TR isn't just T&A

I played this game all the way through. By that I mean that not only did I beat it, but I looked for all the secrets and tried to go everywhere on every level. I do that when a game sucks me in and takes away my social life.

The character of Lara Croft is by now about as well-known as Sonic the Hedgehog or Mickey Mouse, but here's the basic rundown: You use a joystick or keyboard to move Lara around the levels, and she has quite a set of athletic moves in her stable. The next games improve graphics and gameplay, and add a few new moves. The perspective is one of a camera following Lara around. This can be disorienting at first, but you get used to it, and even begin to predict its behavior so that when you do something you know what angle you'll be watching the action from. The only problem is that the camera isn't very smart. Sometimes you end up looking up her shorts (!) when you're underwater and sometimes the camera phases through solid rock and leaves you blind. This can be ameliorated somewhat by the "look" function, which I learned to use as second-nature.

The game is completely action-packed, but its appeal lies in your needing to still use your brain to get around some of the puzzles or figure out how to get places you need to go. There are levers and switches that open doors and trapdoors, and there are traps that can be disarmed temporarily, but require some acrobatics to get past before they re-engage. There are all kinds of menacing characters in the game too, from various thugs to vicious animals. There are only two flaws with the combat engine: 1)I don't know how I feel about shooting the animals because it's sometimes cruel, and 2)targets take FAR too many bullets before they drop dead. In one level, you go up against a punk kid on a skateboard, and you have to hit him with about 1,000 rounds of ammo before he drops - killing the T-Rex was easier! I'd rather there be more bad guys that die more realistically because sometimes it amounts to me standing toe-to-toe with the bad guy and we're blasting away at point-blank range.

The scenery in this game is gorgeous - the level-designers really worked hard to make a fun Indiana-Jones style of game, and the fact that you globetrot in search of the scion keeps you going to all kinds of interesting places. The only difficulty is that sometimes the graphics render funny and it's hard to tell if there's depth and a ledge, or just a solid wall. This is true even on a 550MHz PIII with a 32MB graphics card and 128MB of RAM.

Whatever your system, there are moments where the action is just heart-pounding, like when I rounded a corner and a T-Rex came stomping towards me with a roar! And me with a couple of 9mm pea-shooters in my hands! Or when I was sneaking up a corridor in an ancient temple, and that shuffling, grunting noise turned out to be a huge mummy, who leapt out at me! And you can see how much the game draws you in, when I'm saying this "happened to me" - you get to really feel for Lara, and one of the things I used to cringe at was when I'd screw up and get her killed; I'd despair if she was overwhelmed and I was fighting desperately, but the crack of her neck breaking after she slipped and missed a jump was really bone-chilling, especially when the fall was far enough for her to get out a scream on the way down!

Tomb Raider isn't a game for kids, as that last passage shows, but teens and up will really enjoy it. Even though the next games are bigger and better in some ways, this one is still just fine, and I can easily go back in and play it again. One interesting note: even though you'd think this is a joystick game, I found I did far better with a keyboard. I had to tweak the keyboard settings a bit, but once I did moving Lara was like second nature to me. Use the tutorial in the Mansion to learn how to play...and explore the secrets inside!