20/02/25 - Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light



Another spin-off for the Tomb Raider and the first game from the franchise to be released in the 2010s. Quite convenient to be looking at this since both Guardian of Light and its sequel Temple of Osiris are coming to mobile devices in the near future. How good that port will be and if anyone would prefer to play it on mobile is anyone's guess at the moment, but we can have a look at the PC version.

Background
Now normally when it comes to a spin-off, it's usually given to a different developer whilst the ones on the main franchise work on the next main entry. However this is not the case. Not only was this developed by Crystal Dynamics but the whole team who worked on this had worked on the previous trilogy of games, those being Legend, Anniversary and Underworld. The game was developed using the engine from the latter game, probably to make them spend less time on working with new technology and more on how they can shake things up. So how did they shake things up?

Plot
Well it wasn't with a ground-breaking story that's for sure. The plot is quite straight-forward actually. 2000 years ago in Mexico, Xolotl (Guardian of Darkness) was banished in an artefact known as the Mirror of Smoke, trapping him in a statue. Naturally, this is broken by a war chief who ignores Lara's requests and so the game revolves around Lara chasing after him with the Guardian of Light: "Totec". I do wish there was a bit more to the story than that, even if the game only clocks in around 5 to 6 hours of gameplay. It does treat the player to some cutscenes but these are quite few and usually just involve some taunting from Xolotl. Despite that, this is really the only thing weak with the game, the rest is actually very good.

Gameplay

The game can be played in two ways: solo or co-operatively. I played solo so my thoughts will reflect that but I think playing this with a friend is the ideal way of playing through this.

The major element that separates this from almost all other Tomb Raider games is that this is not a 3D platformer like those in the main entries or a 2D platformer like most previous spin-offs. Instead, this is an isometric action-adventure which has only appeared in one other Tomb Raider game, that being the spin-off Tomb Raider: The Prophecy. This style of game really suits the Tomb Raider franchise since it can incorporate almost every element of the 3D games into this sort of style. It really benefits things like the puzzles as all the elements needed for solving it can be seen in one go.

Level design is quite strong in this game. Neither the traps, puzzles, or combat outstay it welcome, which I always find to be key for an entertaining Tomb Raider game. Each level contains collectibles and challenges allowing Lara to obtain better weapons and buffs (more on those a little later). I didn't go out of my way to complete and collect all of these but I always appreciate seeing them and I don't think they are too hard to find either. Many of the levels are fairly small so it's not difficult to get lost in and those that are a bit bigger tend to have a map for navigating in. And even then, it's fairly linear so it always feels like you're going the right way.

Focusing on Lara more specifically for a moment, she controls very well in this game. No input delays, fast movement, able to dodge enemy projectiles with ease. It's pretty much Lara done perfect. Sure maybe they shouldn't have keybinded the bomb button to the capslock button but that can simply be rebinded. Oh yes Lara can bomb areas now with no worries about the quantity of bombs available. I don't see it working well for a 3D game but it works like a charm for this style of game. Lara can still grapple with ease although like Underworld this is barely used. Lara can climb using a spear but she cannot climb walls which is a bit disappointing but when looking at the levels themselves, it's easy to see why such a decision was made. This logic also applies for the emissions of the swimming and walking on balance beams, they would be hard to implement on a game such as this.

I found combat to be the hardest part of the game. Not because of Lara, no she has many good weapons to use from a simple assault rifle to a rocket launcher and it's fun to experiment with each new weapon (and trust me, there's quite a bunch). Buffs can be collected from each area that can be used to power up Lara's speed, strength and health which makes some fights a lot easier than they could have originally been. The difficult is not from a lack of health or ammo packs either, they are quite fruitful from each area and checkpoints are quite regular too. The difficulty is the enemies themselves. Now Lara is good at dodging incoming projectiles and even a large quantity of them can be somewhat easy to take down when the distance is provided. However, these enemies hit quite hard so some fights can take a few goes if you are unlucky enough to be killed in a fight. Despite this, the enemy designs were quite good and the boss fights even more so, making use of every trick that has been presented whilst also posing a real danger.

Presentation
It's alright. It certainly has a Tomb Raider style going on and Mexico is a solid pick for a game like this. Can't say there was anything bad or wrong with it, but nothing really mind blowing either. Just picture what a Tomb Raider level could look like in a Tomb and you wouldn't be far from what's in the game. Which it went a bit more adventurous with what's on offer but I'm satisfied with what we got. Same applies to the music too, it's nice but it's not something I can remember too well or focuses too much on during my time here.

Summary
A really fun game that blends combat, traps, and puzzles all well together into a short, entertaining game. If you don't mind a basic story, then I would recommend playing this with a friend even if you have never played a Tomb Raider game before.

Rating: 8/10

Update: I am aware this game has DLC but considering its just puzzle maps and survival levels, they didn't really appeal to me. Maybe I'll play them someday and update this post but for now I'm happy with finishing off the base game. I believe the next entry will be the 2013 reboot of the franchise which I have actually played before but I'm curious to play it now I have multiple Tomb Raider games under my belt. No idea what my next post will be on (as usual) so look out for that. Thanks for stopping by :)

19/02/25 - Just Cause



This game has been in my backlog for too long so decided to finally get around to it before it collected any more dust.

Background
The original Just Cause is the only Just Cause published by Eidos Interactive, the company that had Tomb Raider, Hitman, and Thief for a while until it became defunct in 2009. For all the games in the franchise, Swedish company Avalanche Studios was the developer behind it, including this very first one. The company, originally known as Rock Solid Studios, has a bit of a troubled star with a failed video game adaption of the movie series Tremors but when this was cancelled, the developers Christofer Sundberg and Linus Blomberg became unemployed and in debt. This didn’t stop them from launching a new company with six other employees and beginning work on their first game, “Rick: Terror in the Tropics” which would eventually become “Just Cause”. And it seems they did quite well since not only just they start the Just Cause franchise but they also did a video game adaptation of Mad Max alongside a sequel to Rage and starting theHunter series. For today, let’s investigate the original Just Cause.

Plot
The story of Just Cause is quite simple. The “Agency” drop operative Rico Rodriguez int the fictional world of San Esperito in hopes of overthrowing its dictator since that guy owns some dangerous weapons. That’s about it really. It’s a matter of finding the threat and dealing with it. No plot twists, no character development, not much dialogue. Just go to the area and stop it. I’m not expecting an amazing story from a game like this but I think it needs a bit more substance to make me care about the characters or its plot. It’s also quite short too but then again maybe it’s for the best that it doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Gameplay
The main campaign of the game is divided into 19 missions, one of them being split into three smaller ones. On the whole, I found it quite fun. Each tends to offer a large fight with a wide range of weapons and plenty of vehicles to choose from, with lots of explosions and action taking place. The grapple gun, while far from perfect, allows travelling around the map and hijacking vehicles to be very entertaining. A couple of bugs are seen in the game such as vehicles appearing out of nowhere, the inability to drive and a random crash, so there is a lack of polish still here. I also found jumping from large heights a bit of a gamble since sometimes the parachute doesn’t go off but yet sometimes you don’t take any fall damage at all. Being hit by a vehicle is also risky since sometimes it is only a little bit of health but other times its almost all of it. So, I guess if I were to summarise the main campaign up, I would say it’s a beautiful yet chaotic mess. I can’t help but admire it.

Other missions happen outside of the main campaign such as liberation missions and boy is it one of the most repetitive side missions I’ve ever seen. Premise-wise it’s quite fun. Simply go with a group of armed soldiers and take out an area of either government soldiers or the mafia, doing so “liberates” the area which grants access to a fast travel point, new vehicles, and access to other weapons. And yeah, it can get chaotic quickly with tanks and grenades thrown all over the place so it can be fun the first several times. The problem is that it barely changes the formula. They may be a bit stronger but you have stronger weapons by then and lots of experience. They may have a bigger battle with barricades but simply being in between buildings just solves the problem of tanks. And the fact that this repeats about 40 times across the map with little reward or progress just makes it a lot more tedious. I tried to do them all but I gave up halfway through, what’s the point? I got everything I needed from the main campaign missions, making the map green won’t change anything.

Other side missions exist too but don’t offer much. Each liberated area provides small side missions to increase the areas ranked, allowing for unlocking better vehicles. I don’t find them useful because, again, everything I need is already unlocked in the main campaign. However, I can appreciate that they try and vary these missions up, providing a different task until it starts to repeat. Racing tracks are also present but these are mostly for fun, acts as a good way of learning the area and using the vehicle. And of course, it cannot be a Ubisoft game without collectibles all over the open world. No there isn’t a reason for collecting them besides giving a small boost to the area in the hopes of unlocking a vehicle. On the whole, these just feel like ways of padding out the length of what is otherwise a short game.

Let’s take a step back for a moment and focus on the combat itself. Rico can carry up to two main weapons alongside pistols and explosives. The pistols are a fairly decent weapon and work as an alright backup, particular with unlimited ammo so you can’t go wrong with them. Failing that you can punch someone but I don’t think many people know you can either do that let alone find it actually useful. Grenades are actually quite good at taking out a bunch of enemies, although having one fired at you can be tricky since Rico cannot really run (he just walks slow to me) or duck so be cautious for those. In terms of weapons, it’s mostly assault rifles and submachine guns. I can never tell them apart to be honest but the ones I did use worked quite nicely, with plenty of ammo and alternative weapons being dropped at moment’s notice. RPGs are quite rare but very useful at taking out vehicles so I usually saved those for missions. There’s also a sniper rifle that just exists. I mean it can act as a typical assault rifle but with a lack of ammo and no stealth missions in the game, I don’t really get the reason for its inclusion. And finally there’s the shotgun which worked quite well, almost too well as it has essentially no reload time so taking out a boss can take as little as five seconds.

Rico also has a PDA equipped which acts as a menu for calling in help. This is where fast travelling comes into play, allowing Rico to go to areas he has liberated or, very helpfully, the area for his next campaign mission. These have speedy load times and saved a lot of hassle so it’s really nice to have it. The only drawback to this fast travel is sometimes you have to scroll down a menu to find the area you’re looking for so that can be annoying. The PDA also has a map which is handy for finding collectibles, liberated islands and a route to take to get to a destination. I had no problems with that, it just did its job and did it well. Vehicles can even be summoned with the PDA which saves the hassle of having to look for one. Other functions of the PDA is essentially just stats, showing how much of the country has been liberated and how many collectibles have been obtained. On the whole, the PDA is the most handy feature of the whole game, hope to see it in the later entries.

And we cannot talk about Just Cause without mentioning the vehicles. Each can be divided into five categories to let’s go through them real quick. Bikes were my original go-to for travelling around the world, they are very fast with good braking and can never seem to be destroyed so easily. That last point is why I never went for cars, if there was any sort of enemy about them there was a good chance it would be blown up in seconds. Helicopters were my primary mode of travel by the end of the game since, not surprisingly, there is no traffic in the air and can cover a large distance in the quickest time. And there’s also boats which are fine but are only useful for going around the islands and not in them.

Presentation
The map of San Esperito is fine. Maybe not the prettiest country during the time this game was released but for a new company I think it’s decent enough. It’s quite vibrant and it can look great when the sun is setting over the sea. I just wish there was more interesting things going on in the map rather than driving in similar looking areas again and again.

Musically speaking, the game is also ok at that too. Nothing too exciting but it sure beats it being silent which can happen if you’re walking out of the car from time to time. Also, there’s a bit of a weird thing with the police where the volume they speak doesn’t affect their distance. So, they may sound quite close and about to shoot you but in reality, they are likely 100 metres away shooting someone else. It’s just as annoying as hearing and seeing a helicopter follow Rico throughout most of the game, just leave me in peace.

Summary
Just Cause can be a fun game and has a great take for an open world with some solid vehicles, but it really suffers from a lot of repetition, a short dull story, and several bugs. I would only recommend this if you’re eager to see how Just Cause got its start.
Rating: 5/10

Update: I’m glad I got around to playing Just Cause even if it was quite messy. I do have the other three games but I have no idea when I’ll get around to those. For now, it’s business as usual with the Tomb Raider series so I’ll pop back to that next :)

15/02/25 - Tomb Raider: Underworld



Tomb Raider: Underworld is the ninth main title of the Tomb Raider series and the third and final part of the Legend trilogy. I’ve heard about this one the least which was the reason I was the most interested in playing this game out of the three.

Background
During the parallel development of Anniversary by another team and during the final finishing touches to Legend, Underworld was being developed. And a troubled development it was, the parallel development meant that less people could work on developing this game and a new engine had to be built from scratch. Adding onto this was one of the level designers passing away during production and another member leaving to have a baby, so it’s a miracle that this game was successfully development even if it wasn’t as polished as some wanted it to be. As to how polished it became, let’s see.

