Tomb Raider Retrospective - 2

My journey with the classic Tomb Raider games started back in early 2020, when Covid-19 was just kicking off. As the lockdowns were kicking in, and people were stuck at home, Steam discount sales became a regular thing. Every week you would see 75, 80, 90, and, in rare occasions, 100% discounts.

I already had two Tomb Raider titles (the 2013 reboot and its sequel - Rise of the Tomb Raider) in my Steam library at the time, but I’d also taken to playing a lot of older games. With that in mind, I wanted something a little…different from my usual fare. Enter the first major discount sale of March 2020, I can’t remember the exact discount percentage, but it was significant. I noticed a franchise sale for the Tomb Raider series and thought:

“Why not?”

The bundle included 9 games from the series:

1. Tomb Raider I
2. Tomb Raider II
3. Tomb Raider III
4. Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation
5. Tomb Raider: Chronicles
6. Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness
7. Tomb Raider: Legend
8. Tomb Raider: Anniversary
9. Tomb Raider: Underworld

This 9-game bundle had a total cost of around R90.00 (around 4 or 5 USD at the time). If that’s not a bargain, I don’t know what is. I’d already played Tomb Raider (2013) many times, and I’d seen the two Angelia Jolie films, so I wasn’t unfamiliar with Lara Croft and her globetrotting shenanigans.

The 2013 game is one of my favorite games in general which, given the number of games I’ve played, is saying a lot. Still the idea of going back to the very beginning of the series was both daunting and fascinating. I wanted to see what the early games were like and now I had the opportunity to do exactly that. It wasn’t long before I started playing.

One thing I didn’t expect was just how quickly I would become addicted to this series. Of course, given that the series is 12 entries long - excluding the spinoffs which I’m not interested in playing - this is going be a long journey. Let’s start off with the one that started it all, shall we?

Tomb Raider I (1996)

Right off the bat, I knew this was going to be different. The visuals were different, sure, but I’d expected that. What I didn’t expect was the control layout. It took a while to figure out that the Spacebar would draw my weapons and not jump - which is what I was used to. Now, I had to press: Spacebar to draw my guns, Alt. to jump, Ctrl. to shoot/interact, the cursor keys (arrows) to move around), Keypad 0/Insert was to look around, and Keypad 5 to make Lara do a roll to turn around.

Now, truthfully, the movement I was fine with, I prefer using the arrows to move around, but the rest took some…adjustment. The hardest part for me was remembering to hold the action button (ctrl) until I was safely on a ledge or Lara would fall to her death.

The whole game is perfectly executed with that classic ‘50s adventure vibe. Each level is like a puzzle and, having grown up with puzzles, I enjoyed that aspect quite a bit. The platforming was like nothing I’d ever played before and I loved it. The platforming was completely new for me which made for an…interesting challenge (especially with angled jumps).

Caves

Caves is your typical first level. The difficulty is at 0 with minimal combat, a few switches to pull and things to collect. There are some traps, but in this level they feel more like a slap on the wrist than an actual threat. The level itself is also fairly linear, but it also doesn’t hold your hand throughout like other, similar entry levels. In fact, one review I saw put it best:

“There’s no obvious indication on where you need to go or what you need to do to get there. Instead, you’re expected to rely completely on your own observational skills and lateral thinking to work it out for yourself.” - Steve of Warr

Being forced to rely on observational skills and thinking forces players to pay attention to their surroundings - especially if they want to avoid missing things they’ll need. Now occasionally, the game will help out with the camera focusing on something specific to give you a clue about where you want to go. Still, you’re mostly on your own and this holds true for the entire game.

Now, I will admit that I bungled it more than once with this one. I miscalculated jumps - especially when jumping to ledges diagonal to my position, released the action key while high up and fell to my doom, and got shishkebabed and smushed by traps on more than one occasion.

All of these things are very frustrating, but none of them are my main issue with the game. Some reviewers have an issue with the save system (I played on PC so I didn’t have to worry about that), my issue is with the camera. The fixed camera was a bit tricky and I had to adapt quickly which wasn’t very difficult.

Lost Valley

The third level of the game sees Lara making her way through a sort of pre-historic valley to fight, get this, dinosaurs. This was something that I really did not expect, and the level became a personal highlight for me.

