By now, the entire world must know who Lara Croft is, even if they don't know what Tomb Raider is about. When I first started this site about a year ago, Tomb Raider was the game that I was playing at the time. For long periods of it. And even thought this was partly out of necessity (I'd given the game to my sister for Christmas, and my whole family was about to move from Malaysia to England except for her), it was also because it was challenging. The whole reason for Tomb Raider's success (for me anyway) was the freshness of the whole idea, and the well polished game feel. Now the sequel has been released, and my computer can't quite cope anymore. It takes 5 minutes to load up every level, and that gets especially annoying when you keep on dying. I just don't feel as involved in the game as before. Maybe I just need to spend more time on it.

Now, if there is someone out there who by some trick of fate managed to find my site, and who has no idea what Tomb Raider is, let me try to explain. Tomb Raider is almost an old school platformer. It is mostly about trying to navigate around dangerous obsticals, environments and making ridiculos jumps. It is also a game of puzzle solving; you have to find parts for ancient machinery, find gold bricks when all you can see in the level is lead ones and discover ways of opening doors. All of this action is done in true, polygonal 3-D, from an almost perfect third-person, floating camera view point that tries to stay behind your charecter as much as possible. In order to get around all the new possible difficulties that true 3-D puzzles pose to the player your charecter is given an inordinate amount of moves. She can make running jumps, spin around on the spot in under three seconds, and swan dive off tall parapets. Part of the challenge of the game is to master controlling your charecter, so that by the end of the game you can tackle difficult jumping, climbing and puzzling situations with ease. In order to make the game even more interesting, enemies are inserted along the levels, and you are given one weapon to start with, although more can be found along the way.

The plot behind the game is very strong. Your charecter's name is Lara Croft (from now on just "Lara"), a rich, upper class English lass with a healthy appetite for adeventure and Indiana Jones style archeology. She has beaten a Yeti in the Himilayas, and survived an air crash. She has cool shades, and is very well..um....endowed. She is hired by the head of a techonologies company, Jaqueline Natla, to find an ancient artifact called the Scion in a tomb in the Peruvian Andes. At the start of a new game, a very swish cut scene (all except the last one are) shows your guide dying by wolves who emerged from the entrance. You managed to kill them without getting hurt (it's one hell of a fall though), and continue on. The plot continues to wind itself through the game, at first become more mysterious, and finally becoming damn wierd. Oh yeah, and the graphics are just gorgeous.

The game was created by Core Design, and published by .

If I had to summerize Tomb Raider, I'd say, "A serious Mario 64, minus the Italian plumber and his fireballs, and plus one great looking chick, with lots of guns and an attitude." Does that do it for ya?

First things first. Go to Lara's house and practise her moves. A couple of hints that aren't provided in her room. First, holding down the Walk key during certain moves changes them. For instance, when hangin on the edge of something, pressing Walk and Action makes her do this impossible but very cool handstand-type thing, that puts her on the very edge of the box. If you jump forward while pressing walk, Lara does the oh-so gorg' swan dive, and rolls if she hits the floor (unless executed from a great height).

Weapons: It is almost never useful to use anything but your pistols on the early creatures you meet. Your shotgun is only useful from long range, as it reloads slowly. And if you can't be hit by anyone, why not save ammo and use the pistols instead? Only when you have other weaponssuch as the magnums (which you should use on all of those strange mummified cat things) and the Uzis (which you should always use when you have them, as you don't for very long).

On the third level, before jumping in the river, you should go upstream by jumping on the small ledges provided. Once you cross the bridge, go down the stairs to the left, and across the gorge to the skeleton. Pick up the shotgun. Jump back in the stream, when you get to the big, open cavern over the wall past the wolves, kill the two 'raptors quickly, by firing as soon as you jump into the room (use pistols) Then arm the shotgun walk warily forward. Before the T-Rex sees you, find the hole which leads to a cavern in the side wall, next to the parts from the broken bridge.

As soon as you see Mr. T-rex, run like hell for the cavern, shooting him with the shotgun. Then make sure you're back far enough and keep shooting, switching to your pistols to conserve ammo. There is another exit to the cave, guarded by a raptor. From there you can finish off any lizards on steroids.

Cheats: PC: If you are really in trouble, here are two cheats for the game. Take one careful step forward, one careful step backwards, turn around three times (don't roll, just use left or right while standing still) and jump forwards. This skips you to the next level. If you do a backflip instead of jumping forward, you will find yourself suitably armed.

If you want any special help for particular circumstances, either e mail me or visit one of the links below to find your answers.

Eidos' Tomb Raider Page- This page has almost completly shifted its perspective to Tomb 2, which is a pity. Still, it does have information on Lara, and has screenshot, wallpaper and the like.

The Tomb Raider Archive - Main Page-This is probably the best kept, most comprehensive, and best presented page I have found so far. It's full of almost anything to do with Tomb Raider at all. It also includes some rare Tomb Raider 2 preview pics. Well worth a visit. Right now, it is down due to server difficulties, but will hopefully be back up soon.

If you want to submit a link, e mail me (link below).