Story
The story for this is fine, certainly the weakest of the three. I do like how it ties the last two games together and it was satisfying seeing Lara finally getting closure about her parents, and she had some touching moments sprinkled throughout the game. The other characters tend to be rushed or just forgotten about. Even when tragedy strikes her closest friends, she doesn’t really comment much on it. Sure, you could argue that Lara is trying to focus on her quest and in doing so she can get her revenge, but the characters aren’t really used for the rest of the game. I think an extra cutscene or two showing the other characters besides Lara would have concluded the story in a more fitting way since this is the end of an era so to speak.

Gameplay
For some reason, Lara was a bit difficult to control in this game. This doesn’t come from running about or combat but more with the platforming. If Lara was to grab a balance beam or something similar, she may climb up but then she won’t move. The only way to get out of that is to drop back down and go back up again. Also, there were several points where Lara was running in a spot and took several seconds to realise that I wasn’t pressing forward. It’s not frustrating but it did lead me to several deaths so it’s certainly a downgrade from the previous games. I will praise the game for letting Lara sprint and having less moments of Lara trying to steady herself during climbing,

Ignoring these controls, I think the platforming itself is well-designed. I wouldn’t say they were as tough as Anniversary but certainly more of a challenge than Legend. The benefit of a 10-hour game is that you don’t have much repetition in obstacles or hazards so each area feels quite different from the other. The grapple hook wasn’t used as much as before but I think it’s used the right amount here, mostly being used for obtaining collectibles that are now found within vases and down alternative paths in the game. QTEs are replaced with an almost bullet-time approach where times slows down, allowing Lara to avoid incoming danger. Whilst they don’t blend into the game as well as QTEs, they are less annoying and more forgiving so I can get behind that.

The puzzles in this game are typically quite good too. I wouldn’t say they were challenging, most of them requiring searching for something in the level and placing it in a specific location. However, I think its moments like these that give the game a chance to breathe and let the player soak in the world around them. I guess you could say they could be harder but I think that challenge relies on the “where am I going” or “how do I get up there” situations.

Combat is quite different from before. Firstly, the adrenaline stuff is gone which I am grateful for, although it’s still possible to headshot an enemy after a certain amount of hits. Weapons don’t require ammo to be picked up anymore, you go in with pistols and a secondary weapon out of a selection of five. Personally, I just used the pistols throughout the whole game since the secondary weapons weren’t too much better for me. I did use some grenades, they were quite good against the enemies even if they didn’t really run out the way to dodge it. Although a downside to this is, dodging out of enemy attacks can be irritating, particularly with enemies like spiders that get up close. Overall, it’s different but I think it’s more of a downgrade as the number of options for how to tackle a battle decreases significantly.

Presentation
Like with many Tomb Raider games, Underworld does an amazing job with how it presents real-world locations. Everything in the environment really blends in well and this game probably has the best use of lighting in the game thus far. The soundtrack assists with this well, even if it isn’t as strong as the previous instalments. This sort of thing makes me excited for what the future games have in store.

Summary
A decent way to end the Legend trilogy, showcasing the trilogies strengths in its world-building, platforming and puzzles but also highlighting its biggest weaknesses in its rushed ending, combat, and glitches.
Rating: 6/10

Update: Not much left in the Tomb Raider franchise to go, the next I think will be one of the Lara Croft spin-off games. I would have done the DLC for this game but it's an Xbox exclusive so that's great. For now, I’ll move onto another random game. Thanks for stopping by :)

10/02/2025 - Big Fish Games Bundle

This post is a bit of a unique. Typically, I try and focus on one game and heavily focus on that. But when I was going through my free game collection, I noticed a company called Big Fish Games appeared fairly frequently and, since the games seemed fairly short, I decided to lump all the games I own by them together into one post.

Background
Big Fish Games might be familiar to you if you have a phone and were looking at the games that are aimed towards casual players, i.e., people who want to relax with a game but don’t really consider themselves a gamer. We are talking match three games, hidden object games, mahjong and all those sort of games. And there’s a good chance you may have seen them pop up at some point since they have released over 3,800 games in the hidden object genre alone in the past decade and they are all scattered across all mobile platforms. The eight games that I own (that came free from an Amazon subscription) focus more on the hidden object genre although they do have plenty of puzzles within them. They all have a similar art style, similar music, similar puzzles and all involve locating a set of hidden objects so I decided to go through them all and briefly summarise my findings on each game, otherwise I would have ended up repeating myself a lot.

Spirits of Mystery: Whisper of the Past


The first of this collection is developed by AMAX Interaction and involves a princess trying to rescue her aunt from some reapers and saving the kingdom while she’s at it. I think it’s part of a series, can’t say I know for sure but this works as a standalone story. The story is told through cutscenes with voice acting which is a surprise since I assumed it would be just reading text for the most part. A shame it’s a bit of a dull story with poor voice acting and barely any animation. Puzzle-wise, it accomplishes tasks very well where I didn’t get confused with what I needed to do and the ability to use hints was certainly welcomed, even though the game is quite easy to complete. The setting and music were fine I guess, didn’t really focus too much on it as it’s typical fantasy stuff. Controls were also ok but sometimes it feels like I click something and it doesn’t register it so I think nothing happens there. I think this is just ok but it’s too straightforward and basic to truly recommend.

Haunted Hotel: Personal Nightmare


Moving onto Haunted Hotel, an Elephant Games developed game. This one is a bit better. It still has poor voice acting with similar puzzles to the last game although I think the art style does work better as a horror game than a fantasy one. This game also offers more things to do with collectibles throughout the game, achievements to collect, and even a epilogue. This might be because it's the "collector's edition" but it's still quite welcome and an interesting way of reintroducing a player to an old room. Some jumpscares are found at the start but the game shifts away from those quite quickly.. Although this is an earnest attempt at attempting to stick out, I did encounter a game breaking bug during the epilogue which set me back half an hour and some of the puzzles were executed poorly, such as attempting to move a horse in an area where it couldn't be avoided. A slightly step up from the last game but the flaws are still present.

Ms Holmes: The Case of the Dancing Men



Ok let’s try another Elephant Games release, this one obviously being inspired from Sherlock Holmes although it's different to the plot of The Dancing Men. It’s about on par with the last game, a decent art style but a fairly by-the-numbers plot with forgettable characters. The puzzles did seem more focused on the detective side of things which is nice to see and I did appreciate the attempt at having dialogue branches, even if it was used twice just to compliment the partner who barely does anything. Between the this and Haunted Hotel, I think this one works best just because it has a better polish to it.

Dark City: International Intrigue


This one by Friendly Fox is one of the stronger games of the bunch. This mostly comes from the fact that there’s a lot more going on in the plot, especially with more voice acting between things rather than just clicking things and then reading some text. Sure the plot is still straightforward and can be quite cheesy with its names, but it didn't outstay its welcome. The puzzles are still a walk in the park and there’s no bonus content but I prefer quality over quantity.

Redrawn: The Painted Tower

Friendly Fox do a good job with this game as well, involving a girl being trapped in a tower and needing to use her paintings to free her. This one has a decent premise but the ending felt rushed and abrupt. A shame considering how creative the locations and characters can be. Yet again, puzzles are very straightforward and now that this is the 5th one I’ve played in a row, the similarities in what the puzzles are and their solutions are becoming very obvious. I even made a list of things I expected for a laugh and I ticked off about 7 of the 10 things I had. Maybe it's to be expected after so many games being released like this but surely there are other approaches that could be taken. Regardless of that, this is the most creative story and setting out of all the games, certainly a memorable one.

Mystery Case Files: Black Crown

Another developer now, this time it being Eipix Entertainment with yet another mystery game. I think the first hour of the game has a good sense of dread and creepiness to it that these games very rarely have, but again it loses that atmosphere quite quickly especially when its revealed exactly what's going on. This is the longest game of this bundle, being about 4 hours long which I think is the ideal length for these sort of games as it gives enough time for exploration and action. They even had a few plot twists which, although I did see coming, proved that an engaging plot is more than possible with these games. Puzzles are still the same as always although I will give it credit that it penalises spamming in hidden object segments. Bizarrely none of the other games before this have done that so it’s nice to see it’s actually relying on observations skills.

Mystery Case Files: The Dalimar Legacy

Another game from the same franchise (if they are even connected) but this one was developed by GrandMA Studios. This one is one of the shorter ones, nothing really sticking out besides the premise of the protagonist in an antagonist’s body (although it doesn’t seem the antagonist does anything in the protagonist’s body). The hidden object aspects where the most challenging in that they required parts to be put together, not a new feature by any means but ramped up significantly here. And despite the same art style being used again, I did noticed a few attempts at adding 3D characters every once in a while, which doesn’t really blend in well with all the 2D.

Whispered Secrets: Everburning Candle

It's been an exhausting journey but here is the final one of this collection, also made by GrandMA studios. Another horror one that only keeps its tension and frightfulness for the first hour of the game, and then becomes more of an action puzzle game. The ending for this one really felt rushed and I don’t know how many times you can excuse the antagonist watching the player stop their plans right in front of you. Puzzles and hidden object games are the same as the previous and I won’t repeat myself again.

Summary
So, what can we learnt from all this? Well Big Fish Games have a formula and they are sticking with it, regardless of what studio is developing it. It takes a player on a 3-to-4-hour adventure in a world with a fairly good art style and appropriate puzzles for newcomers to this genre (and potentially games in general). While it is good to see them covering practically every genre imaginable, the repetition kicks in quite early whether that’s with the same puzzles such as snap or untangling ropes or performing the same tasks such as helping a person in shock or feeding an animal. I think this sort of game is best played once or twice as while these games aren’t bad, they repeat their formula too much.

Ratings
Spirits of Mystery: Whisper of the Past: 4/10
Haunted Hotel: Personal Nightmare: 5/10
Ms Holmes: The Case of the Dancing Men: 6/10
Dark City: International Intrigue: 6/10
Redrawn: The Painted Tower: 5/10
Mystery Case Files: Black Crown: 5/10
Mystery Case Files: The Dalimar Legacy: 5/10
Whispered Secrets: Everburning Candle: 5/10

Update: I'll be moving back again to Tomb Raider before I become distracted again. Should be Underworld next which I haven't heard much about compared to the others. Lets see what it has in store for us.

26/01/2025 - Tomb Raider: Anniversary



Here is the 8th main title in the Tomb Raider franchise and the 2nd in the Legend trilogy.

Background

The last game in the franchise was Legend and that turned out to be a commercial success which probably hadn't happened since Chronicles. Due to the franchises anniversary just going by, celebrating 10 years of tomb raiding, Crystal Dynamics and Buzz Monkey Software decided to remake the original game. I mentioned Crystal Dynamics the last time I brought up Tomb Raider but Buzz Monkey Software is a new one to me. From what I can gather, they are a small group of developers who mostly focus on PSP ports (such as TR legend) and some licensed property games. They were then acquired by Zynga, given the new name Zygna Eugene, and now they seem to focus on developing mobile games.

Focusing back to Tomb Raider, originally Core Design (the developers of the first game) were approached to make the game but then it was cancelled halfway through development, likely due to Core Design being sold to Rebellion Developments. Despite this, the two developers managed to release this in 2007 so let's see how it turned out.

Story
I mean it's just the first game again. Lara has to collect three scions scattered across the world and ensure that they don't awaken an ancient Atlantic evil who is bent on ruling the world. Although the plot follows the same beats, a few small things have changed. For example, there is a heavier emphasis on Lara struggling to kill a person and debating whether she should follow her fathers quest for knowledge, even if she knows deep down it would likely kill and/or torture her. I think it's a good way of improving the story without changing it drastically as Lara originally didn't have much of a character back then. Players who have only played Legend may find it a bit weird how Lara is a lot more quiet since she has to yet to meet the characters in that game so she won't be chatting with someone every five minutes. As for others who have played the games before this, it serves as a decent and familiar story so expect to focus more on the gameplay and less on the characters.

Gameplay
Before I leap into the actual controls and platforming, I should mention that Quick Time Events have made their return. I'm bringing this up now since some of the boss fights have been replaced with simple QTEs. These aren't hard, only requiring the use of the directional buttons but for those who wanted to fight everything with guns, sorry but that isn't happening this time. Personally I do like them as it does show Lara being able to accomplish things (with the players help) that couldn't be done just using the usual controls.

Combat is, yet again, one of the weakest parts in the game and I find those faults in two specific points. The first, and least annoying, would be the new adrenaline dodge. The idea is that once you've shot an enemy enough, they will go into a rage and lunge straight towards Lara. At the last second, Lara has to jump to the side and then (ideally) headshot the enemy to inflict damage. On paper I think it's a decent idea to shake up the combat a bit, but with the tutorial only showing up once before a boss fight and it being chancey as to whether Lara will actually dodge in time, it could be further refined. I did get the hang of it by the end but it took a bit of trial and error to get to something that I didn't use too much outside boss fights. The more frustrating mechanic is the aim. Although Lara can automatically or manually aim at an enemy, sometimes Lara doesn't aim correctly. A good example of this is in the penultimate level where Lara would aim at a target and not some enemies right in front of her dealing damage. Even with the option to target an enemy, it doesn't really help if there are two enemies and a switch with the latter being closer. Luckily both of these issues didn't really occur that often and there is plenty of ammo left about to deal with any that appear along with the usual medi-kits.