This level’s puzzle is really fun. There are 3 cogs that you need to find and place in a specific place along one wall to stop the flow of a waterfall to get into the first tomb. It’s a great challenge, but not so complicated that players don’t enjoy working it out.

St. Francis’ Folly

The first level of the Greece section, St. Francis’ Folly, is really cool and it’s another one of my favorite levels. It has such an interesting puzzle setup, where you need to collect specific keys to unlock a big door. Collecting these keys involves pulling switches that open doors. Each door is related to a deity/myth:

• Atlas
• Neptune*
• Damocles
• Thor*

* These names are changed in Tomb Raider: Anniversary to Poseidon and Hephaestus respectively.

Each door has a puzzle related to that deity - i.e. Atlas held the world on his shoulders, you’re outrunning a boulder. Damocles, dangling swords from the ceiling…you get the idea. These keys are used to open the level’s exit.

The Cistern

The Cistern is…not great. Getting through everything involves manipulating the water levels of the level. It’s not a bad level, but it can be confusing - especially for new players - and it drags on for way too long.

Change the water level, go to a place, get an item/key, back to the start, repeat until you’ve reached the end of the level. It’s also kind of…bland - not ugly, necessarily, but it’s also not appealing to look at. The blues and greens are rich, true, but that doesn’t matter if that’s ALL you see. Your eyes don’t get a break…at all. In the Peru and, later, the Egypt levels, you get touches of other colors - blue, green, etc. to break up the greys and browns. You don’t get that with the Cistern.

Palace Midas

Palace Midas has you searching for four lead bars* which you need to turn to gold and place in specific notches to open the level exit. One of the more…intricate puzzles involves a series of switches which, when pulled in specific orders, will open doors to other areas to search for the lead bars you need.

*In Anniversary, you only need 3 lead bars.

Just don’t step on the Midas statue’s hand - you know, the hand that turns the lead bars into gold ones.

Natla’s Mines

Natla’s Mines is a nice change of pace, as we finish the Egypt section of the game, Lara is captured and stripped of her weapons and the scion. After stowing away on Natla’s boat, Lara sets off on a sort of scavenger hunt to retrieve her stuff.

I loved this level because it focused more on puzzles and platforming with the action/combat taking a proverbial back seat.

Atlantis

Atlantis is…yuck. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that the devs were trying something different, but I don’t think this game’s depiction is what most people think of when thinking about Atlantis. Instead of grand stone architecture, weird symbols, and the remnants of hyper-advanced technology, we get pulsing body tissue and what looks like bone.

It’s not all bad, I liked the platforming bits - especially when there were traps to watch for - but the overall look of the place is just really unappealing.

Tomb Raider II (1997)

Tomb Raider II came out a year after the first game and you can tell there’s been shift in focus pretty quickly. The platforming is trickier, and the puzzles are slightly more complicated (at least for the first playthrough, after that; not so much). However, the biggest change is the increased focus on action.

Lara kills hundreds of people and animals throughout the game. Now, I love a good action game, I do, but it really doesn’t fit here. Tomb Raider is meant to be about puzzles and platforming, not shooting everything that moves, and yet that’s exactly what happened here. All that said, it was and is a fun game to play. The steeper difficulty curve just adds an extra challenge as you’re pretty much thrown to the wolves and left to fend for yourself.

“Tomb Raider was already a game with an element of trial and error to it, but here it feels like the player had to have pre-existing knowledge of the level’s layout to avoid dying instantly from some of the, quite frankly, brutal traps.” - Steve of Warr

The thing is even veteran players can have a hard time with this one. I’ve played Tomb Raider II several times and I still had quite a problem with certain sections. As far as the traps and such go, personally, I don’t have an issue with environmental hazards (spike pits, boulder traps, swinging blades, etc.).

In fact, I’d actually prefer that over all the shooting things, but that’s just me. Speaking of environmental hazards, let's look at some levels that stood out to me.

40 Fathoms

40 Fathoms is terrifying! You start off underwater with your air meter running and you have to find your way to a shipwreck. The problem is that you’ve got no idea which way to go and so you often end up drowning poor Lara. Even if you don’t drown, you’re still stuck running from a hungry shark which just makes things harder.

