I actually finished playing Tomb Raider a few days ago and I thought might as well do a post. This will probably be my last post on Tomb Raider I and it’s more of a collection of random screenshots and a few thoughts. Well, not that this tag was ever a proper “let’s play” because I’m lazy and all over the place. Maybe I’ll do a proper one later. Someday. Probably. I mean, I’ll think about it.
Okay, so last time Lara was in Egypt, looking for the third piece of the Scion; an ancient Atlantian artefact that had the power of creation? Although Natla, the villainess of this story, only used it to create these skinless mythical monsters.
As Lara makes it out of the ruins, she gets ambushed and briefly captured by Natla’s hired goons.
Their accents are still mostly incomprehensible to me but Cowboy Goon says “Howdy” while disarming Lara and Lara simply replies “Afternoon”, ha ha. The girl has impeccable manners. She’s so classy. *sighs happily*
You know, unlike her trash reboot reincarnations who would either get angry or start squawking and cussing while some creep tosses her around and fondles her. And the only reason why she’d get saved from imminent rape is plot convenience. *massive eye roll*
The other goon shoves Lara off as villains do when they get a hold of their target. Natla is all, “Shoot her!” and Lara makes a determined face, runs to the cliff and jumps off into the river.
You gotta love ’90s dumb action. And, well, the ’80s. Because if memory isn’t failing me, this happened quite a few times in Ginga Nagareboshi Gin too. I should really re-watch that but I like re-watching it with my sister so we can laugh a lot.
Lara gets back out of the water, finds her motorbike and catches up with Natla as she’s leaving on her boat at the coast.
Lara is all, “Hm, how do I make it in time?” and then has the brilliant idea to jump off a slope at the end of the coast. There goes her motorbike and she swims to the other side of the boat and climbs up while Natla’s hired goons, who really aren’t very bright, go:
HIRED GOON ONE: What was the heck was that?
HIRED GOON TWO: What? I don’t know. Probably just a fish.
HIRED GOON ONE: That’d be some fish, kid.
Meanwhile, Lara sneaks into the — storage? and takes a nap.
Because getting the sleep you can when you can is important in the hard life of adventuring and treasure-hunting.
So impeccable manners, badass, resourceful and practical. She’s basically a perfect girl.
Fast-forwarding a lot, this is when Lara finally finds the last piece of the Scion and Natla strolls into the frame to explain her villainous plan which is essentially to create an army of skinless mythical monsters — in a world which already has dinosaurs, Bigfoots, mummies, and other mythical creatures, mind — to put pressure on “natural selection” and… profit?
Lara looks so short, ha ha. She’s cute.
This is actually one of the few flaws these games have. They basically did this same plotline in Tomb Raider III in which the villain wants to — create this new breed of humans that looked like legless insectoid humans. Lara calls it “eugenics”, linking the concept with what the villain was doing and it’s like…
There’s no sane eugenicist who would look at this for example
and think “now there’s the future of humankind!”
Like, eugenics was basically about reducing human suffering and elevating people to their best potential, essentially through abortion and sterilisation and capital punishment of criminals. So, you know, pretty much what people still do and even celebrate. Except punishing criminals has become passé and deemed too inhumane so what you get now instead is an industrialised version of christian medieval times when kids were castrated and mutilated for pedophiles while perpetually online useful idiots enable and cheer it on. Humans really are… *gives a tired laugh*
Also, I am not speaking for all eugenicists or eugenics. It was a big movement — at least until Boas-style subjective anthropology became prevalent if I recall correctly — and that means different opinions and factions.
It wasn’t about these insane people creating monsters, though. It was, in theory at least, the exact opposite.
But you know, it’s a lot easier to take down strawmen than present the opposition fairly and accurately.
It’s also kind of ironic in a game in which Lara is like the pinnacle of human breeding, all things considered.
As a final note, all peoples have at some point in history tried to practise eugenics, only to get sloppy about it and eventually abandon it which is ironically the moment they usually vanish off the face of the earth.
90% of everything that has ever existed is gone. Just saying.
Anyhow~ the game ends with a nice little spectacle of the Atlantis exploding and Lara sailing with Natla’s boat into the sunrise.
I keep saying, Lara is not an archaeologist. She’s a treasure hunter, evidenced by the fact that Natla hired her to treasure hunt for her at the start of this game.
I guess I could add a review of sorts here buuuut… I’m totally biased about these games because I’m so fond of Lara. So let’s just say, the gameplay is still solid after almost thirty years, I had no problems anywhere unlike in Trash Reboot One where Lara got stuck on ladders or textures. I think the graphics are fine, even pretty in a lot of places. Even the story is better — and if not necessarily better then more solid — than most of the very elaborate stories that get peddled out in movie games these days. You get all the information you need through very short cutscenes, environments and gameplay, and you can infer the rest yourself. No need to hold your hand. And most importantly the game respects your time. There are fifteen levels total — discounting the dlc — and most of the levels take about an hour to finish or less if you’re good, I guess. No need for 200+ hours of “gameplay” either which is mostly just running from point A to point B or cutscenes.
Because who doesn’t want to watch a 200+ hour film, am I right?
The game is also very forgiving about resources — ammo and health packs — so as it so happens I always end up finishing the game with a ridiculous amount of them. So this time I decided to be more liberal about using them.
And I think that’s all? Or maybe not and I end up adding something else later, ha ha.
Hiraeth 