Tomb Raider is a 1996 video game originally published by Eidos Interactive and developed by Core Design. The game features the video game character Lara Croft, a buxom female archaeologist in search of ancient treasures, Г  la Indiana Jones. There have been several sequels.

Video games

Tomb Raider and its heroine, archaeologist/adventurer Lara Croft, have become modern icons of the computer game industry. Thought the first game was released almost ten years ago, Lara's image is still just as recognizable, and attractive, as ever.

The original game, titled "Tomb Raider: Featuring Lara Croft," debuted on the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and PC. It was one of the titles responsible for PlayStation success in the mid nineties.

The games present a world in 3D: a series of tombs, and other locations, through which the player must guide Lara. On the way, she must kill dangerous animals and other creatures, while collecting objects and solving puzzles to gain access to an ultimate prize, usually a powerful artifact. In later games, Lara's targets become predominantly human, which has sparked some criticism from gamers who feel the games are becoming too violent.

Tomb Raider is an earlier example of the 3D genre. The game is a third-person shooter since Lara is always visible. The player's camera follows her, usually over her shoulder or from behind. The game is characterized by the cubic nature of the world in which Lara inhabits. Ledges, walls and ceilings sit at 90 degrees to each other, although the game designers use some clever tricks to make this less obvious. A reason for this orthogonality can be explained by the fact the creators took the 2D platform game genre and extended it to a 3D world. This is shown through Tomb Raider's gameplay, which is very reminiscent of older platform games like Prince of Persia, Out of this World, and Flashback that had a heavy focus on timed jumping interspersed with combat.

Each game has introduced new weapons and moves; by the fourth game, Lara could backflip off ropes and turn around in mid-air to grab a ledge behind her. The most recent game, "Tomb Raider: Legend," has introduced a grappling hook that Lara can use to make her own rope-swings, and also attack enemies Indiana-whip style.

Included with the PC and Mac releases of Tomb Raider Chronicles was a level editor which allowed players to create their own levels for use with the previous Tomb Raider game engine, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation. Fan-built levels are distributed via Tomb Raider fan sites and forums.

The following versions have been released so far, listed in chronological order:

• Tomb Raider (1996) - PlayStation, Sega Saturn, PC, N-Gage
  • Tomb Raider: The Atlantean Scion (Peru, Greece/Rome, Egypt, Atlantis)
  • Tomb Raider: Unfinished Business (Add-on: Egypt, Atlantis)
• Tomb Raider II (1997) - PlayStation, PC
  • Tomb Raider: The Dagger of Xian (China, Venice, Sunken Ship, Tibet)
  • Tomb Raider: The Golden Mask (Add-on: Alaska)
• Tomb Raider III (1998) - PlayStation, PC
  • Tomb Raider: Adventures of Lara Croft (India, Nevada, London, South Pacific, Antarctica)
  • Tomb Raider: The Lost Artifact (Add-on: Scotland, Chunnel, France)
• Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (Introduction levels: Cambodia, Game: Egypt) (1999) - PlayStation, Sega Dreamcast, PC
• Tomb Raider Chronicles (Rome, Russia, Ireland, New York City) (2000) - PlayStation, Sega Dreamcast, PC
• Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness (Paris & Prague) (2003) - PlayStation 2, PC
• Tomb Raider: Legend (scheduled March 2006: Peru, Ghana, Mesopotamia?, Taiwan?) - PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, PC (possibly PSP)

In addition to these Tomb Raider games, there are 2D versions on the Game Boy Color handheld console:

• Tomb Raider: The Nightmare Stone (2000)
• Tomb Raider: Curse of the Sword (2001)

and one for the Game Boy Advance:

• Tomb Raider: Prophecy (2002)

In 1998, Tomb Raider won the Origins Award for Best Action Computer Game of 1997.

Story

Tomb Raider

Adventurer Lara Croft has been hired to recover the pieces of an ancient artifact known as the Scion.

Lara has just returned from a hunting trip in the Himalayas. She's contacted by Jacqueline Natla, a conniving businesswoman who convinces Lara to recover a mysterious artifact from the tomb of Qualopec in Peru. Wasting no time, Lara sets out on her quest to find one of the three pieces of the ancient Atlantean Scion, a talisman of incredible power. After discovering the fragment, things get ugly when Lara finds herself face to face with one of Natla's hired goons. Using her cunning wits and athletic strength, Lara escapes.

As she delves into the reasons why Natla would double-cross her, she uncovers a mystery that reaches back before the dawn of recorded time to the treachery that destroyed the Atlantean civilization and the disasters that struck the world when it fell.