Still it’s a great level and a fantastic opener to the next set of the levels.

The Wreck of the Maria Doria

The Maria Doria is the shipwreck you boarded at the end of the previous level and, oh brother, it’s eerie. Think of all the footage we have of the RMS Titanic, now imagine being able to walk around inside the wreck and see the different rooms and such frozen in time - the way they were the night the ship sank.

You should now have a pretty good idea of how exploring the Maria Doria feels. The dining area where the bolted dining chairs and tables are on the roof, the many upside down windows, to say this is creepy is an understatement.

Floating Islands

If the Maria Doria was creepy, the Floating Islands level is just weird. A large black abyss, with bright green ledges, what could go wrong? Well, quite a lot as it turns out. You have wide gaps that are easy to fall through, statues that come to life and kill you pretty easily, the occasional boulder trap, and, oh yes, more human enemies to kill.

Even so, the whole level feels like an ethereal fever dream; like the devs were high or drunk or both and went:

“You know, we should do this for a level, it’ll be so cool!” - Developer, probably

Of course, poor guy probably conked out after that, and the sober people on the team went ahead and built the level anyways. Now, I don’t think that’s how the level came to be - just to be clear - but that’s how it feels.

Home Sweet Home

The proper last level of the game sees us in Croft manor, with Lara admiring her latest prize when the surviving mobsters show up and start causing trouble. Now, Croft manor is also the tutorial level - I’ll discuss that in a sec - so having the final level take place where the technical first level does is a great idea. I think the best part about the ending being at Croft manor is that it appears to have been made up on the fly.

“The game was supposed finish after the dragon battle, but it didn't feel like a satisfying conclusion, so we came up with the idea of having an epilogue, due to time constraints the idea of reusing Croft Manor was chosen, with just a pitch battle of Lara defending her home. “ - Gavin Rummery

One of the best scenes for me is the post-battle scene in Lara’s bathroom. She’s running a shower and before she shoots the player.

You know what the best part about that is? The explanation behind it.

“That was our response to the enquiries about nude cheats!” - Gavin Rummery

Yes, there were enquiries about nude cheats, but that’s something we’ll discuss later - in another chapter.

Tomb Raider III (1998)

Tomb Raider III is where this series kind of starts to fall apart for me, for a few reasons.

• Many of the levels are dark to the point where it’s nearly impossible to see - even with flares.
• The levels are long, to the point where you just stop enjoying them.
• Objective conveyance is terrible - trust me, we’ll come back to this.

I liked how the levels were less linear than they had been in the previous game, and Nathan McCree really outdid himself with the game’s music. Visually, the game has a noticeable upgrade, and the story is a lot more interesting than the one from the previous game. Additionally, the platforming and puzzles are more complicated which adds a good challenge to the gameplay.

Unfortunately, however, the game’s levels are so long that you’re often tired by the end of them, and it’s very easy to miss an item critical to progression. Making things worse, even if you get an item - as I noted in my 2023 review of the game - you won’t know where to use it until you sort of stumble into the right place.

“If you’ve built a level where an object key to player progression is something that can easily be ignored, or considered by the player as background set dressing, then you have failed at objective conveyance.” - Steve of Warr

There aren’t many levels that stand out in Tomb Raider III, which is a shame, but there were five levels that did.

These were:

Temple Ruins

Temple Ruins is the second level in the India chapter; the colors are vibrant. The many obstacles and traps were more lethal than the traps of the previous two games. The spike traps were downright terrifying particularly when the ceiling starts to descend on you or the wall begins to chase you.

Caves of Kaliya

Caves of Kaliya is the final India level, and I hate it. I hate mazes in general, but when everything is the same shade of green, that just makes it worse. I struggled to navigate this level, and when I finally got through it, I was stoked.

Antarctica

The first level in the Antarctica portion of the game. It's beautiful to look at, the color of the water, the snowfall, it was great. Nathan McCree’s musical work in this level is phenomenal; it’s soft and melodic, which I liked. The platforming is beyond tricky because if you miss a ledge and end up in the water, you have a very, and I mean VERY limited time to get out of the water because otherwise you die, which can be frustrating - especially when you’ve forgotten to save your progress…trust me, I know.

