I always liked the classic Tomb Raider games more than the most recent Crystal Dynamics reboot series. However I got stuck in most of them when I was younger and it started to feel weird having these fond memories and singing the praise of games a bunch of which I never actually finished (especially since I've played through Tomb Raider 2013 and Rise of the Tomb Raider twice already). So lately I've been through a trek of Core Design Tomb Raider to finally put that niggling feeling to rest, and to see if I still like these games as much as I used to. That has brought me to Tomb Raider II which together with III used to be the games I struggled the hardest with and gave up the earliest on. Now that I've finally did beat the dragon I have some thoughts on a couple particular levels of TRII and some design choices surrounding them.
The Wreck of the Maria Doria
Tomb Raider II
Tomb Raider II
Tomb Raider 1, while undoubtedly still a masterpiece, shows its age in several significant ways. Going back from later games it was certainly surprising that Lara Croft in the adventure that put her on the map couldn't even crouch yet. In the visual department the most jarring example of age might be the complete lack of skyboxes (essentially the illusion of a horizon and surrounding distant landscape being created by painting them on a large, stationary cube that surrounds and follows the player specifically rather than being a part of the in-game map). That might not sound like a big deal, especially not in a game called "Tomb Raider" where the assumption is you'll be spending most of your time underground. However the apparent lack of an above-ground makes the entire game, and not just the titular tombs, feel rather claustrophobic.
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| Even in TR1's Croft Manor, the 'skybox' is revealed to be just a background textured on a small room outside the window |
Now this was understandable as it was 1996 and developers were still figuring out how game development in 3D worked at all. Super Mario 64, the Nintendo 64 game that would set many standards for 3D gaming, only came out a few months before Tomb Raider (Tomb Raider was even released first in Europe), so the achievements of Core Design in creating a 3D game that still holds up despite its age cannot and should not be understated just because I'm nitpicking 22 years after the fact. The lack of skyboxes doesn't particularly hinder the game either, it just makes the game feel less like I am traveling the globe in a desperate race against time to prevent it from being destroyed by the former queen of Atlantis, and more like I'm on an extended trek through the same underground cavern system. Especially so on modern computers where the pre-rendered cutscenes stitching the game together are barely presentable, if they work at all (Am I asking for remasters that nevertheless keeps the Classic Era gameplay in-tact? Yes I am).
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| Lara Croft, Tomb Raider (1996) vs Tomb Raider II (1997) |
A year later in 1997 Tomb Raider II was released with many improvements over the first one. Not the least of which was an update to Lara Croft's character model which upped her polygon count, giving her a much less angular appearance, improving her textures, and generally giving her a more human look. Also she finally has her iconic ponytail which due to technical difficulties previously only showed up in cutscenes and promotional materials. Lara's moveset has been updated with the ability to climb ladders, to roll mid jump and to utilize vehicles (namely motorboats and snowmobiles). Lara Croft's voice actress was also changed from Shelley Blond to Judith Gibbins outside of grunts that were re-used from the first game.
The developers had also figured out how to implement skyboxes and this time they were very proud to show them off. Tomb Raider II starts by dropping Lara Croft at the Great Wall of China where she begins her investigation into the Dagger of Xian. The sky, the clouds and mountains in the distance all provide the illusion that we're in a real world before we delve into the booby-trapped underground (not a boob joke, the second half of the first level is actually brutal and saving often is highly advised) that hasn't been seen in centuries. Instantly the benefit of having skyboxes is apparent as the game's world suddenly feels much larger than the one from the first game, even though the structure of the levels themselves hasn't really changed all that much. This also meant the developers could experiment with different ideas for level locations since they were no longer confined to building underground tombs, thus giving us locations in Venice, an offshore oil rig and Tibetan mountains. While exploration is encouraged with secrets that grant extra items, the levels themselves are still as confined (and often fairly linear) as they were in the first game, but the mere idea that we have a blue sky above us is enough to remove the claustrophobia from the areas of the game that don't require it to set the mood. A seemingly irrelevant aspect of the game's design nevertheless turns out to have a massive impact on the player's experience of the game's world.
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| Tomb Raider Anniversary (2007) |
The Maria Doria
As far as fan favorites go, opinion seems to be somewhat divided between the Wreck of the Maria Doria and the Barkhang Monastery (Barkhang Monastery wins by a small margin according to Meagan Marie's 20 Years of Tomb Raider). Personally, while the Barkhang Monastery is impressively designed both in terms of visuals and gameplay, I feel the Maria Doria has made a bigger impact on me. Part of it might be my obsession with the RMS Titanic sinking, the wreck of which was apparently going to actually make up the Maria Doria levels early in development (it probably also isn't a coincidence that James Cameron's Titanic and Tomb Raider II both came out in 1997). However the name was likely inspired by the SS Andrea Doria, the wreck of which also bears some resemblances to the Maria Doria, namely its capsized state and a comparative depth of the wreck site (Andrea Doria at about 41.5 fathoms (76 meters), Maria Doria at 40 (73 meters)), but like Titanic the wreck of the Maria Doria is split in two.
The section of the game starts with Lara Croft sneaking on board Marco Bartoli's sea plane, only to be discovered, captured and imprisoned on an Offshore Rig from which she has to rescue herself (the texture makes the bars out to be so far apart that she could just run out but this is what suspension of disbelief looked like in 90's video games). Tension gets raised by the fact that Lara's pistols have been confiscated, thus in the early sections of the level we are running around defenseless dodging Bartoli's henchmen while trying to reclaim them.
