Tomb Raider

Eidos Interactive

Action

Quintin Stone

What really scores high is not how wonderful a game is, but how good of an impression it makes. A games that paves the way for a new genre is more mind-blowing than a great game in a well-defined class. Some famous examples are Dune II and Command & Conquer in real-time strategy, and Wolfenstein 3D and Doom in first-person shooters. They defined their genre, and now we have Tomb Raider.

Not quite a first-person shooter, not quite an isometric. The viewpoint tracks and follows the character, moving fluidly, squeezing around walls that get in the way. Not the fixed third-person perspective in games like Kings Quest or Alone in the Dark that only changes when you enter a new room. It's much like the newest Mario World for Nintendo 64, if you've played that. Graphics are texture-mapped polygon graphics, like Descent and Quake. Lighting, shadowing, and color are all incredible.

The story focuses around Lara Croft, adventurer extraordinaire, and her search for ancient relics of a lost civilization. Her companions are her duo of semi-automatic pistols, always ready to leap into the fray at a moments notice. The most amazing feature of this game is the range of motion that Lara can go through, how fluid it is, and how realistic it can be. So many times it's like watching a coreographed movie. She leaps into a backwards somersault, wresting her guns from their holsters and firing shot after shot before she even hits the ground. With graphics and action like this, who needs to watch Van Damme? Who'd want to, when you have Lara?

The game levels are incredibly vast. They are mostly underground labyrinths of long forgotten people, fallen to ruin, and beset by wild animals. Not all of them are as mundane as the pack of vicious wolves found in the demo. Later levels pit you against hungry dinosaurs (Hello, Mr. T-Rex!), flesh-lacking mummies, and aberrations of genetics. Any one of the them would be terrifying leaping from the darkness to take a swipe at you, and many of them do just that. The atmosphere in this game is one of well-maintained terror. And it fits.

The tricks, traps, and puzzles are numerous. They mostly consist of finding missing keys or other items needed to open a door or clear a barricade. Along the way you find new weapons and ammo (ancient Mayans used shotguns?), such as the magnum autos, shotgun, and uzis. Occasionally you find small and large first aid kits, which you can save and use later when you need them. And you will.

The cut scenes are equally impressive, though not all of the cut scenes are movie format recordings. A few of the interactions are done in the style of normal play, where Lara chats with her enemies before beating them up. But the movie-format scenes are fantastic; fast paced with incredible graphics and anatomy... err, animation.

Overall, there were only a few issues that I had with this game. For starters, the most obvious problem was the clipping of nonviewable scenery. (When something it partially or fully hidden behind a solid object, the process of covering up part or all of it is called "clipping".) Unfortunately, I can't count the number of times a monster, item, or background showed through a wall, floor, or door that should have hidden it from view. This was an annoyance, but didn't hinder game play. The other problem I had with Tomb Raider was at the very end. The game locked up everytimg I completed it. Pretty annoying.

The best one-word summary for Tomb Raider is "wow". It's simply amazing. Anyone who hasn't played it needs to. Right now.