RX Tech Mines

RX Tech Mines sees us chasing Dr Willard - the guy who hired Lara to find the other artefacts into a mineshaft. From there, it sort of becomes a maze as you figure out where to go, but it culminates in you using a mine cart to navigate the level to open a specific door. That door leads to a path to a mini-sub - and, apart from the final level, the worst part of the Antarctica levels.

Meteorite Cavern

This is basically a boss fight that’s almost impossible to win without a strong weapon. The professor who hired you ends up a giant spider mutant who can kill you in one hit. He’s also invulnerable unless you retrieve the artefacts you’ve been collecting throughout the game from their pedestals around the room first.

The problem is, you only have a small window before your enemy is no longer stunned and will attack you again. This is one of, if not the most frustrating boss fights I’ve ever played and it took forever to get through it.

I made a backup save afterwards and vowed never to go through it again…and then promptly lost the backup save file…screams in frustration.

This meant that, when I was recording my playthrough of Tomb Raider III for YouTube, I had to do the whole bloody thing from the start! What made this even worse for me was the fatigue I was experiencing. Getting through the previous level (Lost City of Tinnos) was a nightmare that took well over 100 saves and several sleepless nights to do. Now, I’m stuck with a giant, mutated spider Willard who shoots balls of energy that will ALWAYS hit and kill me.

Unlike in Temple of Puna, where you could do a variation of the Lara Croft Hopscotch to avoid his attacks, that’s not going to work here. Why? Well, the walkways where you and Mutant Willard are fighting are VERY narrow and the mutant spider thing basically covers an entire section of the ground. It also doesn’t help that the walkways are surrounded by lava pits.

After several tries, I was so, so tired. Several times throughout my YouTube recording, I struggled to get through a section - hell, the Lost City of Tinnos level took over 100 save files to finish. Meteorite Cavern is frustrating, and I eventually gave up hope and took to the ‘net. I went looking for help, thankfully, the Stella Fairy came through with a save file for just after Willard was defeated.

Yes, I had to call on the Stella Fairy for a new save file just so that I can get through this first section. This was something I wanted to avoid as much as possible, but by this point in my playthrough I’d gotten to a point where I just wanted to get it over with. Thus, Meteorite Cavern became the shortest episode of my Tomb Raider III playthrough on YouTube.

Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (1999)

The Last Revelation came very close to killing my enthusiasm for the classic Tomb Raider games. It’s a beautiful game, but it’s also the longest game of the series clocking in at 35 levels. Unfortunately, there’s a LOT of backtracking throughout the games. Now, obviously, the previous games had backtracking as well - but not at this levels.

Peter Connelly’s music are lovely and the story has a great Indiana Jones feel to it.

Jonell Elliot took over for Judith Gibbins for this one and her voice work is superb. She’s classy, but with just the right amount of arrogance to make her interesting without making her unlikeable. I also really liked the storyline - which I have to discuss briefly before we continue.

TLDR: Lara accidentally unleashes Set, the ancient Egyptian god of chaos, and goes in search of the Armor of Horus so that she can summon Horus to put Set back in time-out.

Right, now we can look at the game as a whole. There are six locations in all:

1. Cambodia
2. Valley of the Kings
3. Karnak
4. Alexandria
5. Cairo
6. The Great Pyramids of Giza

I think I conveyed my experience with The Last Revelation very well in my April 2025 review, but there’s more to share detail-wise. So, let’s do this one location at a time, starting at the top.

Cambodia

Cambodia is one of the shorter sections of the game. There are only two levels, the first of the two is Angkor Wat, and it serves as the game’s tutorial level. The problem is that players - veteran players - will quickly become frustrated. Like most tutorials, you learn the controls of the game. Why is that a problem? Because veteran players - guys and gals who’ve been with the series from Tomb Raider I - already know the controls.

It doesn’t help that Lara’s mentor character, Werner von Croy, forcibly stops the action to explain and then demonstrate a move. This means you’ll sometimes be in the middle of a jump and then be interrupted by a cut scene of the guy telling you what to do. Making matters worse, you can’t skip this level at all meaning that you have to play it every time you start a new game - unless you have a backup save file somewhere.

The second level is a race for the artefact the two of you are looking for, but there isn’t much in terms of a reward for winning the race apart from some dialogue changes.

