Tomb Raider - ADG Episode 300
434AKA: Lara Croft - Wildlife Exterminator! :P
Today for the 300th episode of Ancient DOS Games, Gemini's going back to the original Tomb Raider, often forgotten to have come out for DOS given when it debuted, its focus on 3D accelerated graphics, and its greater popularity on the new game consoles of the time, specifically the Playstation and Saturn. It was made by Core Design and published through Eidos in 1996, coming out just a few months after Quake.
The funny thing about going back to this game is that, by modern gaming standards, this game is finicky, picky about your exact positioning, surprisingly difficult to control despite the controls themselves being responsive and doing exactly what they're supposed to, and has combat which is either super-difficult or super-easy depending entirely on if you remember to do ONE thing during it or not.
Yet despite all of that, the environments are expansive and the game has a definite exploration feel to it, which is definitely what the developers intended. The PC release also focusses on having background ambience in the levels, rather than having mid-level music.
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Additional Information and Corrections:
* If you want to grab the first three Tomb Raider games as a pack, follow this link over to GOG: https://www.gog.com/game/tomb_raider_123/?pp=91dfde1d6e005e422f64a59776234f1f4c80b5e4
* If you'd instead prefer to just get the first game alone over on Steam, following this link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/224960/Tomb_Raider_I/
* And as for playing the original game on modern hardware, DEFINITELY look into Tomb Raider I: Community Edition, aka: Tomb1Main, which you can find over on GitHub (scroll down to find installation instructions): https://github.com/rr-/Tomb1Main
* Another physical release to avoid is the "Softkey" release. Apart from the Softkey logo it LOOKS like it's going to be the full game... but only contains THREE LEVELS! D:
* Apparently, the game didn't actually debut with all of its 3D hardware support right out the box. Since I have the Gold edition, the CD has numerous 3D hardware patches already included, but what happened when the game was released is that they were rolling out 3D hardware patches one at a time for several months... though that probably led to the same effective result anyways of getting people hyped for being able to play the game with their shiny new 3D accelerators no matter which one they had! :B
* I should point out that all of the pre-rendered cutscenes are interlaced in the game itself. I've worked in some editing magic to make them way more watchable, but the resolution on them is abysmal: 320x120, so... yeah, there's only so much editing magic can do. :P
* One thing I didn't elaborate on with the game is the ring-based inventory system, but it really doesn't get a whole lot of use. You have a section for storing guns, ammo for guns you don't have, and restorative items, and a separate ring for unique items like keys and such. You also have a compass in there which points out the direction Lara is FACING in, not the direction the camera is pointing, so that's something to keep in mind when you're intentionally using the compass for its intended purpose.
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