A picture from the Steam page (one day I'm actually going to screenshot the games I play...today is not that day)


Platforming and puzzles remain the strengths of a Tomb Raider game. Both of these are a lot harder here than in Legend, requiring a good deal of observation and fast reflexes. Even with the quite frankly generous checkpoints, there is a good chance you'll die a fair bit in this game. Would I say it's harder than the original Tomb Raider? No and that's mostly due to the fact that many areas have been redesigned towards the new game engine. So you may see a puzzle you recognise but it may require different platforming to get there and possible the use of Legend's returning grapnel hook. Collectibles also make their return and serve the same function as the previous game so if you want that extra commentary, the challenge is there if you want it. A small key change that I like is the number of medi-kits that can be picked up has drastically increased which is perfect for the later levels. There's also a journal that lets Lara express her thoughts in the current situation. I suspect it's supposed to act as a hint but it never really did a good job at hinting unless you think Lara mentioning its from an ancient civilization is a valuable piece of information in solving a matching puzzle.

I feel like I've been very negative so far but this is actually a very fun game. Lara moves very quickly and her move set allows her to dodge obstacles with ease. The traps are still as nasty and varied as I remembered them and the puzzles offer a good mental challenge. There aren't even that many do or die situations in the first half of the game which makes it great for learning the basics. Sure sometimes Lara can miss grabbing a ledge and it's annoying but the checkpoints make sure it doesn't take too long to try again. The level design here is exactly what you'd want from a Tomb Raider game, it has action, adventure, and tombs.

Presentation

Despite it offering the same story and similar level design to the original, I do feel like it's a completely different game. The areas are more lit up in Anniversary so it's easy to see where everything is. It's quite beautiful in some areas but I wouldn't go as far as saying it's prettier than Legend with its setting. This game leans less on the horror side and more on the action side with the final few levels really encapsulating it best with its use of music. The soundtrack is thrilling and, while not the most memorable, compliments the old and the new quite well. Enemy models are really suit the environment as well although having them confined to a certain area can ruined the illusion a bit, particularly if they are running on the spot with nothing coming between them. I'm looking forward to seeing how the later games will look if it looks quite nice at this stage. Let's see how it goes

Summary
For old fans of the franchise, this is a great way of revisiting the original with new challenges and fresh graphics, just be prepared for a weak combat system. For new fans of the franchise, this is a good follow up to Legend and shows Tomb Raider at its best, just be ready for an increase in difficulty and a heavier focus on puzzles.

Rating: 7/10

Update: If I'm not mistaken, Underworld should be the next game in the franchise so I'll hop on that at some point. In the meantime, I'll find some other game to play in case I get Tomb Raidered out. Thanks for stopping by :)

23/01/25 - Banjo-Kazooie



Since I currently have an NSO subscription, I figured I might as well go through as many games offered for free as I can before my subscription ends.

Background
Banjo-Kazooie was developed by Rare, a British game studio that's been around since 1985. They have made some iconic games ranging from Donkey Kong Country for the SNES that was released in 1994 all the way to 2018’s Sea of Thieves for the Xbox One. And there is plenty more but let’s leave that for another day.

Banjo-Kazooie began life in 1995 under a cancelled game called Project Dream, originally aiming to an RPG about a boy named Edson dealing with a gang of pirates. Over time, this entire idea completely changed. Edson was gone since he was seen as too generic and out of place so after some redesigning, from a dog to a rabbit, they landed on a bear who would eventually become Banjo. They then had to change develop of the game to the new at the time Nintendo 64 since their technology at the time had become outdated. Because of how demanding their RPG became, they scrapped the pirate-themed RPG Dream and focused onto a 2.5D adventure similar to Donkey Kong Country. However, after getting an early glimpse at Super Mario 64 and seeing how the other team in the company were working on Conker 64 (that would become Conker’s Bad Fur Day), they moved to a 3D game since it would be a lot easier for them to develop.

Story
Banjo-Kazooie has as much of a plot as Super Mario 64, albeit a bit more fleshed out. Banjo and his friend Kazooie are sleeping when Banjo’s sister Tooty is stolen by the jealous witch Gruntilda. So, the duo has to stop Gruntilda from stealing Toot beauty by storming her castle and getting to the top floor. That’s about all there is to it, quite straightforward but it’s what you can expect from a silly game like this. The real charm comes from the dialogue and character interaction. Each of the nine levels contains a variety of characters that can aid or attack the pair, always offering some wacky joke or a hint on how to progress. It is a bit more talkative in the first half of the game, towards the end one character just speaks briefly as a means to state how to make progress, but by that point I think it’s earned that and it doesn’t take anything away from the game. If no one talked, it would feel a bit empty but fortunately that never happens so all’s well.

Gameplay
As already mentioned, this is a 3D platformer that holds nine levels that are each connected via a hub world. Each level contains multiple collectibles to collect. The ten jiggles are essentially jigsaw pieces used to complete pictures and therefore unlock levels in the main world. There are the most fun to collect, it does require some creative thinking as well as platforming and combat to collect them all. Unless you want a bonus scene in the end, you don’t really need all to find all of these but they are too fun to ignore. Same applies to notes that are used to unlock doors in the hub world, although those are peskier to find. The amount of pain trying to find one last note of the hundred in a level with hazards was high but at least it gave me a great sense of satisfaction once I found it. Witch switches transform the hub world and are luckily quite easy to locate, otherwise the game would be more frustrating. Mumbo tokens let Banjo-Kazooie transform into a different animal which is deal for nabbing a few extra jiggles in a unique way, although I’m not a fan of how you sometimes have to leave the world as that animal as it can be a bit of a riddle to figure out where and when to use it. Jinjos are little birds that, when all collected, serve as a means to earn a jiggle. It does feel repetitive but with how important they become and how they always make a sound to indicate where they are, I couldn’t be bored by them. The last main collectible is the empty honeycombs which are the hardest to find and rightfully so since 6 of them can increase Banjo-Kazooies health. In my opinion, I’d try and find these as soon as you can since the game can get a bit demanding in its combat towards the second half of the game. So yeah, quite a lot of collectibles and despite the sheer volume and variety of them, I wouldn’t call it complicated. I personally picked up on it quite easily so don’t be intimidated by it!

What about the platforming in this 3D platformer. Well for the most part it’s great which is mostly thanks to Banjo-Kazooies move set. Controls work quite fast and offer a whole variety of moves that are still being introduced halfway through the game. Whether it’s a double jump or using boots to run across hazardous terrain, the duo responds quick and (mostly) accurate when any button is pressed. Rat-a-Tap Rap, Beak Barge, and a simple Forward Roll are thrilling to use against enemies and having access to invulnerability prevents battles from being cruel. Egg shooting is also entertaining but I typically used those for puzzles, despite carrying 100 eggs for most of the game. Not every move is a winner though, swimming can be a bit clumsy with how Banjo-Kazooie turns in the water and attacking enemies in the air can always be a risk with it being easy to miss an enemy. Regardless of these, you can expect a strong performance from these two at a consistent level.

You can also add good level design to the quality of the game. Each level offers a new idea and is oozing in different ways of collecting each item. Even towards the end of the game, I wouldn’t say I was bored of collecting the collectibles, mostly because I was interested in seeing what new obstacles and challenges laid ahead. Due to the open world nature of the game, collecting items can be done in any order so you can easily come back to a Jiggy if it’s giving you a hard time. I really do like this approach, being able to take my time figuring out the best way to approach a task and potentially using the rest of a terrain as a clue for how to solve it. There is also a plentiful amount of health and eggs about so I could even experiment with how I approached things. As with many 3D platformers of the time, the worst aspect of the game is the camera. While it can be easy enough to know how to get somewhere, the camera likes to go its own direction and occasionally hide the next platform to land on. While I don’t think it’s as common as earlier 3D platformers, the issue is still present here so be prepared to zoom in from the characters POV every now and then.

Presentation
As with the gameplay and the story, the music is just as silly. Despite it being quite goofy, it’s pretty fun and really stands out from other platformers. I don’t know, there’s just something so recognizable about it that really livens each world up. Sound design is quite good too, you can easily tell where you are by just hearing the enemies or the environment.

The same thing can be said about the graphics too, quite charming and quite good for a Nintendo 64 title. Each level seemed to have a different colour palette which added to the world quite nicely without it distracting from the level design. There was one area in the castle that did have a bit of lag in it, maybe that had something to do with graphics but I’m not entirely sure.

Summary
An imaginative 3D platformer that’s strengths come from its silly presentation, good controls, and fun soundtrack. It does suffer from a poor camera and some items can be frustrating to collect, but it’s certainly a platformer worth your time.
Rating: 8/10

Update: This took me longer to write that I thought but I got it done in the end. Time to head back into Tomb Raider since I do want to try and finish that this year (no promises).

07/01/25 - Tomb Raider: Legend



Here are yet again with another Tomb Raider game, this one being the shortest one in the main line-up yet.

Background

Tomb Raider: Legend is the 7th main title within the Tomb Raider franchise and it had a lot to live up to. The last game, Angel of Darkness, was a critical failure to the point where the publisher Eidos Interactive transfers the development from Core Design (that only developed two games after this before becoming defunct in 2010) to Crystal Dynamics. Even if it is a well-known company that already had franchises like Legacy of Kain and Gex under its belt, it's still a bold move to hand the franchise away from the original developers who had worked on every Tomb Raider game since then. Because of this and the fact that many things needed to be redesigned so that it doesn't follow the tragic footsteps of it's predecessor, this game took 2 years to develop so let's see if it lives to its reputation today.

Story
This game tells the story of Lara attempting to find and assemble the mythical sword known as Excalibur. This takes her alongside her friends across different parts of the world with her old friend Amanda Evert attempting to stop her as well as trying to find out what happened to her mum. Most of the dialogue and the story is a bit on the cheesy side but I did enjoy it. I think there was a good balance between the emotional moments and the light hearted moments. I also think the new voice actress for Lara Croft, Keely Hawes, did a great job at capturing Laras personality. The other characters I didn't care for that much, they didn't really add much to the story besides giving Lara some people to chat with or to fight against. I did feel like the last part of the story was rushed a bit towards the end but on the whole it concluded the story in a respectable way. It's hard to tell if it's the best story in the franchise but it's certainly ranking near the top.


Gameplay
Let's start with the controls as that was one of the big aspects that the developers had to redo. The tank controls are finally gone (thank god) so it does take a minute to re-adjust to more modern controls especially after playing the earlier games. For the most part, they are an improvement with Lara being quick and flexible as ever with most of the moves from the previous games being present here. If this is your first time playing Tomb Raider or you've played plenty before, it won't take long at all to get used to the new controls. Despite this, the camera is still an issue when jumping to certain areas and particularly when trying to turn in a vehicle since it only recalibrates after a few moments driving forward or by leaving the vehicle.

Luckily the small camera issues doesn't affect the level design much when it comes to platforming. Climbing up and jumping between objects is as straight forward as ever. I wouldn't call it mindless since some parts require quick decision-making and awareness of traps, but it is certainly a lot easier than any of the previous games. Sure some do or die situations still exist but those are towards the end of the game and there's usually sufficient time to dodge these situations. The traps themselves are all unique and fit well into the scenery of each level, I don't think there's a section that is unfair or cruel besides maybe the fire section in the later levels. Additionally, for the first time since I think the original Tomb Raider, secret collectibles make their return so if you want to earn some bonus content such as new outfits, pistol upgrades and character profiles be prepared for some further platforming. There are also time trials after finishing each level but I never bothered with these, it sounds like fun for an extra challenge at least.

Unlike the last six mainline games where Lara could scroll through her inventory system by pausing the game, here Lara can access different things by simply clicking a button. Naturally, we have medi-kits have medi-kits but only 3 can be carried this time, which sucks a bit but honestly there isn't really a point where you need more than that. There's also the option to switch weapons (more on that later) and a PLS (personal light source) which is an ok addition but the game isn't really dark enough to merit it being used more than once. A PDA can be used to state the current objective alongside the number of collectibles found but I didn't use that one much either. Binoculars have had a bit of an upgrade since we last seen them, as they can now scan objects and determine what Lara can do with them. I didn't find these too useful either since the objects that are needed in the room tend to be obvious in what they do, such as an explosive barrel being explosive. And then we finally have the grapple, perhaps the best addition to Lara's arsenal. This handy gadget can not only allow Lara to swing past large gaps but it also (unlike the grapple gun in TR Chronicles) lets her collect objects from a distance. It adds more ways to quickly transverse an area whilst opening up the possibilities of what Lara can use to help make progress. What more can you want?