Valley of the Kings

King’s Valley is the first set of tombs and this is where Lara finds the game’s mystical McGuffin - the Amulet of Horus.

The platforming here is really good, getting from A to B isn’t too complicated. My one big issue, and I don’t know if my review mentioned it, is that the dark environments (all dark environments) are really hard to navigate - even with flares lit. The puzzles are interesting which is good but, and this is something I’m going to discuss further on, they are very obscure.

Still it ends with a car chase that isn’t really a chase - you’re kind of slowly tailgating the other vehicle. Even so, the accompanying music is just perfect. I love this whole section, but there were a few moments that irritated me. Although, not to the level of some of the later sections.

Karnak

With the retrieval of the Amulet of Horus, Lara goes to see her friend Jean Yyves who tells her what’s going to happen thanks to Lara’s rather bad habit of collecting shiny things. The first location? Karnak Temple.

There are plenty of interesting puzzles and challenges. On the other hand, there are also sections that feel flat-out unfair. Let me give you an example: the Tomb of Semerkhet.

At one point, you collect something called the Rules of Senet. You take these to a room with a giant game board and have to beat what I’m assuming is a ghost or guardian in a game of Senet - a sort of dice game, I think.

Your progress through the level will depend on the result of the game. If you win, you get to take a much shorter route and bypass much of the level. If you lose…well, then you have to take a longer, more difficult route to the end. Now, I had heard about that before reaching this level - although, the review I watched mentioned nothing about the rules - so, you can imagine my delight at winning the game on my very first try. A shortcut to the end, less traps, I could just breeze through…oh, how wrong I was!

It starts out easily enough, you go to the ledge above the board, hop a few gaps, pass a hallway, and finish a puzzle. All well and good so far; at one point, however, you end up in a room with a series of ledges. Nothing out of the ordinary, but there are blades that activate and kill you if you’re standing over them.

Adding to the trouble is that the door on the other side of the room is timed. It took me several tries over the course of around 30 - 40 minutes just to get to the other side of the door and then I got caught by the blades on the other side! I did get through in the end, but still I thought the shorter route was supposed to be easier…I think my idea of easy is very different for the game’s developers…

When you finish the Karnak section of the game, you end up on a train to Alexandria and Desert Railroad (which is the name of that level) is one of my favorites.

Alexandria

Alexandria has been a mixed bag of sorts, and getting to the Lost Library was a nuisance. Once there, you have to collect 3 stars and a gem to progress. Okay, got it. Collecting the gem and stars is a nightmare but, they lead to one of the more interesting puzzles - a planetarium. You have to line up a series of planets in the solar system, get it right and you’ll open the door to the next puzzle. I got this one done pretty easily, but the next one…oh, boy.

The next puzzle is a fire circle, and this one nearly gave me a migraine. So, here’s the setup: the room you’re in has a seven pointed star on the floor with a snake-shaped statue at each point. Each statue has a lever that lights 3 burners - the one that’s been pulled and two others on the opposite side of the room. You have to get all seven burners lit at once. The catch is that every time you pull a lever one or two of the other burners turns OFF.

Now, you would think that maybe there’s a clue to solve the puzzle, right? Wrong. The ‘clue’ is a scroll that says, and I quote:

“For the serpents to live, all must first be stilled. Provoke each in turn, and the circle will burn complete.”

Useless…no, less than useless. So, I start messing with the levers, trying to figure out what to do. I get 6 of the 7 to burn at the same time. Success, progress. I pull the last lever and…the two opposite burners go out - cue the scream of frustration.

After 30 minutes of this nonsense, I turned to Stella’s Tomb Raider Guide, the guide explained what you were supposed to do, but not HOW to do it. YouTube was next, but I just got more of the same. So, back to trial and error. I get the six burners going and pull the seventh lever…and solve the puzzle. How? No idea, but by the end, I had a huge headache, I just wanted to not do it again.

I created a backup save file - just in case and moved on.

We talked about objective conveyance before, well, here’s where the real trouble kicks in. You have no idea of the whithertos and whyfores here. What can you interact with? No idea, you just have to press buttons and hope that something happens. For example, doors. In the previous three games, you had to either push a button or pull a lever.

