Tomb Raider

The Good
This is a really cool game, very innovative for the time and reminds Prince of Persia as it's generally based on the same concept, only 3D.

This game's 3D engine amazed me at the time - it's the kind of graphical quality you'd expect from a demo, not a 3D unaccelerated DOS game. The engine looks good and is damn fast too. The graphics are very good (though I guess they could've made Lara a bit more.. shall we say, proportional :-)), the sound effects are OK and the game is genuinely fun (at least at first).

The Bad
Hmm... you just grow tired of it after a while, and Lara -- well, you either love her or hate her, and frankly I prefer the later.

The Bottom Line
A real classic you'll probably enjoy for quite some time.

The Good
At first I really liked the game, mostly because it was pretty (for it's time), and it reminded me of Prince of Persia (one of my favourite games), only 3D. I'm not sure if I can say anything more positive about the game.

The Bad
It didn't take long before I saw the flaws, though it has the athletic features of Prince of Persia it's all about being pixel perfect. To do a perfect jump you have to jump at the exact correct time (which is just darn annoying), Prince of Persia didn't have this flaw since it was tile based, I'm not sure how Tomb Raider should have fixed the problem, but it's there and it ruins that element of the game darn quickly. There are puzzles in the game, but they're so brainless and simple that it's like the element don't even exist. The combat element is plainly boring, you just run and fire away, no skill or tactic involved. And the game is the same all the way through, if you've played one level you've played it all.

The Bottom Line
One particular thing I hate about Tomb Raider is that every game in the series is identical, the few difference is that there some new weapons, levels and enemies in the sequels. But that's it, this game is lacking in variety, and it's just absurd to see the sequels add nothing to the series. All in all though I had some fun out of the game, but I'd just recommend that anyone just download the demo and try that one out, you'll perhaps have fun for a short while and then you'll be bored. And the full game doesn't feature anything big that the demo don't have anyway.

The game concept is nice, but horribly executed. Thus this game and all in it's series are utter crap. You'd be better off playing Prince of Persia with it's fantastic jump'n'run gameplay, and with it's simple yet effective swordfighting.

The Good
Tomb Raider's beauty lies in the level design - usually very simple, but giving off a very natural atmosphere, in places (most notably the Lost Valley) really giving the impression that people had lived and died there. Combat is more or less well executed, given the limited nature of the controls - Lara can jump and somersault around to effectively avoid oncoming foes. There are niggles (see below) but by and large it works well enough.

Graphically, the game has been left way behind by more modern games, but still exerts a particular charm. Somewhat humorously, the polygon count on Lara's most...ahem...prized assets is rather low, leaving the impression that Lara could spear her enemies by jumping on them with her breasts. Still, Lara as a whole still looks good, enemies (especially the T-Rex) look great and the backgrounds look natural. The textures don't look overly washed out, and the game looks great when using a DOS Glide wrapper like dgVoodoo.

The soundtrack is haunting and atmospheric, and the sound effects are crystal clear even by today's standards. The sparse nature of the sound, with the makers preferring to pass on using bombastic orchestral music, instead using subtle musical keys and effectively using sound effects to signal coming events, is in my opinion one of the most effective uses of sound ever in the history of gaming.

The Bad
The game looks and sounds great, and the level design is unbeaten, so it's fine if you're just watching the game. However, when you come to actually play it, you'll realise that the controls have been overtaken drastically in the years since. Lara is quite a pain to control at times, with her slow turns and sometimes lethargic reaction to the controls.

Tomb Raider is also a little repetitive at times, especially in the early levels, which rely heavily on a lot of searching for obscure items. While the level layouts are not hugely difficult to learn, a lot of the first four levels looks identical and it can be difficult to maintain your attention.

The Bottom Line
Tomb Raider 1, for its time, was an absolute marvel. The gameplay spawned a whole new genre of 3D platformers and still hasn't really been beaten today, even by its own sequels, especially more the most recent ones. Proof of this is Eidos' intention to release an "anniversary" edition of the game - updated graphics, sound and production values, but at heart the same old Lara.