Occasionally there may be a Quick Time Event (QTE) as a means to evade danger. Typically I think these are ok if done well and I'm happy to say they are ok here. On the PC version I'm playing on, QTEs tend to just involve WASD controls and it's somewhat obvious when one is about to happen. Would I mind if they disappeared? Not really but here they serve as a unique way of avoiding disaster whilst strengthening the claim that Lara is indeed as strong and cool as she appears in the media.

Strangely, there aren't many puzzles in this game when compared to the others. Maybe it's due to time restrictions or trying to make this game as cinematic as possible with lots of fast-paced action going on, whatever the reason is we have a handful this time around. These puzzles felt more natural to the world it's in rather that it being a strange out of place block moving exercise. It makes good use of the grapples ability alongside examining the environment to know what to do. These sections don't last too long, taking about 5-10 minutes for each one and maybe less than half a minute if you know what to do. I do wish there were a few more of these thrown in, sure a temple had traps but it should also be a test of mental strength as opposed to physical strength.

I mentioned vehicle controls earlier in the post so it'd be wrong not to bring up the sections where these are used. Most of the time spent in these vehicles is to travel fast when taking down enemies. This is where I died the most as I found these sections the hardest in the game. It may come from me having a lack of experience in driving games but the number of enemies and being restricted to only pistols does give it what I'd argue the most challenging aspect of the game. Admittedly, there was still plenty of opportunities to collect medi-kits and the vehicles can avoid obstacles with ease. The remaining time in each vehicle is used for some basic platforming, nothing too remarkable but these are the more boring parts of the game (looking at you forklift truck).

Combat is serviceable albeit the weakest part of the game for me. Lara has the option between shooting with her standard dual pistols (with infinite ammo, nice to have them back) and another weapon of her choice that has been dropped from a fallen enemy. The targeting in this game is so much better than Angel of Darkness and really comes in handy during fights although you can still just run up to the enemy rather than hide behind a box. Lara can also carry 4 grenades as well which works wonders against armed men with shields and small groups. In fact that's most of the enemy types right there. Armed men with standard weapons, armed with a shield and weapon, and the occasional dog or leopard. There really isn't any other type of enemy which surprised me a bit particularly since Lara is travelling all over the world and arriving in different locations. I can say the same about the weapons to, it's mostly submachine guns and shotguns. I think a grenade launcher is in the game but I never managed
to get my hands on it, although seeing the reviews that might be for the best. Another sad thing about the content is the enemy path finding because the AI is yet again a bit dumb. I had one solider shooting at a wall whilst staring directly at me, three armed men not being able to open a door I just went through (yet they shot at the wall anyway) and I had an entire boss just running endless on a ledge. Sure it's a bit mean to pick three instances of a glitch in a 7 hour game but when it's noticeable, it's noticeable.

Presentation
The last thing to mention is the obvious upgrade in the graphics. We are certainly far away from the 1990s PS1 style as the character models here are quite good. The same goes for the locations as well, they did a really good job as copying the locations of each place in the world Lara visits. Sound effects of things like a waterfall and a boulder rolling down a hill really add to the sense of adventure so combining all of this together with an entertaining little soundtrack and you've got yourself one of the best aspect of any tomb raider game.

Summary
A triumphant return for the franchise that really shook up the Tomb Raider formula for the better. It is far from flawless with its weak combat system and dumb AI, but this is certainly one of the strongest games in the franchise which I think any Tomb Raider fan will enjoy.
Rating: 8/10

Update
I am aware there is also a Nintendo DS, GBA, and mobile version of this game but I'm happy just doing this one for now. Maybe I'll tackle them some other day. I also got rid of the tier list since I wasn't a big fan of it, I'd rather focus on the single game than trying to rank it against the others in the franchise. For now though, I'll play a random game from the Nintendo Switch Online catalogue before moving onto the next TR game. See you next time :)

04/01/25 - PixelMouse Trilogy

Fourth post this week, quite unusual for me but it's good in terms of getting through the seemingly never-ending backlog.

Todays post are three short games from the developed PixelMouse. I couldn't find much about them but based on the collectible kana's and use of English on the Steam page, I'm going to say it's a Japanese-based developer. These three games are the only ones released by the developer with the earliest coming out in December 2016 and the latest on November 2017. I don't think any more games will be produced but since each of these games have been released for free in the past year or so, we can't rule that out completely. Let's go through each of these, shall we?

Distant Space



We are starting with a classic shoot em' up arcade game. It's essentially space invaders with a few extra things going on. Throughout 26 levels, the player must shoot each of the alien invaders before they destroy the ship. Every 9 (ish) levels there is a boss that must be destroyed before progressing towards the next level. That's pretty much all there is to it but it's a short arcade so it's not going to be getting too complex.

So what does this game try to do to separate itself from others. Short version: not much. Long version: it tried to keep things to it's most basics. There is only one song on this game which is looped but that can be forgiven for it being quite arcadic, it being a short game and it just being a good thing to blast aliens to. The background is just a grey background with only about 4 other colours being used in total. I don't think that's necessarily a boring thing since the gameplay makes up for it, but I do think the aliens blend a bit too much into the background causing there to be briefs moments of "where's that alien?" and "what hit me?". Levels can feel a bit similar to but there is an attempt to shake things up every now and then with different projectiles and a range of enemy patterns.

Gameplay-wise it's a similar story. The ship can move as well as it should, avoiding (clearly visible) projectiles is no problem. In terms of defence, a shield can be activated that grants invincibility for about 10 seconds. While this is a neat idea, it doesn't get recharged unless you die so I easily forgot it existed. I mean after all, it's just there for ten seconds in a 30 minute game. Pickups can also be collected that can double or triple the next 10 shots from the ship but again, it's a bit hard to see when they fall due because they are white on a grey background. I wouldn't say any of the battles posed a threat outside of the boss fights which felt like they took forever to deal with. I blame the sound design here, it's hard to tell when a hit has landed on the boss as there isn't a sound to say it did.

To summarise, a decent arcade game but nothing that hasn't been done before and has a few problems. If it becomes free in the future, I think it's worth some time with but nothing I'd personally pay for.

Distant Space 2



Yep it got a sequel and it's a bit better.

First off, the background has been replaced from a plain grey background to a black space theme which really helps with what's going on. The shield can actually recharge now so that makes it more helpful. There's another weapon that acts as a beam to take out large quantity of enemies in a second, a very handy weapon for sure. This one can feel a bit more dull to play however with this one 26 levels. Since this is a shortest review I should mention all three games here are achievement farming i.e. you get given six steam achievements for finishing each level. This doesn't affect the game in anyway, it's just funny honestly. And yeah, that's about all I have to say about this one, if you have to pick between the two Distant Space games, go for the second one.

Minimalism


The final game of this trio is not a arcade shoot 'em up but a precision platformer.

As you may guess from the title and the previous two games in this post, this game keeps things to it's most basic. You are a square that needs to get to the end of the level, avoiding obstacles and collecting keys on the way there. The steam description prides itself with three key features so let's go over them real quick.

First off we have 30 levels with increasing complexity. Yeah I'd agree with this one. These are some hard levels especially towards the end although some nasty ones can come a bit early. Some obstacles such as moving spikes and dart traps are fair challenges, I wouldn't say anything requires crazy movement besides one or two moments. The optional collectibles also provide an extra layer of difficulty but you don't really get anything besides more steam achievements. It does say that the game acts as a "labyrinth" but it didn't get that confusing, each level was quite small and finding items was far from the hard part of the game. My main gripe with this game comes from how awkward the cube moves, it feels a bit slippy in places which can be quite annoying with areas that require accurate movement. Even towards the end, I wouldn't say I got used to the movement but then again it was easy to learn the controls for this to, even when they throw stuff like anti-gravity in.

The other two features are "minimalistic design" and "good music". Design-wise I think I agree with? It can be a bit boring seeing the same black and white room about 30 times but I liked the idea of tackling what a precision platform is at its most fundamental. I will disagree with the music on this game, hearing the same five minute mediocre track being played for a couple hours isn't the most entertaining thing in the world. I just put my own music on in the end just so I didn't go made slipping into the same spikes for the 100th time.

Summary: PixelMouse is a competent developer(s) that has some decent games that try to shake up the formula of classic games. Distant Space 1 is a basic shoot 'em up game that provides a slightly entertaining 30 minutes of alien killing even if there are problems with the blending of projectiles with the background and it feeling like the same level. Distant Space 2 improves on its predecessor and is the best game of the three, doing it's best to give the most 70s arcadic feeling it can. Minimalism is a mostly successful precision platformer that deliberately keepings things as abstract as possible, even if it comes at the disadvantage of poor controls and a feeling of repetition. If you have these for free then they are worth an afternoon playing through, but I wouldn't go out your way to pay for it.

Ratings
Distant Space: 4/10
Distance Space 2: 5/10
Minimalism: 5/10

Update: Ok now I move back to Tomb Raider after a few games. I doubt I'll get through the games as quick as the ones I've played this week but let's see. Hopefully it's just some classic TR fun. Until next time :)

03/01/25 - Apogee Throwback Pack Part 4 - Blake Stone: Planet Strike



This was a lot shorter than I expected, otherwise I would have done this in the same post as the one above. Oh well, this shall be a short post anyway.

Planet Strike is the expansion pack to Aliens of Gold, being released about a year afterwards. It's shorter, being only 20 levels as one big episode as opposed to the 60 levels in 6 episodes. We have new graphics here which really suit the game, allowing for darker areas and more varied locations. There are "new" enemies and when I mean "new" I mean most of them are just the old enemies with a better design. Levels themselves are a bit weaker, with them being fairly short although the difficulty has risen a bit, with less health being found (that's fair I think) and enemies that can becoming invisible (not so fair considering an enemy has a chance of taking out about 80% of health). A new plasma weapon is present to wipe out enemies, not something I used much but still handy. What was not so handy was the map which is now reduced in size and can only be zoomed in using some battery packs. A bit pointless even if you can kind secrets with it, just makes navigating the levels a bit more difficult.

Summary: An expansion that improves its looks but has a little dip in its gameplay. If you enjoyed Aliens of Gold, Planet Strike is a solid 3 hour journey.
Rating: 6/10

Summary of the Pack: There are only four titles in the pack but for such a low price, it's quite good getting two classic FPS games. My favourite of the pack of Rise of the Triad due to its traps and atmosphere, but Blake Stone is an overlooked game that deserves it's own time. Planet Strike is decent enough but the only one of the four I didn't like was Extreme Rise of the Triad due to how unfairly difficult it was. Personally I think the games could have been ported better rather than having their DOS versions, just for betters graphics and/or controls. It's certainly playable without them though. Overall, I think if you enjoy this genre, then this pack is a decent pick and will provide a couple dozen hours of fun and challenges.
Rating: 7/10

Update: Well that was certainly quicker than I expected haha. My next post will likely be a few very short games since I started a few on Christmas and wanted to bundle them all together. Then I'll likely move towards whatever the next Tomb Raider game is. Let's see if I actually stick to what I'm saying this time :)

03/01/25: Apogee Throwback Pack Part 3 - Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold



As promised, here is the third title in the Apogee Throwback Pack.

Background
This is the second game in the pack that was published by Apogee although this one was released before Rise of the Triad. The 1993 game was developed by JAM Productions which seems to come from the developers names Jim Row and Mike Maynard. These developers came up with the name Blake Stone comes from some action figures around the time which may explain the cheesy promotional artwork for the game. They also used the Wolfenstein-3D engine so if you've played that game, you can already get a feel to what the game is like. Not much information outside of this stuff besides them having to change the antagonist name from Dr Goldstern to Dr Goldfire due to a complaint that they were portraying Jewish people as evil (uh oh). Anyway let's move on to the actual game.

Story
Compared to other FPS games at this time, this game does have a bit of a story....not much of a story but still a story. In 2140, Blake Stone (or Robert Wills Stone III if you really want to call him that) is a successful agent of British intelligence. His assignment is to stop Dr Goldstern from unleashing his alien mutants onto the planet and taking over the universe. To do this, Blake must travel to six key points and dismantle them, destroying any creature that comes in its way. It's a very basic sci-fi plot but it works to keep the plot going. At least I know why I'm in a certain area and who I'm playing as. The text messages at the start of each episode also help paint the scene well, even if it's the usual "oh Dr Goldstern is so dangerous, be careful Blake".

Gameplay
Aliens of Gold is split into six missions, each being 9 levels long and containing 2 secret levels. You may think there being over 60 levels that it will be a long game but in reality it's quite short. Each level takes about 5 to 20 minutes so this game is strangely deal for those who want to play something during a short break. The goal of each level (excluding the boss levels) is to find a red key and escape to the elevator so that it may take you to the next level. On reflection, this works quite well since you know where the exit is already and it shows a natural progression between levels. Keys are clearly marked as well although with locked doors it can be a bit awkward figuring out which key is which. The map can help with this despite it being a bit awkward to navigate due to the thing always rotating so that the characters forward direction is the current north. Although to be fair to the map, it does highlight locked doors and keys in red which is very useful for backtracking. I only got lost twice so I consider that quite good for an early 90s game.

