Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft

Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft was released in 1998 by Core Design and sent Lara Croft on a journey across four continents in pursuit of fragments of a mysterious meteorite, from Indian jungles through London sewers to Pacific islands and Antarctic bases. The game retained the proven combination of acrobatic platform jumping, solving spatial puzzles, and shootouts with wild animals and human opponents, but unlike previous entries it let the player choose the order in which to visit the individual regions, bringing a greater sense of freedom into an otherwise linear narrative. It also featured vehicles such as a quad bike or a small submarine, which could be used in some sections to cross larger areas more quickly.

Level design went in many passages toward greater complexity and difficulty than earlier entries, with branching paths and tougher jumps, which earned mixed reactions - some players appreciated the challenge, others found it frustrating. Technically the game ran on an improved version of the engine from previous entries and offered more varied environments and weather, including storms and snow, which affected visibility and the atmosphere of individual levels. The music and sound design continued to build on the mysterious, adventurous atmosphere the series was famous for, though without as striking a surprise effect as in the first game. The controls remained faithful to the grid-based movement style of previous entries, requiring patience and precision from players when judging jumps.

In the context of its time it was another commercially successful addition to the series, though it also suggested that the pace of one entry per year was starting to wear the series thin in terms of ideas. Even so, Tomb Raider III remains a significant milestone of the action-adventure genre of the nineties, and for fans of the series it remains a playable reminder of an era when Lara Croft was among the most iconic characters in computer games and her adventures defined the entire third-person genre.

Why play it: For fans of the series, Tomb Raider III remains a playable reminder of an era when Lara Croft was among the most iconic characters in games and defined the entire third-person action-adventure genre.