Once Lara's gear is found back on board of the plane we can more easily fight our way through the facility and into the Diving Area (where apparently the infamous ladder from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was previously employed). Although "easy" might not be the right word here since enemies come out in droves just like in the rest of the game, and it is here that we first discover some of these guys have learned the strategic value of utilizing flamethrowers in narrow corners.
At the end the Diving Area, Lara discovers a heavily tortured monk who tells her of the Seraph on board of the sunken Maria Doria, and which in fact was sunken to keep it hidden (oh no, that sounds like more Titanic conspiracy theories!). Lara changes into a wet suit, the monk gets killed by Marco Bartoli, and Lara escapes by hanging onto a submersible descending into the Adriatic Sea, which subsequently sinks when sharks attack (again, these were the 90's).
All in all the Offshore Rig section is serviceable but don't make up the most spectacular levels in the game. There isn't anything wrong with them, but outside of starting the section unarmed, it feels like a set of fairly typical Tomb Raider levels in a game that otherwise changes things up regularly to provide unique experiences. However the Rig is just the prelude and it is what they are leading up to that makes them memorable. Next level is where we finally discover and board the sunken ship.
Following the submersible sinking, Lara is dropped at the bottom of the ocean with rapidly declining oxygen. The shark from the previous cutscene stuck around and is vaguely visible in the distance, with another friend in the vicinity. Everything beyond that is a black void. The only other thing visible is a trail of debris scattered across the ocean floor, which when followed conveniently points to the overturned Maria Doria. Obviously a handy visual guide to point the player in the right direction, but following a field of debris rather than directly searching for the hull of the ship is also the method Robert Ballard used to locate the wreck of the RMS Titanic in 1985 so this might actually (accidentally) be a reference to the level's inspiration. We can then enter the wreck through an opening behind the ship's anchor.
This part is also the reason why I started out by talking about the effect of skyboxes on player experience. The level 40 Fathoms where Lara starts out at the bottom of a pitch-black ocean with limited oxygen could possibly have been done in Tomb Raider 1, but wouldn't be nearly as effective at conveying the oppressive atmosphere of the ocean floor and the wreck because the contrast with the more (seemingly) open levels would be missing. Yes, the lack of oxygen would have still made for a tense section underwater but the other wreck levels would simply have a similar atmosphere as the rest of the game. Sandwiched between the above water offshore rig and the trek through the Tibetan mountains however, the section becomes all the more memorable. Luckily the developers knew when not to use every tool they had available in their belt.
This part is also the reason why I started out by talking about the effect of skyboxes on player experience. The level 40 Fathoms where Lara starts out at the bottom of a pitch-black ocean with limited oxygen could possibly have been done in Tomb Raider 1, but wouldn't be nearly as effective at conveying the oppressive atmosphere of the ocean floor and the wreck because the contrast with the more (seemingly) open levels would be missing. Yes, the lack of oxygen would have still made for a tense section underwater but the other wreck levels would simply have a similar atmosphere as the rest of the game. Sandwiched between the above water offshore rig and the trek through the Tibetan mountains however, the section becomes all the more memorable. Luckily the developers knew when not to use every tool they had available in their belt.
The bottom of the ocean doesn't provide us with a break from having to constantly fight off Bartoli's men though since a whole bunch of them apparently arrived here before we did and they did so in great numbers despite large sections of the ship being closed off. Perhaps this was the point when the designers should have realized that they were overdoing it in the combat department because a wreck at the bottom of the ocean probably shouldn't be populated with as many armed henchmen as the villain's main hideout. Combat is an essential aspect of Tomb Raider but the overabundance of it in Tomb Raider II is what I consider a downgrade from the first game, and it is especially noticeable in these underwater chapters which should be far more desolate. I already committed genocide against the population of Venice and the occupants of the rig above, how many henchmen does this guy have? Luckily the quality of the puzzles did not suffer as a result.
The section of the ship we've been exploring has been upside down the entire time, but it isn't until we drop through the floor of the swimming pool into the ship's recreational areas that we get the full weight of that Poseidon Adventure mood. The bowels of the ship were already great in terms of mood and design, but now we are finally hit with the realization that this is the site of a disaster that impacted real people (fictional real people at least). We see the upside-down cafeteria with water just outside the windows, the upside-down Titanic-esque staircase, the ceiling windows that now drop down into the ocean. Eventually we make our way to the heavily-dented bridge where the camera angles itself conveniently outside the ship to show us the key we need is in more shark-infested water.
Diving through a series of underwater tunnels leads us to the second part of the broken up Maria Doria, which is right side up and has its deck stuck dry in a cave, still with plenty of surrounding underwater caverns so we can still use that fancy harpoon gun on the game's last remaining sharks. Drops from high places have been a danger the entire time, but in this dry cave the puzzles actually revolve around managing to get off the ship without falling to your doom.
At last, down in the caves we discover the piece of wreckage that holds the Seraph.
In a game already filled with excellent levels, the desolate atmosphere, the challenging (though not unfair) puzzles, the blueish green-orange color scheme, the contrast with the levels that come before and after, underwater controls that surprisingly aren't clumsy (though not that surprising since they work like this in basically every Tomb Raider), all of it comes together in what are easily my favorite series of levels of Tomb Raider II and some of my favorite in the franchise overall.
Also release The Golden Mask expansion on Steam, dammit.
Also release The Golden Mask expansion on Steam, dammit.
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| Help, I'm being attacked by freedom! |
