A retrospective that shows why this is one fruitbat who is psyched for the upcoming reboot
The original Tomb Raider games are, without question, the scariest games I've ever played. Well, I say played; after being mesmorised by the very first game on a friend's PC I was compelled to pick up the sequel a few years later. I made it as much as five levels in before the jitters and the willies ganged up and assaulted my nervous system, forcing me to quit to desktop with shaking hands.
There's something, by which I mean several somethings, that I find terrifying about the old-school Tomb Raider. Partly it's the golem-esque thugs who stride towards you in complete silence, not even flinching at a shotgun blast delivered point-blank to the chest. Partly it's the sudden and monstrously unfair traps that wipe out your health bar in a furious storm of pixellated blood. But really, what makes Tomb Raider 1 through 5 so knee-knocking, so breath-catching and so utterly memorable is the pitch-perfect design and atmosphere.
The levels are distressingly claustrophobic, steeped in twisting architecture and midnight shadows in which any number of enemies may lurk, which is a pretty stunning feat when many of the levels include or consist entirely of enormously expansive playgrounds. The controls and pacing are clipped, precise and measured, requiring split-second decisions while still leaving you with the uncomfortable weightiness and sluggishness of a real human being. She may be a bloodthirsty mass-murderer who can take her share of tiger maulings, but Lara Croft still gets hit by enough boulders and spike walls to make her feel incredibly fragile.
My experience of post-Core Design Tomb Raider has been limited to half of Tomb Raider: Anniversary, but as a gameplay experience it builds on the Lego-style blockiness of old remarkably well; far from being tainted by the linear, funnelled and massively signposted level design that ruined Uncharted and quite a few other modern adventure games for me, it stays true to the dense atmosphere and organic construction that rocketed the series to fame, with the benefits of modern lighting and collision models used to their fullest. The shining example of this is almost certainly the water wheel puzzle, which has transformed from a set of dull, grey blobs on a dull, grey wall to a roaring, creaking colossus of intricate woodwork set high atop an immense rock wall. That said, the echoing darkness of Saint Francis' Folly demonstrates the heavy dose of restraint that was integral to old-school Raider, with lengthy periods devoid of combat and heavy on exploration and planning. It's fair to say that the series is in safe hands with regards to gameplay.
The same can't be said for the characterisation, though, which is as a depressingly video-gamey as ever. Lara Croft blackflips and quips with tiresome ease, and her cucumber-cool demeanour comes over as distressingly deranged, given her propensity to bust into peoples' homes and turn them to swiss cheese just for possessing her new favourite shiny. We should probably be thankful they haven't taken a crack at a Tomb Raider 2 makeover, which would have begun with a corpse-laden tour of Venice and led to a full-scale assault on an offshore oil rig. I know that an obscene lack of humanity is pretty de rigeur for video games, but that doesn't make me any less sick of it in all but the most slapstick of games.
Which brings me on to the new Tomb Raider, which I'm confidentally ear-marking as one of my future must-buy titles. Having fought past living statues, super-evolved spider demons and a shambling, legless giant in adventures past, the deliberate horror vibe sits pretty well with me, not least because the terrible graphics of old contributed to that feel and thus managed to be lost in the newer games, through the fault of no-one in particular. I'm aware that reboots are the flavour of the day, but there are a fair few franchises that need a new coat of paint, and Tomb Raider certainly ranks among them. Even if Lara is no less bloodthirsty, giving her murderous tendencies some kind of context is essential if she's going to be more than a rapidly dating icon of former times and regain her title as an archetype worth emulating.
My only concern is whether the tribal, voodoo imagery is going to lead to something genuinely mystical like the previous games or firmly ground the game in reality, which would be an enormous shame. TR3 got the balance wrong by throwing walking Shiva statues into the second level, but the lead up to Floating Islands in TR2 ranks as one of my most treasured gaming memories; after a long and torturous journey through a series of underwater caverns, housing a shipwreck of Titanic proportions, Lara returns to the Great Wall of China and descends into hell. Deep underground, ancient Chinese buildings lie embedded in glowing green crystals, suspended in the middle of a dark, endless, stormy void.
It was, and still is, a curve ball that acts as the perfect climax to the crushing darkness you've already had to struggle through. The entire experience gave me the willies; so long as it doesn't sideline the mysticism that made its predecessors so memorable, I fully expect the new Raider to do the same. Here's hoping for a successful opening to the latest chapter of a classic series.
