Tomb Raider II

The Good
Tomb Raider II is one of my favorite games in the series. I also think that the storyline in this installment is one of the most interesting among the other Tomb Raider games. Anyway, this review is for the Aspyr Macintosh release - not for the game itself.

To begin with, the graphics in this Mac version seem smoother than my original PlayStation copy. The gameplay seems to flow a bit smoother as well. Aspyr's default control settings are near terrible, so it's wonderful to see that you have the option to configure the controls to your own liking in this re-release. There's nothing unique or newly added to this release, which isn't a bad thing, and quite frankly I wasn't expecting anything new anyhow.

The Bad
The game runs fine on my MacBook Pro and has yet to lag or crash during use. However, there seems to be this bizarre glitch where upon loading a game, Lara will not move but instead look around as if the player is holding the 'Hold' button. This happens somewhat frequently and can be a bit tedious at times - especially when this glitch is persistent. Sometimes this glitch can be fixed by simply reloading or more annoyingly by closing the game entirely and reloading it again.

The Bottom Line
Tomb Raider II is currently $7.99 in the Mac App Store. I definitely recommend this program for fans of the Tomb Raider series or for anyone whose looking for a good full-length game with a great story to play on their Macintosh computer. Lots of action, puzzles, exploration, great fun. Aside from the glitch, this is quite an enjoyable port of Tomb Raider II.

The Good
The Graphics: Getting better and better, but Lara still likes to disappear into walls... But the 3D graphics are really good and the movements are lifelike.

The Adventure Side: Well, we have MORE puzzles, MORE jumping, MORE swimming, and MORE thinking to do, this would be considered a bad thing, right? Well, call me a freak, but I LOVE it, I hope the upcoming "Tomb Raider: Next Generation" will give us more of this, well, it has promised that, and with the new gameplay style and all "TR" will be getting better with every new release.

Level Design: Outdoor areas, better design, making the puzzles easier to figure out (in "TR1" there were some really weird puzzles that were blocked by a ledge or something on the walls, so it was really bad), but still although this is a great game, it still has it's flaws, mentioned below...

The Bad
Action: Well, there are more enemies and all, but you have to agree that the action is less here, I know that there's a big T-Rex at the end and all, but the adventure took over the action here, this is the only flaw, so I'll end this review quickly...

The Bottom Line
Lara has more areas, more enemies, and more levels to conquer. All excellent stuff!

The Good
Well, some puzzles were nice and well thought and I liked some of the settings you visited and the in the first levels it might be fun to play before getting frustrated and feeling bored as an oyster suffering of depression.

Don't remember any more good stuff about it, really.

The Bad
The controls, I hated them, maybe it's just me, but I finished the game without mastering Lara's jumping skills, I found myself thousands of times falling to my death because Lara didn't jump at the time I told her to.

Most of the level design was poor, the levels felt empty and "blocky".

And the last level was just ridiculous, I felt very empty when finishing the game, the story development was so lame...

The Bottom Line
I have never understood why those series are so popular, maybe if I programmed a pacman game with boobies and lots of press coverage it would also be a best-seller...

Anyway, you might like that game if you are really into action and shooting games without a good enough plot.