Lara visits:

• Vilcabamba: A civilization that flourished for hundreds of years in the Peruvian rainforests of South America. Guide Lara through the lost Incan city while battling wolves, bats, bears, raptors, and more.
• Labryinth: The Golden Age of Greece, and later Rome. Here Lara battles lions, alligators, crazy monkeys and more as she explores ruins of this ancient civilization.
• Egypt: Where the vast power of Egypt rose with the pyramids. Lara explores buried pyramids and a hidden sphinx while fighting pumas, crocodiles, and some surprising mystical monsters.
• Atlantis: The pyramid of Atlantis where the mystery unfolds.
• Lara's home is also present as a training level.

Tomb Raider II

Join Lara as she searches for The Dagger of Xian: an artifact hidden in an ancient Emperor's palace within the Great Wall of China. Legend has it that whoever drives the Dagger of Xian into their heart, acquires the power of the Dragon.

Three parties covet this dagger — but for entirely different reasons. Lara Croft, forever the adventurer, is one of these. On her travels she will encounter the other two ...

Lara visits:

• The Great Wall of China where Lara will fight tigers, birds and spiders to find the doors of the Emperor's palace.
• Venice where Lara will swim through the city canals and visit some houses and an opera.
• An Offshore Rig, from which Lara must find a way out.
• The wreck of the Maria Doria, taking Lara underwater to a ship wreck.
• Tibetan Foothills with their cold climate.
• Temple of Xian where the mystical dagger is found.
• Lara's home is also present as a training level.

Tomb Raider III

Millions of years ago, a meteor survived the plunge through the Earth's atmosphere, impacting the then-warm climate of Antarctica. The first people to discover this land were a tribe of Polynesians. Despite the now-freezing conditions, there was an abnormal abundance of life and the tribe settled, worshipping the meteorite crater for the powers it appeared to hold. Generations later, though, catastrophic events forced them to flee in terror.

Today, the same area is being excavated by the research company RX Tech, who are picking up unusual readings from the meteorite's impact zone. It is in this zone that they uncover the body of a sailor from Charles Darwin's voyage on the Beagle. It seems a few of his sailors had explored the interior of the crater.

Following a story from one of the sailors' journal, RX Tech have started to take a particular interest in not only the crater area, but other parts of the globe where the sailors traveled to...and died in. One of these places is India - where Lara is currently searching for the legendary Infada artifact. Unaware of its true history, she only knows that in local beliefs it was supposed to hold great powers and has been revered by tribes there throughout the years. Soon she will discover a whole lot more...

Lara visits:

• India. This part of the game takes Lara into a jungle and then into a mistical temple ruins. She also rides along the river Ganges and goes into the caves of Kaliya.
• South Pacific Islands. Among beautiful scenery Lara fights tribal warriors, finds a crashed plane, swims through a river on a kayak and goes into the Temple of Puna.
• Nevada where Lara tries to get into the secret Area 51.
• London. Lara crosses rooftops, goes down into the subway and later visits the British Natural History Museum.
• Antarctica. Lara travels through the mines into the Lost City of Tinnos and then to the meteorite cavern where the story ends.
• Lara's home is also present as a training level.

Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation

According to Egyptian legend, Horus, son of the light, outwitted the evil god Set and imprisoned him in a secret tomb...

Five thousand years later, Lara Croft discovers the lost tomb and unwittingly unleashes the evil god, fulfilling the ancient prophecy of his return to plunge mankind into darkness. In a race against time, Lara must use all of her wit and skill to reimprison Set and save the world from Armageddon. Pursued at every turn by her arch-rival, the unscrupulous archaeologist Werner Von Croy, Lara embarks on a journey of discovery across Egypt, where she must overcome the most ingenious puzzles and infernal traps ever devised, and face terrifying evil from beyond the grave...

Lara visits:

• Cambodia. Young Lara is trained by her mentor Werner Von Croy in how to pass obstacles of the Angkor Wat temple.
• Egypt. The rest of the game takes place here. Lara visits many places: inter alia, the Tomb of Set, the Valley of the Kings, the Temple of Karnak, the Great Hypostyle Hall, the Tomb of Semerkhet, Alexandria, the Temple of Poseidon, the Lost Library, the Temple of Isis, Cleopatra's Palaces, the Sphinx Complex, Menkaure's Pyramid, The Mastabas, the Great Pyramid and the Temple of Horus. She will also ride a train.