Combat is mediocre and strangely the weakest aspect in the game, but not for the reason you may think. There are a lot of enemy types in the game, ranging from typical soldiers to the already mentioned alien mutants to turrets. Each behave a little differently, some being hit-scan and some being fairly avoidable but high-damaging projectiles. The big problem with this, however, is that outside of the plasma creatures that can respawn from generators and deal high damage, the remaining 16 enemy types aren't really a threat at all. They can all go down in a few shots at most and supplies are all over the place. Sometimes I left the level with about 8 full medikits and lots of ammo left to spare. And this doesn't change in any of the levels, it can get a bit dull to just mindlessly kill everything without much of a thought, especially with areas that all feel the same. This even applies to the bosses, the final one only taking about ten seconds to destroy with the most powerful weapon in the game (with plenty of ammo left to spare).

Now might be a good point to bring up the score system because yes you can try and earn a high score for each mission completed. The score gives points for the percentage of enemies killed, any treasure found in the level, the amount of areas explored, and the number of informants left behind. I haven't mentioned it yet but in some of the levels, there are informants who can provide tips, food tokens (to gain health at a vending machine or ammo at a power machine), or some power for your guns. They are quite handy even if I have the maximum amount of food tokens by the end of each episode. The only issue I have with them is that some of them are actually enemies and not informants, so you can only go and check who is an informant by interacting with them or (in many cases for me) killing them by accident. Overall, the point system is a bit outdated but at[/U] least I got a nice bonus when I got 150,000 points.

Presentation
As I mentioned before, none of the levels really distinguish themselves that well. If you showed me a screenshot of a level, I could say it's from any of the six episodes. Despite that, it still came across as a colourful sci-fi adventure. I could easily see some ammo down a long corridor or an enemy facing in my direction. With the latter point, sound design is decent with each enemy making their sound before attacking (even if I thought the doors closing at first was a creature). Secrets are still a bit too hard to pinpoint but when I did come across them, they weren't too useful for me anyway. It didn't feel rewarding since I already had everything I need already, all it adds is a chance to increase my high score. The music was fine too, a bit repetitive but action-packed nonetheless.

Summary: A decent if a bit unremarkable FPS. If you are new to early FPS games then this seems like a decent one to start with.
Rating: 6/10

Update: There goes the first game of 2025 for me! I'm not sure what games I'll end up playing this year but I do want to get through more of my switch games since it's been too long since I played it. Anyway, for now I'll play the final game in the Apogee Throwback Pack which is an expansion pack to Blake Stone. Let's see if this one is straight-forward or if they throw in something new.

30/12/24 - Professor Layton & The Last Spectre



This wasn't the Apogee Pack but sometimes it's nice to break the pattern.

Professor Layton & The Last Spectre (or The Spectre's Call if you're in Europe) is the fourth instalment in the Professor Layton franchise although it is set before the first three games, effectively making this a prequel. In fact I believe it's part of the prequel trilogy with the next two games being found on the Nintendo 3DS unlike this one which is just a DS game, maybe I'll get to those someday.

In terms of plot, this is almost as good as any other Layton game. A strong set of mysteries with varied characters, areas that are given plenty of detail, and plot twists to boot. I said almost as good as there are a few plot holes or moments where some people act out of character. I think these traits are found within other Layton games but it's more present here. Fortunately, these little issues can be ignored by the craziness of the plot and the emotional moments that come with it as the characters and their development rarely fail. It can get quite barmy at times but that's the charm of this series in my opinion. If you enjoyed the previous plots in the previous three games then this one will certainly get your attention.

If I had to compare the puzzles in this game and from other games, I couldn't tell you much. If this was the first game in the franchise then it really offers a diverse range of puzzles ranging from logic to mazes to maths (god I hated the math ones). If you've played the previous three games then there isn't much different from what you've solved before. Despite this, I still found myself getting stuck every now and then and the feeling of correctly solving the puzzle is still as satisfying as ever. I found that most of the issues with the screen being too small for the puzzles has been removed so everything's clear and easy to see, although I do still prefer opening notepad then writing my working on the screen.

Traversing the area is as much of a puzzle as the game. There are hidden coins everywhere that can be used to unlock hints in the game alongside some hidden puzzles. You can also catch mice to unlock whack-a-mouse...it's not important but why not have a bit of fun by hitting mice after lots of problem solving? Episodes can be unlocked by talking to certain characters and solving optional(?) puzzles. These episodes provide a little dialogue between characters that doesn't appear in the main campaign. It's little details like this which make me admire the franchise for brining the world to life as much as possible. Furthermore, fish tanks, train tracks and actions can be found using the same method as the episodes for the fish tank minigame and the theatre minigame respectively. I enjoyed the fish tanks and especially the train tracks as it involves trying to make us of the entire "map" to get to the goal. Wasn't a big fan of the theatre though as I wasn't sure when I had collected all the words to complete a scene although I do appreciate the game making use of word puzzles as opposed to the vast quantity of number puzzles.

Summary: Although The Last Spectre follows the previous games a bit too much to distinguish itself as an important instalment in the franchise, it still promises a good time with plenty of brainteasers and a cute art style.
Rating: 7/10

Update: A short entry but I expected as such. It would be long and pointless if I went through every puzzle and piece of dialogue but I think this covers the main aspects well enough. Anyway I'll move back to the Apogee Throwback Pack now, I promise not to deviate! In the meantime, wishing everyone a happy 2025 :)

15/12/2024 - Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness



Welcome back to my blog where I attempt to review games and then kick myself the next day for forgetting to add something to the review. This post is focusing on the (slow) progression through the Tomb Raider franchise, this time landing on the most infamous game of them all: The Angel of Darkness.

So the idea behind this game was that it was gonna be a big game changer for the franchise. With the jump between console generations, in this case PS1 to PS2, Angel of Darkness was originally going to be the first in a trilogy of games that pushed the console to its limited. Despite there being three years and two teams working on it, the reimaging didn't work out too well with their being a lack of leadership in the teams and parts being redone including elements of the plot, not to mention levels either been thrown away or being unfinished. There's likely a whole lot of other information that could be found about this but this is really just to set context for the game and its faults. Let's find out what caused a studio to shut down and almost kill the Tomb Raider franchise in just 15 hours of gameplay.

The Angel of Darkness opens with a dark plot, Lara being accused of murdering her mentor. I think the idea of the plot works well, plenty of mystery surrounding it like any good Tomb Raider game. I wouldn't say anything caught me off guard and it can feel a bit similar to the other games but it serves well for the first game on this generation. Could have done with a better ending but I guess that's why you don't do a trilogy until you've got it confirmed. Cutscenes are plentiful here although more could have been used to show how Lara gets from A to B (another consequence of rushed development). The voice acting isn't the best, some of the deliveries have a lack of energy or interest. The reason for this can be seen in the Paris section where Lara speaks to people to gain information about infiltrating The Louvre, the people there just feel bored and can't be arsed to talk. You could argue that they are just sitting about but with a plot involving murder and cults, you'd think some would care a bit more. Although I will say being able to interact with people with a decision tree was certainly a good addition to the franchise. Sure not every area has someone to talk to but it makes conversations a lot more engaging even if the voice acting is off and the subtitles are slightly delayed.

The most obvious and annoying part of this game is the controls. If you found Lara hard to play with in the PS1 games, you will hate it here. She feels slower, her jumps are more awkward, and turning is still a pain. This can make platforming a bit of a gamble with every jump having the possibility to result in a game over. Climbing was decent enough, the only challenging aspect of that was figuring out where was needed to climb. Combat controls were solid for the most part, she could get her weapon out quickly and her inventory was the neatest one so far (although some items could have been thrown away). Targeting enemies was a real pain in the ass since it can take a long time to switch between two enemies, making it almost pointless. Luckily the enemies in this game aren't too difficult and so the controls can be forgiven there. It's just everything else that needs them.

Ignoring the control issues, I do think the levels are designed well for the most part. Out of all the games in the franchise so far, this one is probably the one I got lost in the least. A lovely variety of colour and settings in the game even if tombs were barely part of it. For the PC version, areas were lit up well so it wasn't hard to identify where was needed to jump. Swimming actually worked quite well, no complaints about moving Lara underwater here. Secrets seemed more on the nose this time, with them usually being a jump away and having a little light showing their presence but it was still a nice feeling to collect them. A few puzzles were even thrown about but most of them weren't too hard to do besides a crate puzzle (which are always difficult for me) and one that required looking at the end of a notebook which seemed hard unless someone looked at all ten pages in advance. The only aspect I felt was off was having Lara perform a certain action to access another part of the level. For instance, if Lara doesn't have enough stamina (yes she has stamina now) to reach a certain area, then she needs to go somewhere and perform a hard jump, for example, to gain that extra stamina. It just felt off to me, like if it was to access a secret then sure that makes sense. But for compulsory progress, it just breaks the flow of the game and felt pointless as Lara is already a strong enough woman to handle these things.

It wouldn't be fair to bring up this game without mentioning the Kurtis levels. For 3-4 levels of the game, you take the role of the most early 00s edgy man to exist. I don't mind his levels too much, they feel more like classic Resident Evil than Tomb Raider but it served as a way to see the story away from Lara's eyes. A shame he controls worse than Lara, being even slower and more clumsy. This becomes really apparent when he has to fight a couple bosses, particularly the second one that requires aiming at the boss and quick dodging. Even if he controlled well, I still think this gameplay takes away from the TR aspect too much with it being less of a mystery adventure and more of a survival shooter.

Outside of platforming, puzzles and combat, Angel of Darkness also officially introduces stealth. There were elements of it in previous games like the Nebraska level in TR3 but this game adds proper controls for it. By going into stealth mode, Lara can sneak around and take out a mercenary silently. Do I like this gimmick? Sure, I don't think Lara needs to use it all the time but it can add more tension to an a game that already has dread within it. Was it implemented well? Eh, not really. Attempting to stealth kill(?) an enemy has a 50/50 chance of working. So why should I worry about that when I can simply just take out my gun and take them all out? I mean there's more than enough ammo to deal with them and there is no consequence for being detected. Overall good idea, poor execution.

I feel obligated to bring up the glitches since they seem to be a main criticism for the game. I didn't encounter many but I did see some. Lara's model was flicking bad at the start of the game but a quick change of a graphic setting fixed that. A little later, I had the delight of witnessing some broken pathfinding with a security guard running in a corner. I happened to go inside Lara's head a few times during the game, you can thank the camera for that which is as horrendous as the controls in this game. Both Lara and Kurtis also had a moment where they slide across the floor without me having to move them. That was more funny than annoying, even if it did kill me...twice.

Summary: One of many examples of why rushed development and overambitious projects often tend to fail. There is still fun to be had with this game with its offers of platforming and puzzles, but the worst enemy you'll encounter is the controls and the camera.
Rating: 5/10

Current ranking:
Tomb Raider (1996)
Tomb Raider II
Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation
Tomb Raider: The Prophecy
Tomb Raider: Curse of the Sword
Tomb Raider (2000)
Tomb Raider III
Tomb Raider: Chronicles
Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

Update: Well that was better than I expected to be honest. I was expecting worse considering how it almost killed the franchise but maybe that's because I was imagining me handling lots of glitches or nasty platforming. Anyway I'll be moving to the third part of the Apogee Throwback Pack so stay tuned for that.

09/12/24: Apogee Throwback Pack Part 2 - Extreme Rise of the Triad



The second title within the Apogee Throwback Pack is Extreme Rise of the Triad. As you might have guessed, this is an expansion to the first title Rise of the Triad. As such, I'm not going to go into much detail with this one.

So what does this expansion pack offer? Not much new content outside a random level generator and some level editors. However, what many players come for is the new 4-episode adventure. It's a little longer than the base game but a lot more difficult. There are no new enemies or traps or anything like that, instead gameplay is mostly focusing on instant-killing obstacles and large swarms of enemies in small areas. The best way I could describe it as follows: in the original game a room could just involve killing 4 low-tier enemies and avoiding a single trap. This game would throw in 3-4 traps and change all those low-tier enemies to high-tier ones. It balances too finely between fair and just cruel with the final episode being more of a pain than fun. Take E4A2s Getting the Drop, a level cannot be possible to finish unless you either perform a very difficult jump or select a specific character to complete with. Or how about four levels later with Technical Ecstacy where you'll instantly be killed before you even begin. It's level design choices like these that sap whatever fun can be had with some of the game. And even if these were fixed, it can still feel repetitive gunning down the same three enemies again and again.

Summary: An expansion pack that flirts a bit too often between what is a fair challenge and what is just a kick in the balls. I'd only recommend this if you really want more of Rise of the Triad.
Rating: 4/10

Update: I wish I could say things would be relaxing now that I've finished Extreme Rise of the Triad however I would be lying if I did. I've heard Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness is quite infamous but I admittedly have no idea why that's the case. Only one way to find out...

