Retro Replay: Tomb Raider III (PSone)

23 Dec, 2010

It’s the festive season, a time for reflection and, following an impromptu replay of some of the games of my youth, I’ve been thinking back to the Christmas of 1998. What an innocent time that was. I was 10 years old and had just received a Christmas gift from my mother, a shiny, shrink-wrapped copy of Tomb Raider III.

Not only the third game in the enduring archaeological adventure series but the third PlayStation game I’d ever owned. No prizes for guessing what the first two were.

Yes, believe it or not there was a time in my life where I could only afford to have one game at a time, trading up to the newer, sexier model when the time was right. Which is oddly appropriate considering Lara’s boobs were getting rounder, firmer and more realistic with every passing year. As such, Tomb Raider was all I’d ever known and when I got a new game, for Christ’s sake I was going to enjoy it regardless of whether it was any good. Tomb Raider III is a prime example of this phenomenon.

The third Tomb Raider in as many years centers around Lady Lara’s quest to recover four artifacts carved from an ancient meteorite said to possess powerful properties, under the guidance of one Dr. Willard. Her travels take her on a whistle-stop tour of the world, from the village of a cannibal tribe in the South Pacific, to a disused tube station in the arsehole of London, to Area 51 – where else? – and beyond. The bizarre, random mish-mash of areas featured in the game serves to exhibit Core Design’s exemplary level-design skills in a diverse range of settings. However, in many ways this diversity is ultimately Tomb Raider III’s undoing.

Each area features three main levels and a shorter boss stage, with the exception of Nevada which has no boss fight. For the first time in the series, upon the completion of a chapter the player is allowed to select which area to visit next. Unfortunately, before this freedom is bestowed upon the player, they must trudge through four stages set in India. From the opening Jungle stage, through the ruins of an ancient temple to traversing the banks of the River Ganges on a quad bike, these levels might sound exciting – they should be – but they are without a doubt the most drearily brown levels in the entire game. You’ve never seen so much brown. The really bad news is that these levels are not just cosmetically dull but also completely devoid of fun. After Tomb Raider II’s spectacular opening atop the Great Wall of China it can only be described as a letdown.

Things don’t get much better as the game progresses. Tomb Raider II was criticised by fans of the original title for favouring urban environments like oil rigs and Venetian gangster hideouts over the familiar tombs and temples featured in the first game. Tomb Raider III plays it safe, blending an equal mix so as to alienate as few fans as possible. A few of the locations on offer are interesting, particularly the levels set in England that perfectly capture the grimy, grotty feel of inner city London. However, it seems that in the admirable effort to please everyone they’ve done more harm than good. The South Pacific section is cliched and trap-laden, so much so that it feels like an elaborate chore designed to pad out a few hours of gameplay.

Furthermore, whenever the chaps at Core believe the Cretaceous period to have occurred, they’re about 65 million years out. Without wishing to spoil any “excitement” the obligatory T-Rex practically rolls up on the back of a Carling truck decked out in fairy lights, to the tune of a million weary sighs. After the first four areas have been completed the action shifts to Willard’s base in Antarctica, where the game climaxes. Even these levels aren’t that interesting, made irritating in fact by yet another reason to not go near water – the hypothermia meter. Realistic? Yes. Annoying? My god, yes. Good gameplay? Hell no.

To reiterate my earlier point, the level design is top-notch throughout the entire game – it just isn’t any fun. My biggest criticism of Tomb Raider III is just how dark it is. Yes, flares exist for a reason but they’re in limited supply and should you run low, or even worse run out, you’re pretty much screwed. The majority of the game is spent in extremely low-level light conditions, obscuring pick-ups, passages and, more annoyingly, pitfalls. It makes playing through Tomb Raider III a frustrating and wholly unpleasant experience and will probably culminate in you flinging your controller through the nearest window before cranking your telly’s brightness up to max.

The save system devised for the PlayStation version of Tomb Raider III was thought up by a very mean man. A bizarre hybrid of the first two games, game saves require special blue crystals just like the first Tomb Raider. These crystals are now found in the field and can be used from the inventory to save anywhere, similarly to Tomb Raider II. Unfortunately, as the game progresses, save crystals become increasingly hard to come by, making you wonder just how we ever survived without autosave and checkpoints.

There are a number of cosmetic and technical enhancements made to the series in this installment. Fire and water effects are greatly improved over Tomb Raider II, as are textures and, of course, Lara’s character model. Also included are a number of new moves such as the brand new crawling ability, allowing Lara to squeeze through tight spaces, and the monkey swing used to latch on to ceilings in a similar fashion to the wall climbing ability introduced in Tomb Raider II. Another first for the series, Lara can now sprint to get past traps or timed doors with ease. Unfortunately with the improvements come a whole host of bugs. Somehow, one year on, Tomb Raider III feels technically inferior to its predecessor. Particularly in underwater sections where oxygen is running short and time is of the essence it’s all too easy to get tangled up in, well, sweet Fanny Adams really, making it all the more frustrating.

Twelve years ago my 10-year-old self wasn’t the least bit disappointed with Tomb Raider III. That boy needs to go and stand in the corner and think about what he did. Yes games weren’t in plentiful supply in my house but good gravy, this game sucks. This is made all the clearer by the fact that it’s chronologically flanked by two of the best games I’ve ever played, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation and my personal series highlight and very possibly my favourite game of all-time, Tomb Raider II. It’s a terrible shame to consider just how many series newcomers were completely turned off by Tomb Raider III’s contrived storyline, see-sawing difficulty “curve” and altogether lackluster gaming experience in what has to be the low point of the Core Design era.

Tomb Raider III is available for PlayStation and PC.