The Last Revelation has that as well, but there are some doors that don’t have a lever/button, you just press the action key (Ctrl on PC), and Lara will open the door. Now, I just have one question, and I think it’s relevant here: HOW ARE NEW PLAYERS SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT?! Seriously, the only way newbies would know about this would be if they’d seen reviews or heard friends talk about it - and that’s today! What about players back in ‘99 when the game came out?

Cairo

With the retrieval of the Armor of Horus in Alexandria, Lara heads off to Cairo to rescue Jean-Yyves after he was kidnapped.

Now, I actually kind of liked this bit - sort of. The visuals and sound design are really creepy. The platforming setup is...complicated. There are many ledges and chasms to jump and climb over, unfortunately, they’re easy to mess up. Many of these jumps need to be done with a motorcycle. The problem with the motorcycle is that it’s damn near impossible to maneuver. Additionally, you can’t generate enough momentum to clear most of them.

One of the major problems I had was the gun turrets set up throughout the city. When these things go off, they chew up your health. There is a specific keycard that will stop them from shooting you - unfortunately, it takes forever to get the thing. It doesn’t exactly help that you’ve got certain areas packed with combat encounters. Speaking of the combat encounters, the enemies are frustrating.

The beetles and locusts are a NIGHTMARE to deal with. The locusts tend to swarm out of nowhere and they can do a lot of damage for no reason. Additionally, there are these big, flying beetles which can knock you off of buildings! There’s also a fire-breathing dragon to worry about in one level which stands out as something which doesn’t fit in. I don’t know of any dragons in Egyptian mythology, although, I did find a serpent figure called Apophis, there’s another one called Akhekh….the more you know.

Once the dragon/serpent is dealt with, we head into the Citadel level and it’s probably one of the shorter levels - once you know what to do. The only part that really gave me a hard time was the compass puzzle. The puzzle involves moving pedestals marked with compass directions (N, S, E, W) onto specific tiles on the floor to form a…well…compass. I figured it out easily enough, but then I couldn’t get the doors to trigger.

Of course, and I don’t think I mentioned this before, but Lara now moves three spaces instead of two when pushing or pulling an item. That said, once I got the doors open, it was pretty much a straight shot to the level exit and the end of the Cairo section. One I want to note before moving on to the Giza portion of the game, I found it kind of funny how Lara swan dives and then is suddenly in Giza. For context, the distance between Cairo and Giza is around 13 kilometers (8 miles)...that must’ve been quite a dive!

The Pyramids of Giza

So…Giza…okay. Giza is the last section of the game and consists of the last 9 levels (27 - 35). It took a bit to figure out what to do and where to go to get through the first level (Sphinx Complex) and into the second level (Under the Sphinx). This is also where I found a puzzle that I was absolutely dreading. A set of three switches behind a pair of guardian bulls. The clue to the puzzle is a piece of paper with the English alphabet matching up to different symbols - three of which are on the paper.

It sounds simple enough, match the symbols on the walls to the ones on the paper and you open a door…except that’s not entirely accurate. I was lucky enough to remember hearing about this puzzle and how to get the first door open - match the symbols to the letters, then press the switches in alphabetical order in ENGLISH.

That first combination opens a room with the combinations for other rooms in that antechamber. If, however, you get it wrong, you end up soft-locked. A door opens but it leads to a harsh obstacle course that will eat your medikits like liquorice, the end of that course is a lever which will open the door back at the start - meaning you have to go through the course again just to get back to where you need to be. Moral of the story: Don’t go in blind on anything in this game - if you’re unsure of something, look it up.

Once you’re through this whole puzzle, you end up back at the start - as in right where you started the level. The next level, Mastabas, is a maze which irritated the hell out of me. You have to go through a series of buildings and then find your way through a series of mazes. Each maze ends in an antechamber of sorts with statues on the walls. This whole section was a major problem, because I couldn’t figure it out at all and, once again, I had to turn to Stella’s Tomb Raider Guide for help. Well...the statues had jewels in their eyes, which you’re supposed to shoot them out. The idea being to open secret doors to get a few waterskins - a large one and a small one, and a bag of sand.

These waterskins are crucial for a couple of puzzles that involve scales. The scale puzzles start out simple enough. I’ll focus more on the water-related puzzles because those were the bulk of things. One plate would have a water urn, and a feather in the other. This is related to the mythology of how to get to Aaru - the Field of Reeds (i.e. paradise).

