Overview:

What do you get when you got an okay game concept for a main character to go through caves and old tombs, fighting animals, dinosaurs, and crazy people, with some pretty decent music and a horrible control style?  You get a middle of the road game that is kind of forgettable.  Now what if you make the main character a sexy English big breasted female, what do you get?  You get a franchise that has lasted three decades and transcended all forms of media.  That’s what the original Tomb Raider is.  It’s a game where you guide Lara Croft through some treacherous levels as she discovers artifacts, braves traps, and fights a swarm of enemies all the time.  Did I mention she also has big knockers?

Visuals:

Tomb Raider encompasses the look of what you think of when you hear someone say “PlayStation 1 graphics.”  Everything has a hard chunky look to them.  The textures are super pixelated and they wobble all over the place.  Lara herself really has no detail.  But it all works.  I love the way this game looks.  I loved the way it looked even when it first came out.  Even though I said that mess about the textures, the sharpness of them makes the world look super clean and my mind fills in the rest of the details.  The worlds are also nice looking even with their shortcomings.  I could talk about the rudimentary CGI that was prevalent at this time period for CD based consoles, but that’s irrelevant.

Audio:

There really isn’t much audio in this game.  You’ll get Lara spouting some stuff every now and then with bad acting.  The sound effects are also kinda dull with her footsteps and gun shooting taking up the most of it.  When the music kicks in that’s where the game really shines.  It makes a rather mundane portion of the level seem like some shit is going to happen and, when it does, it gets your heart racing as you try to survive.

Completion:

I’ve never beat this game.  I always play a few levels and then just stop.  This go around was no different as I beat a few of the cave levels and solved traps.  I get my fill of the game pretty quickly because it’s just such a nightmare to play.  It is all based on a grip so tapping up on the d-pad will move Lara one grid space.  This is the same for all movements so make sure you have that in mind.  Regardless, I think I will keep playing more and more to try to beat it eventually.  It is a delightful game and still looks amazing, in my opinion.