orangerful | Lara Croft, my old friend (Reply)

jimithingy alerted me to the fact that a new Tomb Raider game had been released. Gamespot gave it a 7.8 which made my ears perk up. I have a soft spot for Lara Croft - she was one of my first PC video game addictions. But the previous game, 'Angel of Darkness' was so poorly reviewed, I figured she was gone forever.

But we bought the game and let me tell you - Lara is back.

I just spent 3 hours bouncing around Lara-style, exploring cave, pushing around boxes, and shooting badguys. And it's fun. The camera seems a bit wonky at times, but part of that is my own inexperience. I'm so used to console games now I've forgotten how to control a character on the PC. When I played the old Tomb Raider games, I only used the keyboard, never the mouse. Now I have to use the mouse. And I keep defaulting to 'Warcraft' controls! Which means Lara jumps in the air everytime I try to look around because in WoW you have to click the right mouse button to move the camera while in Lara the mouse moves the camera.

Anyway, it's fun. I forgot how much I loved these games. They need to dig out the originals and give them the Resident Evil treatment - clean up the graphics and repackage them. Heck, I'd buy them!

Game has a bunch of bonus items hidden through-out, so if I collect enough I get to do extra things which is kinda cool. I spent a good hour just running around Croft Mansion, exploring the different areas and collecting things for my own amusement.

The graphics are pretty too, though I wasn't very concerned with seeing the water drip off of Lara when she got outta the pond...but it's still cool to see haha. I'm sure the fanboys must be enjoying it hehe. So far there's been standard Tomb Raider gaming, plus a motorcycle level that wasn't too hard but involved paying attention, and a few random 'Dragon's Lair' style moments when you have to press a directional button at the exact right moment to let Lara get passed a certain point.

I'm only on the second level but so far I'm enjoying myself. Still hurts when Lara falls and you hear her neck go "CRUNCH". They are loving those rag-doll physics engines as her body bounces around. Like I didn't feel bad enough already!!