Tomb Raider Chronicles

The story begins just a few days after The Last Revelation. Lara's body has never been found, but she is presumed dead. After her burial ceremony, three old friends of Lara, Jean Yves, Winston and priest Dunstan, reminisce about Lara's earlier adventures. The game consists of four new sub-adventures and bring Lara back in time to Rome, a small Irish island, a high-tech building and a Russian submarine. Each adventure requires its specific game characteristics. In Ireland Lara has to find her way without any weapons, whereas the Russian sub can be compared to an episode of the X-files. Rome is said to be the classical Tomb Raider action, and in the high tech building the keyword is stealth.

Lara visits:

• Rome where she fights lions and gladiators to recover the original Philosopher's Stone.
• Russia where Lara breaks into a military base and then into a submarine.
• Ireland where a teenage Lara steals away on a boat bound for the Black Isle, facing ghosts and evil spirits once she arrives.
• In the VC Industries building Lara fights her way to the artefact called the "Iris" which had been taken from the Angkor Wat Temple by Werner Von Croy in The Last Revelation, during the training level set when Lara was 16.

Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

Accused of the murder of her former mentor, Werner Von Croy, Lara becomes a fugitive. Pursued by the police, she follows clues left behind by Von Croy and unravels the mysteries surrounding a series of grisly murders called the Monstrum killings — of which Von Croy's is only one. The trail of murders and strange occurrences in the Paris underworld brings Lara into conflict with a dark Alchemist named Eckhardt and a sinister alliance of powerful dark sorcerers (or alchemists) called the Cabal. At the center of these mysteries are the Obscura Paintings - five 14th century pieces of religious art that Eckhardt is desperate to reposses. The paintings are said to conceal pieces of a powerful artefact which is said to have the power to revive the Sleeper: the last of the ancient Nephilim race, offspring of humans and angels, originating in Turkey. Lara must now find the remaining paintings and stop Eckhardt.

Lara visits:

• Paris, where Lara runs from the police, meets Von Croy's friend Margot Carvier, goes to a club, and finally visits the Louvre and a secret tomb beneath it.
• Prague, where Lara needs to get into Mathias Vasiley's apartment (he is the victim of a Monstrum Killing, and is mentioned in Von Croy's notes).
• The Bio Research Facility. This features the first level in the Tomb Raider series where the player plays a different viewpoint character, Kurtis Trent. On the way to Eckhardt's Lab the player visits the Vault of Trophies - an underwater cave with gigantic statues.

Tomb Raider: Legend

Lara will find herself globe-trotting as usual, rivalled every step of the way by corrupt forces led by a nemesis from her past, as she searches for a valuable English artifact.

Lara visits:

• Ghana, Russia, Bolivia, Peru, Malaysia, and the City of Tokyo

Tomb Raider: Legend will be the first Tomb Raider game to be handled by different developers. This time, the job has been given to Crystal Dynamics (whose credits include the Legacy of Kain series) after the bad reviews The Angel of Darkness received. Core Design, the developer of the first six Tomb Raider games, was subsequently sacked by Eidos. Lara's original creator, Toby Gard, is also working on Tomb Raider: Legend. Toby left Core after the first game due to creative differences between himself and Core executives in regard to Lara's over-sexualized image.

Nude Raider

A development in Lara's history is the so-called Nude Raider patch. It is alleged that someone within Eidos created the patch then released it on the Eidos website back in 1996, where it remained for a few hours until Eidos discovered it and removed the patch. However, many people downloaded the patch and uploaded it to different websites. This program, when added to an existing Tomb Raider game, caused Lara to appear naked, which was popular among a certain proportion of gamers. In April 2004, an insider from Eidos reported to a Tomb Raider electronic mailing list that Eidos had begun suing gamers using the Nude Raider patches and sent cease and desist letters to servers hosting the Nude Raider patch, enforcing their intellectual property of Tomb Raider. It is also reported that Eidos intend to pursue action against unauthorized "home-made" patches for the game, and indeed any other games that the publisher has ownership rights to. However, the complete accuracy of such reports may be called into question, as it is likely that the rumors are exaggerated to an extent.

Spinoffs

Movies

Most recently, the idea of Tomb Raider has been extended beyond being just a video game, including the 2001 movie Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and the 2003 sequel Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, both starring Angelina Jolie.

A fair percentage of fans of the game argue that the movie adaptations are a poor tribute to their video game heritage, though Jolie, after some initial published criticism mostly centered around her being an American playing a British character, was considered an ideal choice for the role of Lara Croft. Plans for a third movie were revealed in early 2004, but according to CNN they were cancelled due to the box office failure of The Cradle of Life.

