Tomb Raider

This game has you do it all. You go through all kinds of different obstacles while fighting a different array of enemies. The story is not the greatest, but hey, what can you expect for the first game in the series. Tomb Raider also threw in a little something different with Lara Croft breaking normal hero boundaries. Almost all video game (and real) action heroes were men until she came along. Don't get me wrong, there were quite a few women trying to be everybody's saviour, but Lara is much better. Gameplay is great, looks good for its time, and is fun to play. My rating 10/10

I will admit that when I heard the hype of the game just after it came out that I didn't even want to SEE it, much less play it. One day, however, I saw a friend's roommate's friend playing the game and just watching I knew I had to play too!

This game is one of the best games out there (better if you have the cheats) and is very addictive.

It's not just action / adventure, though there's a lot of that. One needs to stop and actually take a look around, to THINK about where Lara is and where she needs to go next.

I suggest this for all to play.

The first game in the Tomb Raider series is undoubtedly the best. Although designed to run under DOS and SVGA graphics the design of the levels retains a beauty and originality rare among games. (True devotees using a PC can download a progam called GLIDOS, which allows high resolution graphics in the game, and patches to allow the game to run under XP) The soundtrack, including the trademark theme, is also wonderfully atmospheric. Lara Croft was the first third person perspective videogame character to make a mark in the gaming world. Control of the character is relatively straight forward, and the game itself quite exploration rather than action orientated. In hindsight, the puzzle standards of pulling levers or pushing moveable blocks, have become a bit tired to today's players but there's still plenty here to challenge the intellect, and more than enough action at times to quicken the pulse. Lara's first adventure sees her explore the Andes, the Classical World, Egypt and finally Atlantis. Perhaps the plot is a bit derivative from Indiana Jones (after all Indy did Atlantis in videogames three years before Lara)but hey I'd rather Lara than some old smart alec with a whip anyday...

Tomb Raider was a sort of a technological revolution in 1996 because it used a fully 3D environment and polygons when compared to most other games which used sprites. It also made many advances when it came to interactivity because a large portion of the environment was actually fully navigable. If one does not expect the blasting, weapons and gore from the traditional 3D-shooters of that time, Tomb raider would have delivered a very unique and enjoyable gaming experience. The environments were not really varied until the sequel to this title but it was still fun. Its also quite fun to play this game on your Nokia while your old computer at the time, had a hard time coping up with the polygons.

It is probably because you only do what the title of the game suggests, tomb raiding that still makes this game of the series one of the best. Later you would do missions not involving tombs...where you would raid military bases and buildings. However, Laura Croft always seems most at home in an underground temple searching for treasure and clues to disable deadly traps and unlock doors. Which is basically all you do here. Laura is hired to find pieces of a device by a mysterious woman and she goes to different tombs in order to find them. There are usually some animals to kill and even a T-rex to fight. For the most part you are not killing people in this particular adventure. Though there are a couple of people in this one to fight. The ending is a bit over the top, however, this does not detract from the overall fun to be had in this game. The physics and controls are rather easy to get used to, and no need to worry about ammo as your default weapons never run out. You can also pick up a different weapon here and there including a sweet pair of uzi's. So if going into mysterious tombs is your thing, this tomb raider adventure is still tops.