Digging up treasures from the past is an exciting business. So exciting, in fact, it’s kept players coming back to the Tomb Raider series for nearly three decades. The original trilogy was successfully remastered and rereleased last year. Now a new collection has been recovered from the attic and put on show, like a family heirloom on the Antiques Roadshow. But will this turn out to be the gaming equivalent of a priceless Ming vase? Or a commemorative ashtray from when Prince Andrew married Fergie?
A lot will depend on your personal history with Lara Croft. Those of us who wasted entire English Literature degrees watching her fall off things will thrill at the sight of every rusty key and sinister spike pit. My 13-year-old son, however, took one look at the blocky visuals, asked if I definitely had the enhanced graphics turned on, and walked out of the room shaking his head in pity. Bloody kids.
There are three games in this collection. The standout title is Tomb Raider IV: The Last Revelation. First released in 1999, it is set in the ruins of ancient Egypt, which feels equally long ago. Like all the best games in the series, it combines expansive, atmospheric environments with smart puzzles that are satisfying to solve. There are some lovely moments of Lara lore, like the scene that explains how she got her iconic leather backpack. (Although not how it’s able to contain six guns, eight medipacks, countless keys, the Amulet of Horus, a grenade launcher and a kayak.)
At the time of launch, Last Revelation was criticised for lacking innovation. But looking back, and at what came next, maybe we didn’t know how good we had it. Bloody kids.
Chronicles was the fifth Tomb Raider game released in five years. The team at Derby-based studio Core Design was burned out, by all accounts, and fed up with being forced to deliver yet another instalment in time for Christmas. The result is a game that is technically serviceable, but feels flat and soulless. The locations are uninspired and devoid of atmosphere. The visuals are bland and gloomy. It feels like Lara is just going through the motions. She can walk a tightrope now, and there’s a bit of stealth, as was the fashion at the time. But these are tedious tricks, and they aren’t enough to distract from the fact that the magic is gone.
However, it’s the final offering which marks the low point of this collection, and the entire series. The Angel of Darkness was the first Tomb Raider outing for PS2. It was released in 2003, which you can tell just by looking at it. The game opens on a rainy evening in Paris, apparently; the dismal industrial buildings and empty warehouses make it feel like a damp night in Croydon. Lara is a vision in double denim, complete with the obligatory cropped jacket and hiphugging bootcut jeans of the era. It feels like you’re on a quest to find out what happened to the other members of B*Witched.
Maybe the tightness of the clothes have restricted Lara’s ability to navigate environments with her usual grace and dexterity. Her movements are sluggish and clunky in this game, her jumps awkward. She is weaker than she’s ever been; a new stamina meter limits her ability to hang off ledges, and you have to build up her strength by pushing crates around before she can handle more physically taxing tasks. This is as dull and annoying as it sounds.
Lara has a new love interest, Kurtis, who is incredibly irritating and looks like he plays bass for Linkin Park. (Maybe they met at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party.) There’s more stealth nonsense, which involves Lara crouching slightly as though she’s suffering from digestive issues, and a badly executed attempt to introduce some open world elements. The whole thing is messy, frustrating and depressing.
It’s also intriguing if you’re interested in the history of video games and how they’re made. Yes, there’s a clear failure to maintain what made Tomb Raider so special in the first place: Lara’s agility and autonomy, clever puzzles, actual tombs. This game is too busy trying to keep up with the Joneses; or rather, the Metal Gear Solids and Grand Theft Autos that were so popular at the time. But there are also hints at ideas that series such as Assassin’s Creed and Uncharted would go on to execute brilliantly.
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So what stopped Core from pulling it off? Perhaps it was the limitations of the technology at the time. Maybe it was poor team management, or the pressure to hit shareholder deadlines before the game was ready. Probably a combination of all these things. In any case, while The Angel of Darkness is tiresome to play, it’s interesting to look at as a historical artefact.
The same is true of Chronicles, as an example of what happens when you try to produce creative work in a sweatshop. But The Last Revelation is vintage Tomb Raider. So for £25 you get a well-crafted, enjoyable game, a strange curio, and a flawed but fascinating piece of gaming history. Not quite as valuable as a Ming vase, but good value, and a lot more fun.