These puzzles follow the same logic. If you get it right, you can continue on to the next area, if you don’t, you fight a monster and try again. The hardest part for me was figuring out how to transfer the right amounts of water between the two skins. Still, I’d say these are my favorite puzzles in the game.

Throughout this level, you’re collecting star keys which will be used to open the final boss area - we’ll get to that. Getting each of the star keys requires a lot of tricky platforming, and I’ve heard some complaints about that - that the platforming is too hard. In all honesty, while a lot of the game’s platforming was tricky and frustrating, I liked climbing the pyramids; it took me back to Tomb Raider I and climbing the Great Pyramid of Atlantis.

The final boss fight is…underwhelming. Set prevents the reawakening of Horus, and we’re forced to run through a sort of obstacle course to get out. Of course, it leads to one of the most iconic endings in gaming.

Tomb Raider: Chronicles (2000)

I was really nervous going into Chronicles because it has a reputation for game-breaking bugs.

Graphically, the game isn’t too bad but it’s clear that the game had reached around the limit of what the original PlayStation could handle. The concept of a group of friends reminiscing about Lara’s adventures after her death is a good one.

The first story in Rome is fairly straightforward, and I didn’t have many problems with it - apart from the few times where the objective wasn’t clear enough.

The second story in Russia is nice enough, it’s very industrial - much like the oil rig level from II or the Nevada levels from III. It is, however, much, much shorter than those levels and I can’t begin to explain how thankful I am for that! I didn’t mind those levels, but the did drag on for much longer than needed.

Here, in Chronicles, it’s a much shorter affair and I’m glad for it. That said, the shorter length also has a slightly negative effect. In the first story, we know what she’s looking for - the Philosopher’s Stone. We also know exactly what that does. The Spear of Destiny, on the other hand, is a mystery. We don’t know what it is or what it does, and all we get in-game is some an off-screen death from its seeker and some dialogue back at Croft Manor along the lines of: some things are best left alone. There’s no real impact to the artefact at all.

Ireland, the third story, is much more interesting. A teenage Lara follows Father Patrick to an island experiencing paranormal events. I say it’s more interesting, but that’s probably not much of an achievement - all things considered. The platforming is...okay, it’s not great but once you know what you’re supposed to do, you’ll be able to get around.

One of the more difficult puzzles was the labyrinth, you have to rotate a series of walkways to get to a specific door. Surprisingly enough, it didn’t take too long to get this one - I think it was two-ish rotations and I was there. From there, you collect a book and leave the labyrinth. After that, you’re supposed to stop a waterwheel to free a demon in exchange for Father Patrick.

Part of this has you diving into a merrow’s lair to try and trap her in a cage. It took me a few tries, but I got it in the end. Of course, then the cage was then raised by some pygmy-type things which promptly enter the thing and, presumably, eat the unfortunate captive. It’s a really creepy visual, even with the dated visuals.

Going into the last leg of the game, the VCI headquarters section, was where I got really nervous because it’s where the worst bugs are known to be. There are a few laser traps, guards all over the place - some with pretty futuristic weapons…all in all, another day at the office. For the most part, it played smoothly; I didn’t experience any of the bugs that people struggle with - though, that could be a fix implemented into the Steam release, but I’m not sure. Now, there was one section toward the very end where I had to rely on the Stella Fairy (if you know, you know) and one of her provided save files to get through which is something I hadn’t needed to do since TR III’s London levels.

Getting to the end of the game was really satisfying and, frankly, relieving. Still, I was very, very nervous going through to the next game in the series.

Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness (2003)

Ah, the proverbial black sheep of the family…

This one had me very nervous because it has a worse reputation than its predecessor. Still, I fired it up and, after a bit of trouble getting it to work, I was set. Most of the playthroughs and reviews that I’ve seen discuss adding patches to the original game to make it run better, I didn’t do that. I wanted to experience the game as it was when it came out…for better or worse.

The intro cut scene sets up this great thriller storyline that steps away from the typical Indiana Jones style adventures of the previous games into something much darker. Some time after the events of The Last Revelation, Lara is back and she and her former mentor Werner Von Croy get into an argument. He wants her help and she wants nothing to do with it. It’s here that the game sort of stumbles a bit.