02/12/2024 - Tomb Raider: The Prophecy



Another quick review of a short game. As with the last two Tomb Raider games, this one went quicker than I expected.

Tomb Raider: The Prophecy is a 2002 Game Boy Advance game that is placed between Tomb Curse: Curse of the Sword and Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness in the release timeline of the franchise. This title was developed by Ubisoft Milan which are best known for the Mario + Rabbids games although they are also part of the development for the Just Dance franchise. As with the other Gameboy TR titles, there isn't much information about the game so let's jump straight to the main content.

Like with The Nightmare Stone and Curse of the Sword, the plot for this game is quite thin which should come as little surprise. This game tells the story of Lara collecting three magical stones to stop an evil cult from resurrecting The Great Grey One. Lara is a lot more chatty in this one, taking moments during the game to comment briefly on something ahead or just randomly drop exposition out of nowhere. It can get a bit annoying if you walk past an area as it may trigger the same conversation twice but for the most part it gives life to the game.

The best thing about this game is how pretty it is. The isometric view and vibrant colours really give something none of the other games have given so far. Although only four sections of the game exist, each is fairly distinct even if in some cases it's a matter of changing a few colours. There are also very short levels too that act as a short bridge to connect two big levels together which I find quite charming. Music and sound effects are fairly present in this game and contribute to the world, whether that's by an enemy far in the distance or simply wind blowing in the background. I would be very eager to see another Tomb Raider game in this sort of style again.

Gameplay-wise it's fine but suffers from repetition. Controlling Lara is quite easy compared to previous entries with the ability to lock-on to enemies during combat and now being able to jump other enemies. Platforming can be a bit tricky with a mix of depth perception and Lara's jumps being a bit awkward, but generally it's a fun challenge. Combat is generally ok but fighting only three enemy types can be a bit dull. The same applies to how levels are solved, 90% of the game is simply hitting switches and moving past the same two traps. As it's only about 5-6 hours long and a portable game, it can be forgiven but it can be a bit underwhelming to see features like dart traps barely implemented.

Summary: A pretty if a bit repetitive game that translates the 3D games into 2D quite well. If you want a fun afternoon game, give this game a shot.
Rating: 6/10

Current ranking:
Tomb Raider (1996)
Tomb Raider II
Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation
Tomb Raider: The Prophecy
Tomb Raider: Curse of the Sword
Tomb Raider (2000)
Tomb Raider III
Tomb Raider: Chronicles

Update: Blimey that went quicker than I expected but still a decent time. Next time I play a Tomb Raider game will be Angel of Darkness which will be....interesting considering it's reputation. For now, I'll head back to the Apogee Throwback Pack which should be another short review considering it's an expansion pack. Until next time :)

01/12/24: Apogee Throwback Pack Part 1 - Rise of the Triad: Dark War



One of the reasons my backlog is quite big is because I tend to buy a collection of games. In todays case, I got the Apogee Throwback Pack which I managed to get by selling Steam trading cards (since I'm not the sort of person who wants to collect them). This pack is a collection of four titles from Apogee Software, two of them being expansion packs to the other two games. As there's a bunch to talk about with each title, I'll tackle each game one at a time rather than all in one go otherwise it'll be overwhelming. The first of this four is Rise of the Triad: Dark War.

For simplicities sake, I'm only focusing on Dark War. I'm not doing the shareware version "The Hunt Begins" as most of the levels are in Dark War anyway. I'm also not playing the remastered Ludicrous Edition although maybe I'll play through it someday. No, I'm playing the original 1995 release that was supposed to have been a follow up to Wolfenstein 3D but ended up being its own thing. This four-episode game lets the player take control of one of five different characters known collectively as The Hunt. Their mission is to infiltrate a fortress and stop a cult from destroying millions of people. Not much of a plot but early FPS games rarely have any. In this playthrough, I'm playing as Taradino Cassatt as his stats are all average meaning he wouldn't be easy to kill and fairly quick to move.

The first episode showcases the gameplay quite well, which is good since it doesn't really change much throughout the course of the game. There aren't many choices in terms of standard weapons, with the pistol and dual-pistol only existing for less than a minute until the MP40 appears. It isn't an exciting gun by any means, but it's unlimited ammo and ability to stun-lock most enemies makes it ideal for taking out the basic guards. Other weapons exist as well, although these are scattered across each level and better suited for bosses.
- Bazookas are simple enough, shooting a missile and exploding upon impact. I stuck with this most of the time since I could defeat strong enemies from afar.
- Heat-seekers lock onto heat sources, allowing missiles to home-in towards it. It's solid although I prefer to focus on weapons that fire in a straight line.
- Split missiles shoot two missiles at once at 45 degree angles. I didn't use this one much as if an enemy was straight ahead of me, it'd just miss.
- Drunk missiles fire 5 small missiles at one specific enemy. I also didn't use this one much but it was great for bosses.
- The flamewall shoots fire on the road that, when hitting an enemy, releases a small detonation. This one I did not collect as much but it was the most fun weapon in the arsenal.
- Last and not least is the firebomb, a missile that creates explosions in four directions. I don't remember using this one but it was likely handy.

Ok enough waffle about the weapons, what about the levels themselves? The first episode was probably the most enjoyable to me. The maps here were moderately varied in terms of scale and appearance, some being small and inside closed corridors, other being large open spaces. Each level contained lots of collectibles to get
for a player to earn points, with 100 points equalling an extra life. Despite being very retro, I never bothered collecting them as the save system makes lives almost pointless. It's the same with the secrets too, if I saw them then I'd go after them but the sheer quantity put me off alongside the fact that I'm usually well-equipped as it was already. Health was also scattered fairly across the levels so secrets were only really for gaining it back if I ran out. Take the boss of the episode for instance, nothing too harsh but is fairly unique for its time by popping in different areas of the room. Luckily, there was enough weapons and healthy lying about that I didn't feel the need to start looking for secret walls or hidden pressure pads.

Moving onto episode 2 now with not too much changing. Despite grenade-throwing enforcers, rolling strike guards, and weapon-stealing lightning guards, the action in this part of the game continues to be fast and somewhat repetitive. The music keeps things going and fresh with plenty of bops playing throughout the campaign. Power-ups are almost more present in this episode than the previous one, these are the main ones :
- God mode: I doubt I need to say the amount of joy I get from running over traps without pain and vaporising any enemy in front of me.
- Dog mode: Turning into an invincible dog and killing enemies with a loud bark is all I ever want from a game.
- Mercury mode: Flying about was fine but this is a bit more gimmicky than useful.
- Elasto mode: One of the power downs. It's quite an annoying one so it wins as a power down, even if it was only dangerous about once or twice throughout the whole game.
- Shrooms mode: Being on drugs for 15 seconds can be a real pain but again it was only dangerous a couple times.

Not much to say about the boss in this episode, probably the most boring one but nothing bad by any means.

Third episode now and it's starting to get more difficult with is mostly because of the introduction of robots that could only be destroyed using a missile. It's not horrible as long as you keep a fair distance and shoot them down quickly. Traps are becoming more present here too but many can be avoided by some careful movement. The boss on this level is very hard, easily tougher than anything found in episode 4. It's down to being very quick and being able to kill a player within two hits. I didn't like it at all, it felt too out of place in terms of difficulty.

The last episode is fine although it starts to decline in level design. Almost all of the enemies are monks which can be stunned before firing a missile although their number is quite high. Their health does slow the action down but considering it's near the end of the game, I don't mind it that much. Despite these levels being the biggest in the game, it was still quite easy to know where to go mostly due to the handy map that shows where doors are and where the pressure pads are located. The levels themselves do differentiate in terms of colour too and so while it can feel repetitive at times and not the most detailed ever, the chances of getting lost are low. The last boss is the most frustrating part of the game not because of its difficulty (it's actually straight-forward) but what is needed to do to in order to win. I won't write exactly what happens here but I had to restart the level because of it. It's a shame really as I felt this game could have ended better and not have been an out of place puzzle that requires restarting the whole level for.

Summary: Besides a few flaws with level design and how little it changes throughout the game, Rise of the Triad: Dark Water is an enjoyable FPS. I wouldn't recommend it as the first game of the genre to play but would be ideal after playing a couple others, especially Wolfenstein 3-D.
Rating: 6/10

Update: Not much to report at this point. I'll likely ever continue with the Apogee Throwback Pack or move to the next portable Tomb Raider game. Wouldn't like to say which at this point but I'm sure I'll update this again soon enough.

04/11/2024 - Tomb Raider: Curse of the Sword



Due to this games length, the fact I reviewed the other TR Gameboy game, and the fact it's my third post in a week (somehow), I'll keep this post brief.

Since a Tomb Raider film was coming out in 2001, the publishers wanted a Tomb Raider game to be released as well as the film, likely for financial purposes. The developers of the last portable Tomb Raider game set to work on this and is essentially the sequel to Tomb Raider (2000). You may have noticed there's only a one year gap between the two games but at this point it's not much of a surprise these keep appearing. Let's see what's changed and what's stayed the same.

As with Tomb Raider (2000), the plot is very simple. An unnamed antagonist is attempting to resurrect an ancient evil magician using a cursed sword and a willing "host" for her to be resurrected in. Naturally, Lara has to stop this to not only prevent her from returning and causing chaos, but also to remove a curse that she received from the antagonist. Despite it being short and basic, this plot flows a lot better than the last one due to the mystery of where Lara will go next (as the game is not set entirely within a temple) and that each level ends in a cutscene. Also helping this is the game length with it being half the size of the original game, not too surprising considering the lack of development time. One thing I do wish the story did was throw in a cutscene before the final level as it just felt a bit too sudden for my liking.

Gameplay wise is more of the same as its predecessor. Controls are still fine, there are less "sliding into death" moments in this game so areas seem to accommodate these controls better. Enemies are still quite simple and don't really need any of the different ammo types, although some enemies attack the second you go through a door so that sucks. A lot more boss fights than the last game, the final boss was a bit too easy in my opinion but I liked how different and unexpected each of them were. Levels aren't as confusing as the last game as each area is given different and more detailed backgrounds than before which really makes a big difference. A couple levels are even timed which is good but I'd rather explore each area than run to the end of the level avoiding areas that will instantly kill me. Medi-kits aren't as well hidden in this game since secrets don't appear as often, but these are always plentiful so health wasn't a major concern in this game. Music continues to be absent from most of the game but again it can be forgiven as it's a Gameboy Colour game.

Summary: An improvement over Tomb Raider (2000). This provides a fast-paced yet short Tomb Raider experience with a nice art style and the sense of adventure that any good Tomb Raider game has. If you don't mind some ok controls and a barebones plot, this is worth spending a day playing.
Rating: 7/10

Current ranking:
Tomb Raider (1996)
Tomb Raider II
Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation
Tomb Raider: Curse of the Sword
Tomb Raider (2000)
Tomb Raider III
Tomb Raider: Chronicles.

Update: Another Tomb Raider game down. While I do want to get to play Tomb Raider: The Prophecy fairly soon, I want to avoid burn out from the franchise. So I'll play something else before I move that. Maybe a bit of a longer game too so I don't burn myself out on these posts either. We'll see what happens. Thanks for stopping by :)

02/11/24 - Tomb Raider: Chronicles



I have now finished the fifth main title in the Tomb Raider franchise and the sixth game in the franchise overall: Tomb Raider Chronicles. Despite it not being as famous as the games before it, Chronicles is important for a few reasons. Firstly this is the last game to use the game engine that all the games have been built on for so long. Considering the games release was in 2000, it makes sense that it would be time to shake things up by that time. Chronicles is also the last game to be pumped out annually. Core Designer were likely getting very tired of making new Tomb Raider games every year since 1996. Yeah no one liked making this with designer Andy Sandham saying the staff made it "to earn a living" and that it was "the worst title in his career". The lead animator even spent lots of time making fun new ways to kill Lara as he hated making it so much. Well it sounds like this is going to be a stinker if the people who developed it didn't care so lets see if any care went into it.

Although Chronicles continues exactly where The Last Revelation left off, a majority of the story takes place in the past. You see unlike the last past games where there's one big plot, this game is divided into four small stories that occur within different parts of Lara life. Generally, I like this change. They are essentially short adventures that last 2-3 hours long and having 3-4 levels in length. Yes it's a short game with it almost being half the length of the last two games, but if the game has a great pace and has the best character of Lara yet then I see no issues with that. There's even more cutscenes in this game than ever before so its almost cinematic feel made playing through it like a breeze.

Let's go through each section/story. The game opens with the Rome levels, these are the most Tomb Raider like levels there are. There's a good mix of combat, platforming and puzzles here. Controls are still the same as ever and the camera still points to where you need to go occasionally so if you hated or loved them before, you'll still hate or love them here. I think I should mention this now but Chronicles really suffers from a lack of creativity as barely anything new is shown off here. Let's go through most of them briefly, we have the ability tightrope walk which is fun but is barely used and could have been utilised further. Lara can swing on horizontal bars which is great, probably the best new feature on here as it just makes platforming a bit more fun. Finally there is the grapple gun which can be used to attach ropes to the ceiling so Lara can jump across places, a solid weapon but used in one level so not many chances to really let it shine. It's a shame there isn't much more but I'll take the little things we've got.

