Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation

The Good
By the late nineties, Eidos Interactive had just deployed Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, which had nearly put Tomb Raider to shame. Thus, Jeremy Heath-Smith and his brother Adrian at Core Design had already hired a new team to reassemble their outdated Room Editor and replicate the competition. As a result, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation was released just several months later and is most notable for its peculiar level design.

Core Design challenged the formula by using inspiration from Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. The Last Revelation is set exclusively in Egypt via traversal hubs implemented into their Room Editor. That means Croft must backtrack to levels already visited and solve the bigger puzzle. This poses new threats, as the A.I. is tweaked so that skeletons à la Army of Darkness and ninjas straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark can mimic most of Croft’s moves. Core Design introduced a rope swinging mechanic, that you might remember from Pitfall on the Atari 2600. Players will find themselves at home with The Last Revelation by shooting down even more crocodiles, but this time at The Temple of Karnak near the Nile River. Later in the game, Croft visits Cairo during toxin-like overcast sky in perhaps the most menacing set of levels by artist Andy Sandham. Thankfully, Croft sports a R75 to speed through an Armageddon, but sadly without Sean Connery in the sidecar.

For The Last Revelation, Peter Connelly makes his mark on the series with grandiose Egyptian melodies and still alluding to McCree’s playbook. With The Last Revelation proposed as the series finale, Connelly’s main title theme is composed to be melancholic. Much of his score is heavily influenced by The Mummy (1999), which came out the same year as The Last Revelation. Overall, Connelly mimics a variety of exhilarating Egyptian instruments over McCree’s heavy use of choirs, and this is a nice change of pace for Core Design’s fourth Tomb Raider entry.

The Bad
For their fourth Tomb Raider game, Core Design retained the archaic grid system from previous Tomb Raider games to maneuver Croft. In The Last Revelation, players will continuously pull levers, leap over chasms, and move crates as before.

The Bottom Line
The Last Revelation elevates its predecessors by channelling Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. Core Design had pushed their antiquated Room Editor to its limits in what was supposed to be their last game headlining Tomb Raider.

The Good
I loved the original Tomb Raider game, but never played II or III, so the graphics jump from 1 to 4 was a nice treat. The lighting effects and graphics in general were very nice, and Lara's polygon count seemed to skyrocket. Unfortunately, her breasts were no longer able to impale people (that's a joke)

Lara journeys back into a tomb in this one, which I heard she wasn't doing in II or III, despite being called "Tomb Raider", and the tombs seem believable enough, with the obligatory undead wandering about.

One of the first levels is a flashback to a young Lara Croft, where she finds her backpack and you get a bit of a glimpse into how she became the famous Tomb Raider.

Fans of the first three should feel at home.

The story was also pretty interesting. Unfortunately, I only got glimpses of the story by wandering through the cinematics, because I couldn't get past the fifth or sixth level...

The Bad
Allright, I didn't actually beat the game. In fact, I didn't get very far. Because the puzzles are HARD! Now, I'm not one who usually says, "this is too hard, I give up," but I just had it with this game. I like difficult puzzles, and I like puzzles which make you use your brain, but I do NOT like puzzles that are so impractical and hidden that your best chance of solving them is by stumbling through them blindly. It seemed every level was filled with five or six "dead ends" which you could only get through if you scrutinized every single inch of the level for any sort of object or switch or ANYTHING that seems just enough out of place that it might be something you need to get out of the place. I, for one, want to be able to play the game and enjoy the scenery without having to stop and record every object and texture to memory before I continue on.

Combat hasn't been improved at all, which is sort of annoying. Firing down at wolves from a wall is fine, but when you had guys shooting back at you with the same accuracy as you have to them, there should be a better way to defend yourself than "hope for the best".

Also, where I eventually got stuck, I spent a month just trying to figure out what to do next, since I'm too stubborn to cheat or look it up on a walkthru. I had encountered a bug the previous level, and carried this sceptre things with me. I think maybe I'd ran into a bug and couldn't progress further. And since I didn't have any backup saves (or maybe I was just too annoyed to go back a level and do that all again) I just had to quit there.

The Bottom Line
Fans of the first three will like this. Graphics have been improved, and the story's pretty interesting. If you like impossible puzzles, this one's for you.

The Good
I loved the further improvements to the graphics in the game. Very beautiful. For the first time you can see the clouds on the sky moving. The various sounds in the background are stunningly beautiful to listen to. Another great thing about this game are the little movies in the middle of a level. Not to mention the story. Fantastic! Wonderfully crafted. It is almost like it has happened in real life.

The Bad
There is not much to say here. The only thing that I can think of is that the animals and people that you have killed disappear after a few seconds. There wasn't many weapons here like it was in the previous games. The urban levels can be very confusing at times.

The Bottom Line
A little bit easier than Tomb Raider 3, but much better. Everybody should by this game.