Lara automatically aims on your behalf, but things can get a little confusing whenever there's more than one enemy. Rest assured that later on in the game, it's humans and weird monsters that start getting it in the neck - and no-one ever goes Cawww' over them, eh?Īctually, combat is the one section of Tomb Raider that could do with just a little improvement. Several people have watched me playing this over my shoulder, and the first thing out of their mouths (after they'd commented on the general Cwow!' factor of the visuals), was a disapproving CAwww, what did you do that for?' when they saw me shooting a beastie. What's more, the animals are wonderfully animated themselves, and are so pretty that you don't really want to shoot them. I shudder to think what would happen if she were let loose in Whipsnade Zoo. She has no qualms at all about gunning down endangered species left, right and centre. Lara appears to be something of a handgun fetishist, and is equally at home with a pair of Uzis as she is with a shotgun or magnum. Your best bet is to shoot them with guns. Now, you could deal with these opponents the Doctor Dolittle way and try to sing them into submission, but that would lead to some pretty dreadful operatics and more than a little claw-through-face action. Wolves, lions, crocodiles, gorillas - even dinosaurs. In Tomb Raider most of your foes hail from the animal kingdom. If you've got four legs, and you spot her coming toward you, run away. Now we British are Ca nation of animal lovers'. Everything's finely tuned so that, just as you're getting frustrated, you manage to solve the problem that was vexing you and move on, with mounting enthusiasm. A single level will often require hours of play. They could've released it with half the number of levels and it would still be a great game. Here we have a textbook example of Cgetting your money's worth'. It keeps you on your toes throughout, in other words.Īnd I haven't even mentioned how large the levels are yet. Countless perilous surprises - in the form of vicious ancient booby traps - lurk around every other corner - from huge swinging axes, to the faithful 'pit of spikes'. There are keys to collect, switches to pull and secret bonus areas to be uncovered. Many's the time you'll find yourself seemingly at a dead-end, only to discover that there's a whole new section of the level tucked away behind an (almost) hidden entrance. Rather than lead the player by the nose through each challenge, the game also requires an instinct for exploration. They really are designed as puzzles, with each requiring a combination of hard thought and gaming accuracy. Better yet is Bt the design of Br the levels Tomb Raider's environment is utterly believable. It's slick, it's frighteningly playable, but its landscape is very gamelike', very disjointed and surreal. That's what the aforementioned Mario 64 is like. No doubt you pictured something along the lines of Sonic The Hedgehog, or - if you're cool, Chuckie Egg -that is, something with lots of Cfloating platforms' in it, but from a sort of 3D perspective.

Now let's examine what you thought about. Put your thinking cap on for a moment and try to picture it in your mind's eye. Now, imagine you had to design a 3D platform game. But how does the gameplay measure up? Put On Your 3D Glasses Now Indeed, the majority of the screenshots on these pages were Ctaken' in low-res mode, so you can see for yourself that I ain't no bloody liar, right? Those of you with upper-class Pentiums will be able to enjoy a stunning high-resolution mode, but even on the lowest of detail settings, it's still bloody incredible. You know how sometimes you'll play a game that's so visually impressive and convincing that you find yourself performing the same action a couple of times just because it looks so cool each time you do it? You'll be doing that all the time in Tomb Raider. Lara walks, runs, leaps, somersaults, climbs, slides and dives in a manner so eerily realistic that you can't help becoming rather over-fond of her (indeed, I've already written her a love poem -reprinted elsewhere in this article). Despite having to hurl huge pieces of scenery and light-sourcing about in the background, Core's engine somehow finds room for over 3000 frames of animation in the main character. One of the first things that strikes you is the quality and speed of the animation. The most accurate comparison is with Mario 64 on the new Nintendo system. For starters, the camera moves along behind you from a floating perspective, switching position only when totally necessary. Alone In The Dark clone, the reality is markedly different.

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