Next up is the Submarine section. This one is also decent, most of it is fairly linear with a heavy focus on combat against armed soldiers. The soundtracks lives things up a bit but I wasn't a big fan of essentially doing the same level twice. Despite that, it's still well-designed with no cruel traps or hidden items about, although some of the environment could be improved further by making it more visible which areas can be climbed and which cannot as most of the time spent wondering about can be solved by simply climbing on something that didn't look climbable. I did manage to find my first secret "golden rose" on here and they do actually come with the benefit of accessing the behind the scenes of how the game was made. I didn't do this but it's really nice to see how everything was made for those who want to go the extra mile.

The Ireland sections were the most appealing in terms of visuals. I don't think it's anywhere near as striking as II, III, or even The Last Revelation, but there is something about having a horror setting within the abandoned countryside that makes it very appealing to me. Gameplay-wise, I'd say that it's good. There isn't any combat in these levels (in fact say goodbye to the unlimited-ammo pistols for the rest of the game) but the puzzle aspect along with the platforming is strong enough to merit it as, in my opinion, the best section of the game.

Finally, the game concludes with an espionage sort of mission. It's a different take on the traditional formula with these levels requiring stealth in order to survive. We have gone back to the hard difficulty these early Tomb Raider games have with some messy bugs thrown in too. One of the parts I needed to get to exit the final level didn't drop so I have to load in a save game to finish the game. I also got stuck in an elevator three times so that was fun. If all the bugs were removed from this level, I think the game would have ended well as its restriction on ammo and traps throughout provided a good last impression.

Summary: A Tomb Raider game that executes what it knows moderately well but doesn't bring anything new to the table that separates itself from the other games. Expect a well-designed but slightly dull experience.
Rating: 6/10

Current ranking. Chronicles may not have frustrating moments like The Last Revelation or III have, but those left more of a mark on me than this one. I moved the gameboy game down slightly, II and The Last Revelation have some iconic moments whereas the gameboy game didn't really have a "wow" moment for me.
Tomb Raider (1996)
Tomb Raider II
Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation
Tomb Raider (2000)
Tomb Raider III
Tomb Raider: Chronicles.

Update: I finished this a lot quicker than I expected! Since these games are going to get shorter now and more modern, I think I'll get through them a bit quicker rather than spend 2 weeks going on and off them. The next stop will be the next portable Tomb Raider game, Curse of the Sword so I hope that will be more fun. Almost forgot to mention but another blogger on here, Dorodo, is going through all the Tomb Raider games as well. He's almost done with the franchise although he's saving IV to VI until February when the remaster comes out so if you want to hear a good review of each of the games from a person learning level design, I recommend checking him out. It starts here for those interested!

Thanks for stopping by!

30/10/2024 - Sanitarium & Mystery Box: Hidden Secrets

Last time I posted on here I was wondering whether I should play a horror game or just a random one (have to keep this blog somewhat random). So it seems I went for both in the end. Here they are!

Sanitarium



Sanitarium is a bit of an odd game. This point and click adventure can be found in many "best" lists of its genre and is well-liked on many forums. It's been given many awards, had a mobile port released in 2015 and was a commercial success with its release in 1998. And yet it seems to be a bit of an obscure title these days, at least compared to other games released in that time. Perhaps it's because the developers studio, DreamForge Intertainment, dissolved in 2001 after having delays making Werewolf: The Apocalypse – The Heart of Gaia which resulted in them not making enough high-profile games for others to be willing enough to go through their catalogue. Although I doubt that's the case since they seem to be well-regarded enough to be working on Myst IV, a game that was eventually finished by another studio. If I were to guess, I think it's because most of the iconic point and clicker games came out in the early 90s, stuff like the original Myst, The Secret of Monkey Island, and I Have No Mouth, I Must Scream. Point and clicker games were still about at this time, Blade Runner came a year before this but I'm betting the jump to 3D games and the volume of games from this genre didn't really get peoples attention. Well this games certainly caught my attention so here's my little review on it.

For a psychological horror game, Sanitarium certainly has a trippy plot. I mean it makes sense, it takes place in an asylum after Max (the protagonist) gets into a car crash and loses his memory so naturally things must be insane. Stripping away the weirdness for a second, the plot is alright. I like how it continues to unfold itself throughout each chapter and, although character development doesn't really happen with any of the character, it kept me hooked until the credits. Sanitarium also has lot of voice acting and cinematics going around, nothing note-worthy here but it's great to have a little reward for making progress. Some people mention that this game and its plot loses the horror atmosphere halfway through and I mostly agree as once you understand what's exactly going on, the game doesn't really focus on the horror and more on providing nonsensible situations. Considering the 12 hour length of the game, it didn't really bother me that much although it would have been stronger if it did. Even if you didn't care much for the games plot, I think its unique atmosphere will prevent it from feeling like another generic horror game.

A screenshot of the game from the Steam store page as I forgot to take one. This is from the first level and as you can see, it's starting off strong and really emits a gothic vibe.


Gameplay is divided between things that work well and things that are executed poorly, lets focus on the good first. Each chapter offered something different whether that's finding objects that can be used to change the environment, talking to people to gain knowledge about the location and other people, or solving puzzles to make progress. Some levels may look daunting but they are never overwhelming. A cursor acts as a magnifying glass which can allow Max to comment on something in the environment. I liked it be honest, sure Max's VA can exaggerate things sometimes but I appreciate the world-building going on whilst seeing how Max reacts to things. Max can also hold equipment using an inventory system that can be accessed by simply clicking on him at any point. It hasn't aged amazingly as I could end up clicking something in the background by mistake but I do like being able to see the equipment I have as well as the item I'm using. The levels themselves aren't too confusing either, despite some things that I'll mention in a few moments each area of a map has something going on, whether it's for making progress or to just add to the feel of the game. Strangely there are even boss fights in this game which, while not the most impressive, really keeps the surprises going until the end.

On to the bad aspects, this games biggest weakness is oddly its graphics. On the surface it's eerie, strange, and disturbing which is exactly what I want from a horror game. Some of the pieces really let this game shine as one of a kind, despite the fact its from the late 1990s. However sometimes objects on the floor blend a bit too well in the environment. The parts I struggled with most was to find these objects in the maps with a lot going on as it's that well hidden sometimes. This also applies to paths as well, sometimes you think you can't go further but you can. Could these things also be a puzzle in themselves? You could argue that but I think this game is a fine line between fair and unfair in this aspect. Controls don't help with this issue either as Max can walk at the wrong angle causing a few moments to adjust him or walk in the right direction, so it's easy to miss a path. This can really come to a problem with areas that require precise walking which can be frustrating but fortunately not aggravating.

Summary: Although the games mechanics haven't aged well, this is a unique horror game that really pulls the player in and keeps the surprises going until the end. If you are a fan of retro point and click adventures, this one is worth checking out.

Rating: 7/10

Mystery Box: Hidden Secrets



I won't lie, I played this one because it was free and I'm a bit of a sucker for games like this. That latter fact and the three hour playtime is why I'm putting it in the same post as there's not much to discuss. So I think this was designed by XSGames whose whole company focuses on mystery box games. I mean they have multiple mystery box games on their website as well as a 3D jigsaw game and a spot the difference game....yeah this isn't going to be a good review. The platform I used to play the game, Legacy Games, didn't fill me with much confidence either as it was full of match-3 and hidden objects games so it seems I'm getting into one of those games. Well I downloaded the game by then so I decided to bite the bullet and play through it in one sitting.

From the get go, I could tell this was designed for mobile users which isn't too surprising. These sort of games are everywhere on mobile. Despite this, the game was easy enough to control on my PC with fast responses and a smooth framerate. It did have issues sometimes where I clicked back too fast so I had to click back again but outside that it was decent enough. Each button and switch on the boxes was easy to see, nothing blending into the environment unless it's a collectible. Now I'm reflecting on this, I think that's most of the positive things I had to say about the game, it just ran well.

So the puzzles, what's wrong with them? Well they were dull. Simple, repetitive and dull. If you know roman numerals, how to read a clock, and can memorise symbols and patterns then this game shouldn't take too long to complete as it's mostly just that for about three dozen levels. Even if this was a persons first time playing a game like this, you really need more things to keep the game refreshing throughout and to make it a worth-while experience, especially with it being a 2021 game, a year where many games like this already exist on mobile alone such as the The Room franchise. People who've played many of these may find odd emissions such as no audio cue to indicate that the box has been unlocked. My guess is that the developers didn't want somebody trying to brute force their way through each puzzle but surely people could still do that? The repeating music track and the light blood background really didn't help things either, I just ended putting it on mute about halfway through.

On a more positive note, each side of the box was used and they opened up quite well. There were also some themes for each set of boxed alongside notes that were hidden quite well. By collecting them you get to unlock a puzzle that reveals an invention with some text about how it was made. A decent enough thing with some trivia to go with, I'll take it. Oh and to really clarify this games quality, one of the notes that described the invention was copied straight from Wikipedia to the point where they didn't even delete the numbered references! That is lazy, hilarious, and frankly embarrassing.



Summary: A very simple game with repetitive puzzles and nothing really going for it that can't be found elsewhere. I don't think it's worth the boredom to play through unless you want a brief taste on the bare bones of this genre.
Rating: 3/10

Update: After Sanitarium, I'm certainly more curious to play point and click adventures in the future but I'll leave it for the time being. For now, I'll head back to TR Chronicles to make some progress on there before I'm distracted with something else again. Thanks for reading :)

20/10/24 - Amnesia: Rebirth



I'm not really big into horror games but I don't mind playing one or two during the Halloween season.

This is the third game in the Amnesia series: a franchise that involves the protagonist attempting to recollect their memory whilst attempting to escape from the dangers that they are trapped with. The first game, The Dark Descent, was a pretty good horror game. I can't recall everything from it but there were some iconic moments and a thrilling story. The introduction of the sanity system (where staying in the dark for too long caused the protagonist to go insane) really added dread and anxiety to the game, it was very clever. A Machine for Pigs followed this and it wasn't anywhere near as scary. Maybe it was because different developers worked on it but what was produced was a very linear experience with simple puzzles, no sanity meter, and monsters that weren't much of a threat.

7 years later game the third instalment: Rebirth. The story takes place in the Algerian desert where Tasi wakes up in a crashed helicopter to find her companions, including her husband, missing. One strength of this game is this plot of Tasi trying to find these people and escape from the place. It's satisfying seeing the mystery unravel bit by bit, even if some parts are a bit on the nose. The small dialogues during loading screens or found across the level provides just a bit of information to fill in some of the gaps in the story and add some character to people you may never meet. It adds a whole extra layer of tragedy to the game which is conveyed fairly well through the voice acting. Also the idea of the game being set in a desert is a good pick as it really lets the designers go wild with what is beneath the sand. Overall, a good plot!

Thinking about it, the gameplay can be described as a weaker Dark Descent. We have the returning sanity meter and that's executed well, some areas such as the fortress really play on that mechanic well. The monsters compared to the first game are frankly just embarrassing. Although they are well-designed and are way of a threat then the creatures in A Machine for Pigs, you can't really lose to them. If you get caught, you are either thrown a little bit across the room to try again or the game just skips that section for you by either skipping ahead or removing the creature! Despite this feeling quite cheap, I don't think it ruins the tension of the game, particularly in the first half where you are exploring and seeing some of the sights for the first time.

Rebirth does introduce some new features as well. Tasi can calm herself down by simple pressing a button (no spoilers here for exactly why she does it) which is useful although I'm not sure how well it really works. There was also an amulet that could be used to open certain areas but it was barely used. I felt like it could have been fun to combine the amulets power of unlocking and locking doors behind walls with the monster but for some extra resources to light my way, it's a welcome addition. Adventure mode is a game mode I saw but never tried as it was simply the game without the monsters or fear of the dark. Seems a good incentive if someone wants to experience the story.

Gameplay isn't just a walking simulator like most people tend to point out. Puzzles often make an appearance that requires the use of observations or exploration. None of them are hard as such, normally it requires hunting down a key or figuring out the right combination. However, they provide a good break from being chased about all over the place and can take a few moments to figure out exactly what needs to be done. Luckily, the inventory is easy to access and objects are easy to pick up. I never really mastered throwing too much but I didn't really need to do it besides a couple times. Could they be more varied? Perhaps but for a 10 hour horror game it doesn't really need to be that varied. There was probably more puzzles in this game than either of the last two games.

Summary: An eerie story with tense moments in a well-crafted environment. It's just a shame that the creatures are such a let down.
Rating: 6/10

Update: Not sure what I'll play this. Might be horror, might be something else. Whatever I do play next, I'll probably jump back into Tomb Raider afterwards as I want to try and get through all of it before the new remaster comes out in Feburary. We shall see what happens.

