Review: Tomb Raider Gold

By: Kirk Hiner

Time's all flipped around and backwards. Up is down. Down is up. Day is dark. Night is light. Britney Spears is talented.

No, wait. Sorry. I got out of control.

It's all this pent up frustration; it has to find a way out. Until a couple of nights ago, I could release my anger on the multitudes of bats, lions, demons and aliens that were unfortunate enough to cross the path of Ms. Lara Croft. But now that I've finished the game, I'm afraid that poor little Miss Spears has to bear the brunt of my hostility.

So why am I so confused about time? Well, imagine watching "The Empire Strikes Back" before "Star Wars." Or how about "Godfather 2" without having seen "The Godfather." Or think about how awful it would have been to see "Home Alone 2"...at all. It's just screwy. You wouldn't want to do it. But that's what we were forced to do when Aspyr released Tomb Raider Gold after it's sequel, Tomb Raider II.

And do you know what? It all worked just fine.

If you've played Tomb Raider II, and heaven knows you should have, then you've already got Gold mastered. The controls are exactly the same, and the gameplay follows the same premise. Only this time, instead of searching for a mere dagger, you're on a quest that leads to the fabled Atlantis itself. Only don't start to get images of glass domes and Patrick Duffy in your head. But more on that later.

The first difference you'll notice between Gold and II is the lack of human interaction. Whereas the sequel was full of soldiers and guards trying to fill Lara's misproportioned body with lead, I can recall shooting at only five or six humans throughout all of Gold. So what do you get to shoot at then? Monkeys. A whole lot of monkeys.

But Tomb Raider Gold isn't so much about killing as it is about exploring. The best moments and biggest thrills in the Tomb Raider games come from the exploration of the vast lands with the conveniently placed levers and health packs. I still wonder who left them all laying around with that extra ammo. In fact, I also wonder who designed these funky buildings where you have to pull a lever, jump three ledges, run over a crumbling floor above two foot spikes, and kill a bear just to get to the door before it closes. These buildings would do Sarah Winchester proud.

Speaking of guns, lets talk about Lara. More specifically, how she looks. The graphics in Tomb Raider Gold are equal to those in Tomb Raider II, right down to the occasional glitch (Lara still has a habit of stepping halfway through walls). The 3Dfx mapping was exceptionally smooth when accelerated by my Voodoo2 card, although I did experience some frame hesitation. Tomb Raider is also not about to win any coloring contests, but how vibrant can you expect the bottom of a pool in the middle of a cave to be?

As with Tomb Raider II, the ambient sounds in Gold are phenomenal. There's not one silent moment in the game, yet I can't recall ever noticing where the audio loops. Special mention should also be made of the voice actors. Not only Lara, but Natla, Pierre and the others were all very well portrayed. In most games, the dialogue and acting are an afterthought. That doesn't appear to be the case in Tomb Raider. Although these are relegated to cut scenes, the professionalism of them does wonders to give the characters life and move the story along.

And finally, my favorite part of Tomb Raider Gold is the depiction of Atlantis. The lost city is not depicted as an underwater ruin, but more like a living organism. The blood-red walls pulsate as you move through them. A heart beats relentlessly from some unknown source. Spherical pods explode to release the lost city's defenders. It's original, it's creepy, and it's very effective.

So Tomb Raider Gold may be lacking in human interaction, but it more than makes up for it in animal, alien, and even dinosaur interaction. Imagine Myst meets "The Lost World" or "Starship Troopers," and you'll get an idea of what Lara's up against.

Yeah, I'll admit it. I was fearing that Tomb Raider Gold was just a rest stop between II and III, but I was wrong. Tomb Raider has become a franchise, and these games are fun no matter in which order you play them. I just wish that instead of zoo animals, at least one level in Tomb Raider Gold had been populated by all these former Mickey Mouse Club members who are now infesting the music charts with their moldy cheese. I'm sure Lara has a spear or two for you, Britney.

Game: Tomb Raider Gold

Reviewed by: Kirk Hiner

Genre: Third Person Shooter

Format: CD

Developer: Core, Westlake Interactive, Eidos Interactive

Publisher: Aspyr

Minimum Requirements: 80 MHz PowerPC, MacOS 7.5.3, 16MB RAM, hard disk and color monitor, 4x CD-ROM, Quicktime 3.0 (included on CD)

Network Feature: No

3Dfx Support: Glide and RAVE

Retail Price: $29.99

Availability: Out now

Raised on Intellivision and "Tron," Kirk Hiner has been an avid gamer ever since he was tall enough to look through the viewfinder on the Battlezone upright. Although he makes a living using a PC (not by choice) to design websites for Dynamics Online, Inc., Kirk never strays from his 9600/200 or 3400c for computer gaming. When he's not playing the latest Logicware release, he can either be found working on his next "never to be published" novel, rereading anything by Kurt Vonnegut or watching RAW is WAR.

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November 21, 2008