, you'll have to change the gameflow.cfg file located in the cfg folder. Not really needed of course, but I figured it's worth mentioning just in case.
whoops, messed up the second video link for Catbox in that reply, let's try it again on Streamable
Thank you so much for the respectful review of this gem, it gets treated so harshly these days despite being such a massive game back then that turned into a huge franchise.
@Vee As much as I got ired and annoyed during some bits, such as the aforementioned Palace Midas level or That Sliding Jump section in Sanctuary Of The Scion, I do think the difficulty and roughness of the first game is overblown by folks. I guess that's just bound to happen with pre-7th Gen games unfortunately.
Great review!
Anyways, here's something I recommend everyone who likes the OH Tomb Raider: try playing it with the OpenLara source port. It has a lot of nice options like playing at 60fps and high res, but the most interesting one is the ability to okay the whole game in first-person. The game works insanely well as a first-person platformer, it almost feels like some obscure predecessor to Mirror's Edge.
Anyways, here's something I recommend everyone who likes the OH Tomb Raider: try playing it with the OpenLara source port. It has a lot of nice options like playing at 60fps and high res, but the most interesting one is the ability to okay the whole game in first-person. The game works insanely well as a first-person platformer, it almost feels like some obscure predecessor to Mirror's Edge.
I really gotta play this sometime. The control scheme always put me off but seeing clips you were posting and just that fuckin atmosphere alone has me super interested in playing it myself finally sometime.
FallenGrace
1 year ago
I may have to replay it again soon 🤔