“Egypt, Werner, you walked away and left me!” - Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness

The stumbling block here is that:

• He was looking for her - or traces of her - in Tomb Raider: Chronicles.
• We know that he did NOT, in fact leave her behind. Quite the opposite, he tried to save her before Set’s tomb collapsed around her.

After this, there’s an argument and Werner dies off-screen in a hail of gunfire. Lara, now on the run for murder, has to clear her name while finding the paintings Werner wanted her to find. Okay, so far, so good. Following a quick cut scene, we end up in the first level which is mostly a tutorial, but is thankfully far less obnoxious than the Cambodia tutorial of Last Revelation.

Unfortunately (or fortunately - depending on your POV), this is where we hit our second stumbling block, the controls. We’re still using tank controls from the previous games with a few minor changes to which buttons do what. The problem is that they are really, really awkward, the use of the mouse/touchpad to steer Lara around makes things a touch tricky because it’s not really easy to control. I will say that I really liked the fact that you no longer have to hold the action button to keep hanging from a ledge. There are a few new mechanics that I really didn’t like, however:

• Stamina
• Strength

Let’s start with the stamina mechanic. This is exactly what it sounds like, you can only hang from and climb certain ledges for a limited time. If the stamina bar runs out, well, you fall - often to your death.

The strength mechanic is a bit more frustrating because things from previous games are rendered impossible. Opening doors, for instance, you’d think this would be easy enough. In previous games, you’d pull a lever or collect a key for a door. Here, however, Lara will sometimes approach a door and say:

“I’m not strong enough.” - Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness

This makes no freakin’ sense, why not just say the door is locked? What, do you need to be an Amazon to open the damn thing? This is especially frustrating because Lara will indeed say that she needs a key for certain doors. Gaining strength also doesn’t make sense. Instead of doing something strength related - say, a dead hang - you push/pull certain items, kick things, and other such nonsense to trigger the phrase:

“I feel stronger now” - Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness

What’s the deal with the whole lack of strength thing? It feels like there’s a whole chapter to this story missing - which makes sense (I plan to discuss this later).

The streets of Paris are empty which, considering that there’s apparently a serial killer on the loose, makes sense to a degree. Unfortunately, there’s practically nothing to do apart from a few places to visit for story progression (a pawnshop, nightclub, etc.) which makes things frankly boring.

Locating a man named Bouchard is the first thing you have to do. Getting into Bouchard’s hideout is…difficult. First you have to make your way into the local cemetery bust open a crypt, but the actual navigation is even trickier. Finding him, Bouchard gives you a task to complete - deliver passports to a nearby pawnshop. In exchange, you’ll get the weapons and gear you need to progress.

The first level after getting your gear is the Louvre Storm Drains, and I HATE this level. Navigation-wise, it’s okay, it’s fairly easy to work out where to go, but it ends at a valve which you need to turn. The problem? Lara’s arms aren’t strong enough…oh, my giddy granny’s grumpy goat! So, now I have to backtrack and find a way to boost Lara’s strength so she can turn a damn valve, unfortunately, I have no idea what I’m looking for or where to find it and I really didn’t want to rely on the Stella Fairy for help.

I was able to get through most of the previous two games with minimal assistance from Stella’s Tomb Raider Site. Here, however, I felt like there was literally no other option because, as I said, I had no idea what I was doing. Now, I was able to get through the Louvre Storm Drains but it took several tries. How did I do it? Once again, I’ve no idea; it was a lot of climbing and some swimming, but that’s all I can really remember clearly.

After a month or two of battling with confusing levels, wonky controls, and terrible camera-related issues, I was so close, so damned close to giving up. In fact, I did give up - for a while, before gritting my teeth and coming back to finish what I started. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm for the game had been pretty much squished at that point.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that if this had been my introduction to the series, I’d have abandoned it almost immediately and never played another Tomb Raider title The really sad thing is that the game had a lot of potential. The murder mystery aspect, Lara being on the run trying to prove her own innocence...this game could’ve been so much better, and unfortunately, it just didn’t make the cut and suddenly Eidos' decision to take control of the IP and send it to a new team makes a weird sort of sense.