The original Tomb Raider games are, without question, the scariest games I've ever played. Well, I say played; after being mesmorised by the very first game on a friend's PC I was compelled to pick up the sequel a few years later. I made it as much as five levels in before the jitters and the willies ganged up and assaulted my nervous system, forcing me to quit to desktop with shaking hands.
There's something, by which I mean several somethings, that I find terrifying about the old-school Tomb Raider. Partly it's the golem-esque thugs who stride towards you in complete silence, not even flinching at a shotgun blast delivered point-blank to the chest. Partly it's the sudden and monstrously unfair traps that wipe out your health bar in a furious storm of pixellated blood. But really, what makes Tomb Raider 1 through 5 so knee-knocking, so breath-catching and so utterly memorable is the pitch-perfect design and atmosphere.
The levels are distressingly claustrophobic, steeped in twisting architecture and midnight shadows in which any number of enemies may lurk, which is a pretty stunning feat when many of the levels include or consist entirely of enormously expansive playgrounds. The controls and pacing are clipped, precise and measured, requiring split-second decisions while still leaving you with the uncomfortable weightiness and sluggishness of a real human being. She may be a bloodthirsty mass-murderer who can take her share of tiger maulings, but Lara Croft still gets hit by enough boulders and spike walls to make her feel incredibly fragile.
My experience of post-Core Design Tomb Raider has been limited to half of Tomb Raider: Anniversary, but as a gameplay experience it builds on the Lego-style blockiness of old remarkably well; far from being tainted by the linear, funnelled and massively signposted level design that ruined Uncharted and quite a few other modern adventure games for me, it stays true to the dense atmosphere and organic construction that rocketed the series to fame, with the benefits of modern lighting and collision models used to their fullest. The shining example of this is almost certainly the water wheel puzzle, which has transformed from a set of dull, grey blobs on a dull, grey wall to a roaring, creaking colossus of intricate woodwork set high atop an immense rock wall. That said, the echoing darkness of Saint Francis' Folly demonstrates the heavy dose of restraint that was integral to old-school Raider, with lengthy periods devoid of combat and heavy on exploration and planning. It's fair to say that the series is in safe hands with regards to gameplay.
The same can't be said for the characterisation, though, which is as a depressingly video-gamey as ever. Lara Croft blackflips and quips with tiresome ease, and her cucumber-cool demeanour comes over as distressingly deranged, given her propensity to bust into peoples' homes and turn them to swiss cheese just for possessing her new favourite shiny. We should probably be thankful they haven't taken a crack at a Tomb Raider 2 makeover, which would have begun with a corpse-laden tour of Venice and led to a full-scale assault on an offshore oil rig. I know that an obscene lack of humanity is pretty de rigeur for video games, but that doesn't make me any less sick of it in all but the most slapstick of games.
Which brings me on to the new Tomb Raider, which I'm confidentally ear-marking as one of my future must-buy titles. Having fought past living statues, super-evolved spider demons and a shambling, legless giant in adventures past, the deliberate horror vibe sits pretty well with me, not least because the terrible graphics of old contributed to that feel and thus managed to be lost in the newer games, through the fault of no-one in particular. I'm aware that reboots are the flavour of the day, but there are a fair few franchises that need a new coat of paint, and Tomb Raider certainly ranks among them. Even if Lara is no less bloodthirsty, giving her murderous tendencies some kind of context is essential if she's going to be more than a rapidly dating icon of former times and regain her title as an archetype worth emulating.
My only concern is whether the tribal, voodoo imagery is going to lead to something genuinely mystical like the previous games or firmly ground the game in reality, which would be an enormous shame. TR3 got the balance wrong by throwing walking Shiva statues into the second level, but the lead up to Floating Islands in TR2 ranks as one of my most treasured gaming memories; after a long and torturous journey through a series of underwater caverns, housing a shipwreck of Titanic proportions, Lara returns to the Great Wall of China and descends into hell. Deep underground, ancient Chinese buildings lie embedded in glowing green crystals, suspended in the middle of a dark, endless, stormy void.
It was, and still is, a curve ball that acts as the perfect climax to the crushing darkness you've already had to struggle through. The entire experience gave me the willies; so long as it doesn't sideline the mysticism that made its predecessors so memorable, I fully expect the new Raider to do the same. Here's hoping for a successful opening to the latest chapter of a classic series.
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