"An Interesting Start For Lara Croft Hampered By Aged Controls"
Beginning in 1996, the Tomb Raider franchise has had a long, storied, and accomplished history spanning nearly 25 years. Lara Croft is one of the most iconic video game characters of all time, finding popularity in the video game art scene, cosplay scene, and even finding her way to appearing on the "big" screen with two blockbuster films to this date! However, many forget her humble beginnings, so I figured I would go ahead and check out this groundbreaking title!
I'll come right out and say it - the controls have not aged well, even with mods to make them better. This game has tank controls for movement, shooting, and platforming, and its a very awkward and frustrating experience. The difficulty is fairly high for some fights in the game, with the fights against human opponents and one particularly huge dinosaur being very difficult to overcome. While progression was still made on my end, the game just didn't feel "good" to play.
The sound is alright, and some of the tracks are fairly exhilarating for combat scenarios, but the effects just fall a bit flat to me. There's a large amount of repetitive ambient noise that plays in the background in between larger, ore dramatic tracks, and this does little to add to the game's immersion.
The visuals are pretty good for such an old title despite the environmental textures appearing a bit plain and wonky at times. The facial animations are cool to see, and give Lara a sense of emotion and reaction to many events in the game. The character animations are very advanced for 1996, with Lara being able to acrobatically scale obstacles with style and finesse. Enemies are distinguishable from the environments, and are terrifying to fight against.
The gameplay is fairly straightforward, and there are some systems that are very solid. There is a good blend of action, exploration, puzzles, and platforming, giving the game a nice well-rounded feel. Puzzles aren't too difficult to figure out. Exploration is pretty cool, mainly due to the game's nice color scheme and varied environments. Action and platforming are presented well enough, but there's a huge issue with the game that makes these portions of gameplay unbearable to play through...
Despite having some great presentation from the era that still holds up well to this day, the gameplay suffers a bunch due to the game's archaic control scheme. Tank controls do not work well in this title, as the lack of camera controls are also very frustrating. While Lara is able to lock on to foes without turning the camera, its hard to get her to focus on certain enemies, making combat a chore. Dodges and jumps are slightly delayed and very awkward to complete without the ability to fine-tune your directional controls, so it makes Lara feel like a stupid bunny hopping all over the place. Its really not that fun, and causes Lara to take heaps of unnecessary damage.
Platforming is where this game suffers as well. The controls translate ever worse to platforming sections, and there were many times I died trying to complete a maneuver over and over again! There are specific angle where Lara can grab on to objects, and they are pretty unforgiving, leading to countless trial and error moments. Sometimes there is such a small window to properly time a jump where it makes you repeat sections dozens of times. Altogether, the controls ruin the main portions of gameplay.
Sadly, my experience with this game was ruined by its controls. I liked the systems it had in place, but I couldn't enjoy them to their full extent due to lackluster and dated controls. It is impossible to change now, since there are no camera controls or strafing controls included in the title. Besides the controls, the rest of the game is fairly modern by today's standards. You can clearly see its influence in many modern Action-Adventure titles! Still, I will Not Recommend playing this title unless you are really willing to put up with some awful controls. It didn't have enough going for it in order to make me ignore its age, but I still respect the progress it made as a game!
Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)
Beginning in 1996, the Tomb Raider franchise has had a long, storied, and accomplished history spanning nearly 25 years. Lara Croft is one of the most iconic video game characters of all time, finding popularity in the video game art scene, cosplay scene, and even finding her way to appearing on the "big" screen with two blockbuster films to this date! However, many forget her humble beginnings, so I figured I would go ahead and check out this groundbreaking title!
I'll come right out and say it - the controls have not aged well, even with mods to make them better. This game has tank controls for movement, shooting, and platforming, and its a very awkward and frustrating experience. The difficulty is fairly high for some fights in the game, with the fights against human opponents and one particularly huge dinosaur being very difficult to overcome. While progression was still made on my end, the game just didn't feel "good" to play.
The sound is alright, and some of the tracks are fairly exhilarating for combat scenarios, but the effects just fall a bit flat to me. There's a large amount of repetitive ambient noise that plays in the background in between larger, ore dramatic tracks, and this does little to add to the game's immersion.
The visuals are pretty good for such an old title despite the environmental textures appearing a bit plain and wonky at times. The facial animations are cool to see, and give Lara a sense of emotion and reaction to many events in the game. The character animations are very advanced for 1996, with Lara being able to acrobatically scale obstacles with style and finesse. Enemies are distinguishable from the environments, and are terrifying to fight against.
The gameplay is fairly straightforward, and there are some systems that are very solid. There is a good blend of action, exploration, puzzles, and platforming, giving the game a nice well-rounded feel. Puzzles aren't too difficult to figure out. Exploration is pretty cool, mainly due to the game's nice color scheme and varied environments. Action and platforming are presented well enough, but there's a huge issue with the game that makes these portions of gameplay unbearable to play through...
Despite having some great presentation from the era that still holds up well to this day, the gameplay suffers a bunch due to the game's archaic control scheme. Tank controls do not work well in this title, as the lack of camera controls are also very frustrating. While Lara is able to lock on to foes without turning the camera, its hard to get her to focus on certain enemies, making combat a chore. Dodges and jumps are slightly delayed and very awkward to complete without the ability to fine-tune your directional controls, so it makes Lara feel like a stupid bunny hopping all over the place. Its really not that fun, and causes Lara to take heaps of unnecessary damage.
Platforming is where this game suffers as well. The controls translate ever worse to platforming sections, and there were many times I died trying to complete a maneuver over and over again! There are specific angle where Lara can grab on to objects, and they are pretty unforgiving, leading to countless trial and error moments. Sometimes there is such a small window to properly time a jump where it makes you repeat sections dozens of times. Altogether, the controls ruin the main portions of gameplay.
Sadly, my experience with this game was ruined by its controls. I liked the systems it had in place, but I couldn't enjoy them to their full extent due to lackluster and dated controls. It is impossible to change now, since there are no camera controls or strafing controls included in the title. Besides the controls, the rest of the game is fairly modern by today's standards. You can clearly see its influence in many modern Action-Adventure titles! Still, I will Not Recommend playing this title unless you are really willing to put up with some awful controls. It didn't have enough going for it in order to make me ignore its age, but I still respect the progress it made as a game!
Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)