Comic books

Tomb Raider has been licensed to Top Cow Productions, which published a large number of Tomb Raider stories in comic book form. There have also been frequent crossovers with another Top Cow publication, Witchblade.

Original novels

Ballantine Books, in conjunction with Eidos, began publishing a series of original novels based upon the video game in the spring of 2004, beginning with The Amulet of Power by Mike Resnick, which was followed by The Lost Cult by E. E. Knight in August 2004 and the violent The Man of Bronze by James Alan Gardner in January 2005. These books generally follow the continuity of the video games (particularly Angel of Darkness) rather than the movies, although Lost Cult does contain a couple of oblique references to Cradle of Life. Man of Bronze differs from the first two books in that it is told in first person from Lara Croft's point of view; it is also considerably more violent.

Ballantine's contract only called for three novels, and it is not yet known if the book series will continue.

Tomb Raider Level Editor

The Tomb Raider Level editor is a tool released by Eidos with the game Tomb Raider Chronicles in late 2000. Since then it has enabled players to design new levels of their own, set in locations from the original games or in new locations.

In the years after its initial release, there have been many programs released by amateurs designed to enhance and expand the level-editor's capabilities. These "tools" enable a designer to create and sort their own texture files, and to change, create, combine, or animate objects and sounds in a level, among other things. Some people are involved with the level editor, but never actually build levels. Instead, they compose high-quality music, provide voice-overs, design outfits, enemies, and objects for use by any level-builder. In fact, modified versions of outfits and objects appearing in the two most recent Tomb Raider games, The Angel of Darkness and Tomb Raider: Legend, appeared before the games themselves hit the shelves.

In the middle of year 2003, members of the Eidos Tomb Raider forums held a petiton requesting Eidos to release the Tomb Raider Level Editor source code. This petition, started by the forum moderator, Dhama, was a failed attempt. Even though it was ignored by Eidos, hundreds continued to sign it until the end of 2004.

The Level Editor Community is still very active, and high quality level sets are released every few months. Many have observed that the custom levels look better than the official levels, because they are built with passion by the fans themselves. Currently there are more than one thousand six hundred custom levels released on the internet and there are many highly anticipated levels which are in the making. Level designers often release previews of their levels, using screen-shots and movies.

Each month, the German Tomb Raider community website, Lara's Levelbase publishes an online magazine about upcoming levels and interviews, called the Tomb Raider Tribune.

Even before the official Level Editor was released, an unofficial Level Editor had been designed by Tomb Raider fans. This impressive creation had been growing alongside with the official community, but was often considered forgotten, though there are many unofficial custom levels, including some for Tomb Raider Chronicles.

Some of the custom levels have been recognised by the Tomb Raider community as truly excellent, and have been placed in a "Hall of Fame" page here: http://trle.horus-online.net/

External links

• Tomb Raider - Official site.
• Tombraiders.net - Unofficial walkthrough/FAQ site
• Check Tomb Raider - Unofficial walkthrough&cheats site with a lot of information. Check it out! In Dutch and English
• Gallery of Tomb Raider covers by A. Hughes
• LaraCroft.Name - All about Tomb Raider and Lara Croft
• Lara in Motion - Tomb Raider related media
• TRComm.Net - Tomb Raider Community - The Raiders' Portal
• Tomb Raider - Unofficial fan site.
• Lydia's Tomb Raider Site - Enemies, Screenshots and other info.
• TRSearch - Unofficial site about level editor
• tombraidergirl.com - Unofficial site.
• Lara Croft Online Tomb Raider: Tomb Raider 7
• Wiki Raider
• Tomb Raider Inc. - Unofficial site.
• Planet Lara
• Tomb Raider Chronicles
• Tomb Raider News Channel
• Open Directory Project: Tomb Raider Series
• the netherlands and belgium fansite of TombRaider
• TombRaider.hu - Unofficial Hungarian site
• TRaider.pl - Unofficial Polish site
• Lara Croft Site - Unofficial site.
• trle.net - Tomb Raider Level Editor Listings, Ratings and Reviews
• TRatlantis.com - Finnish Tomb Raider site
• Lara's Home - Forum with a huge emphasis on custom levels. Website coming in 2006.
• DreamLara - A Mainland Chinese Tomb Raider unofficial site. (Simplified Chinese)
• Tomb Raider Resource Site - A Taiwanese Tomb Raider Level Builder, Harly Wuson's Tomb Raider Site (Traditional Chinese)
• GeckoKid.net - A Hong Kong Tomb Raider Builder's personal website.
• Tomb Raider at MobyGames
• The History of Tomb Raider

See also

• Indiana Jones
• Relic Hunterda:Tomb Raider

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