I have some game codes spare from the Amazon Prime membership I'm on! If anyone wants any of the games listed, send me a DM of what game you want!

Arcade Paradise (GOG)
BioShock Remastered (GOG)
Cat Quest II (GOG)
Cursed to Golf (GOG)
Doom Eternal (Microsoft Store)
Industria (GOG)
Kerbal Space Program (GOG)
The Falconeer (GOG)
Tomb Raider: Legend (GOG)

11/10/24: Doom - Legacy of Dust



Recently, Doom 1 and 2 has another re-release on Steam that improved on the last re-release and came with all sorts of new features. Mod support that holds many Doom WADS, a new engine (that is alright although I have seen some enemies get stuck running in corners), multiplayer, and a remixed soundtrack to name a few. It also added Final Doom, Master Levels for Doom II, and Sigil alongside a deathmatch map pack. This post, however, will be focusing on the new addition to the lineup: "Legacy of Dust". This is a 16 level WAD that was not only created by id Software, Nightdive Studios, and MachineGames but also introduced new enemies, new weapons and new textures. As someone whose played several Doom WADs, this caught my eye so when I got the chance, I downloaded it and went through it. Here's my experience with it. Also, if you want to play this completely blind then there are a few spoilers about the new enemies and weapons so be wary of that!

The opening level Scar Gate illustrates the visuals of the game and a small taste of what's to come. While the gameplay for this level is what you'd expect (killing imps, zombiemen, and shotgun guys with the pistol and shotgun), the new textures already set itself apart from the other official Doom episodes. Does it affect gameplay? No. It is cool to look at and generally fits the Doom vibe well? Yes! It may be common within the Doom community but the official Doom add-ons need it to distinguish themselves from each other. We even have the first of six new enemies being introduced towards the end. It can deal a fair bit of damage with its small, fast projectiles and they normally come in swarms, but they are fairly weak. A great addition to the line-up as it provides a decent challenge whilst blending into the Dooms atmosphere fairly well, although that can be attributed to the fact that it is based off an early Lost Soul design.

Actually, lets go through the rest of the new enemy line-up before looking at all the other levels. The Banshees behave exactly like the kamikaze in a Serious Sam game, they run (well these guys fly) towards the player and blow up. I never found them much of a threat but their shrieks are unnerving. A mindweaver is pretty much a small spider-mastermind, they can be dangerous although usually there's enough ammo to take them out when they do appear. Shocktroopers are similar to players with plasma guns, quick and dangerous but fragile. I normally rocket these guys just to be safe. The most dangerous new enemies are the vassagos, firing a projectile that causes an area to catch fire which damaged the player if they are on it. They are strong and need a lot of ammo to take down so be wary of them. Tyrants, which are basically small cyber-demons, only appear once but if you are playing on a hard difficulty, they will require a high-level of rocket dodging skills to survive.

Now with those out of the way, here was my experience with the first half of Legacy of Dust titled "The Vulcan Abyss". I should mention I played this one on Ultra-Violence so my opinions reflect on the game with that difficulty setting. Sanguine Wastes was a fun level and is a more accurate depiction of what Legacy of Dust had to offer with level design moving away from the traditional fights in dark, tight corridors to fights ocurring in large open areas with many enemies about. Each level for me took about 20-30 minutes from this point onwards which is fine, I like my maps to have a lot going on. I won't say much about the secret level Ash Mill but it was certainly a memorable and spooky one. Spirit Drains was a tough third level, introducing the remainder of the common Doom II enemies and being challenging in the use of ammo preservation. As you can tell, this is quite a hard WAD so if you haven't played Doom too much it may more of a pain than a joy to play. Descending Inferno was a bit of a breather from the last level, due to more low-tier enemies being scattered across the level although the next level with Creeping Hate continued the challenge of ammo usage whilst having a more hellish design. Out of all the levels, I disliked The Coiled City the most due to how the level completely depended on the new weapon: the Incinerator. Although this flamethrower is fun and easy to use, stunning a group of enemies with ease, attempting to use it on ledges that are easy to fall off whilst avoiding enemy projectiles that cannot be taken until a later point is just cruel. Episode closer Forfeited Salvation was solid, it had some nasty traps and could have more of a big closer but it made a creative use of a small map.

The 2nd episode now (titled Counterfeit Eden) only this time on Hurt Me Plenty because I feel like Ultra-Violence would kick my ass on this one. Second Coming I didn't enjoy too much due to the lack of ammo, weapons, space, and medi-kits with a sniping cyber-demon to add to the mix although I still think it was well designed. Falsehood was more fun, although some switch hunting was involved there were a lot of enemy waves which kept the flow going. Dis Union is fairly short and another example of making good use of a small map, even if the damaging floor whilst fighting enemies is a true pain. Again, I won't say much about the secret level (Panopticon) but it made a fun use of the cyber-demon and while I do prefer Ash Mill due to its eeriness, the reward of the new weapon The Calamity Blade at the end was certainly a wonderful addition to the arsenal. It's ability to charge up and attack and release a horizontal wave of pain made the next level, Echoes of Pain, almost a walk in the park. I don't have much to say about that or The Rack since it's mostly handling a moderately-sized number of low-tier enemies. Soul Silo is both amazing and hard. This is Doom at its most brutal and straight-to-the-point, going from room to room taking out a large number of enemies. Even at the end with multiple soul-spheres and an invincibility, it's a very dangerous level but certainly makes for a thrilling penultimate level. The final level of the episode and the WAD, Brink, is fine. I didn't think too much of it besides the already-mentioned tyrants and how hard it is. It did, however, wrap things up nicely and even gave closure to the first level.

Summary: Legacy of Rust mixes the old with the new in an entertaining and challenging way. The new enemies and weapons typically blend in well with the other classic enemies, with the new textures also assisting in presenting a fresh experience. Due to how cruel some of the level design can be, I recommend playing this after playing the original games and some other WADs.

Rating: 8/10

Update: I'm very slowing going through Darkwood (the game I hinted at in the last update I did) but it'll be on hold for a while as I need to have a certain mindset for survival games. As for whats next, I'll jump into a different horror game as it is that time of year after all! Also I should mention that at some point I do want to go through all the "featured mods" on there but that would take a long time and I would get burnt out too easily. Maybe one day...

Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered has just been announced (earlier than I thought). The release date is February 14th 2025

It's been a fairly productive month for me.

3rd September - Middle Earth: Shadow of War: A solid open-world adventure with good mechanics and world-building, although it did get repetitive towards the end and I didn't appreciate the grinding in the epilogue.

15th September - Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation & The Times: A Tomb Raider game that has a mix of great level design and frustrating level design. I can see why some people say its the best and others say its the worst. I do hope it gets remastered like the first three games were. The bonus level, The Times, was a decent enough 20 minutes to give newcomers a taste of the experience.

19th September - Doom (2016): Not much I can say about this that hasn't already been said. It's as brutal and as fun as I wanted it to be.

26th September - Tomb Raider (2000): A charming and somewhat obscure little platformer for the Gameboy Color. Sure some parts haven't aged too well due to the hardware limitations at the time such as the lack of music and the controls, but what was achieved is fairly impressive in terms of scale and exploration. It would be cool to see this game get remastered with better visuals, more sounds, and maybe a map.

27/09/2024 - Tomb Raider (2000)



The next entry in the Tomb Raider franchise is the first one for handheld devices, in this case the Game Boy Color. The game is known as "Tomb Raider" which is the same name as the first game in the franchise and the first of the survivor trilogy (i.e. the one released in 2013). However the game also has the names of "Tomb Raider Starring Lara Croft" which is also confusing because the "Starring Lara Croft" is the subtitle for Tomb Raider II. And if that's not enough, some people call it "The Nightmare Stone" to distinguish it from the other games in the franchise. Who names these things! Well to keep things simple, I'll keep it as Tomb Raider (2000) as its the title of the game whilst also avoiding getting mixed up.

The plot for Tomb Raider (2000) is fairly brief. On a request from her friend, Lara needs to locate the Nightmare Stone within the jungles of Central America. When she arrives, she finds her welcoming party has disappeared and that other malicious parties are present, interested in unleashing an evil god known as Quaxet. Without going into spoilers, its a simple plot with only Lara being the character here. Nothing mind-blowing or tense by any means. But it's an early Tomb Raider game for a handheld, it's not something I was expecting much from. It's just a good way to set things up and the addition of cutscenes was a nice surprise rather than just instantly dropping Lara into the start of the first level.

The game is divided into 5 sections: the temple, the royal tombs, the treasure chambers, the caverns and the volcanic temple, each having their own little theme. The objective of each level, as with most Tomb Raider games, is to make progress by finding relics and pulling levels to unlock certain areas. It is fairly non-linear, with backtracking and multiple maps being used on each level. So it can be quite puzzling but the size of the maps never made it feel overwhelming although it may take some time to figure out what needs to be done and in what order. Save crystals also provide safe spots to save the game to prevent too much progress from being lost. Along with traps, ammo can also be found in each level. There are fast bullets to shoot at enemies quicker and heavy bullets to inflict more damage. It's useful to have but I wouldn't call it essential, Lara's pistols already pack a big punch as it is and as I mentioned earlier, the enemies aren't much of a threat. Medikits are also scattered across all the maps. They did occur a lot since by the end of the game I had about 99 small medikits and 54 large medikits, so it can take away the challenge of the final levels when you can simple walk past steam vents and patch yourself up. This may sound quite long and repetitive but it went fairly quickly and therefore I didn't really notice it that much.

Here's a screenshot from the first level of the game.



Obviously the dimensions are a bit different since its supposed to be on a Gameboy Colour but we can see all the details thrown in that make the game work well. There's good use of colour, nothing as dark as the 3D games with each level feeling part of the adventure. We also have a background that adds to that which is a lot better than just sticking to one colour. Lara looked a bit odd when I started but her animations are also quite impressive for its time, with her other pistol being visible when she crouches. One thing the image cannot tell you, however, is how quiet the game is. Music rarely plays in the game and only several sound effects are used throughout the whole game. If the game were to have a remake or remaster, I think it needs some ambient music to add a level of dread or mystery. Of course this is likely a limitation of the hardware at play, but it is a noticeable drawback when playing through each of the 14 levels.

So what dangers are present in this game? Well like with many Tomb Raider games we have bats, they can appear in annoying spots during climbing but their movements make sound and they can be taken out in one shot so they are almost harmless. Skeletons, mummies, and scorpions are also not much of an issue, only presenting a problem in areas where movement is limited. Mercenaries aren't too bad either, sure they can shoot Lara on sight but with the large quantity of medi-kits in each level as well as the fact they cannot shoot Lara vertically (yes you can exploit that fact to shoot them to death from above or below), they don't present much of a threat as their 3D counter-parts do. Aquatic animals are more of an obstacle than a threat, they can be simply swam past without much of a worry about health. Out of all the enemies, I found the reapers the most dangerous due to their homing attacks but they rarely appear and stop showing up after a few levels. Lara's combat is pretty on point when dealing with any of these enemies, even if she can shoot a bat at a weird angle through a wall. Overall, its simple but well-executed.

Other threats arise from the environment. Dart traps are the most common obstacle in the game, they tend to be well-used within each level and were a reason why my health went down quickly. Spikes were worst though, being the reason for most of my deaths but none of them were placed cheaply. Boulders just existed. I don't really know what to say about them, they are usually placed in areas where running doesn't occur so they mostly just fell in front of me before I even noticed. The steam vents were quite hard to avoid but were the challenge needed for the latter half of the game.

With all these traps, some people say the controls present a bit of a problem but I think they were decent enough. Jumping off a slope to avoid a spike trap can be a bit awkward and sometimes it is a bit of trial and error on whether you need to use a standing jump or a running jump to clear a gap. Lara's fairly quick at both running and grabbing ledge although it can take a few moments at the start of the game to figure out where she needs to grab the ledge from. Ladders and monkeys bars work quite well, with Lara being able to use her gun and even jump to grab another ladder which is quite impressive for the time. I wish I could comment on the swimming but it's not used too much in the game. From what I recall, it works well enough although moving Lara up and down can be a bit awkward. Overall, the controls aren't perfect but they do what they need to well enough.

Summary: An underrated Tomb Raider game that, while aged in some places due to hardware limitations, offers a fun 10-hour platform challenge. A great effort for Lara's first handheld adventure.

Rating: 7/10

Current ranking. Maybe its controversial but I prefer exploring to being constantly shot at and finding small items in large maps.
Tomb Raider (1996)
Tomb Raider (2000)
Tomb Raider II
Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation
Tomb Raider III

Update: Chronicles will naturally be the next game I'll play in the franchise. No idea when I'll get around to it but hopefully soon. In the meantime, a friend has recommended me a horror survival game that he has enjoyed the lore off so that will likely be my next post. Considering I'm not too experienced in survival games, let's see how long this one takes...