Product description
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According to Egyptian legend, Horus, son of the light, outwitted
the evil God Set and imprisoned him in a secret tomb. Five
thousand years later, Lara Croft discovers the lost tomb and
unwittingly unleashes the evil God Set, fulfilling the ancient
prophecy of his return to plunge mankind into darkness! In a race
against time, Lara must use all her wit and skill to reimprison
Set and save the world from Armageddon. Pursued at every turn by
her arch-rival, the unscrupulous archaeologist Werner Von Croy,
Lara embarks on a journey of discovery across Egypt, where she
must overcome the most ingenious puzzles and infernal traps ever
devised, and face terrifying evil from beyond the grave...
With more twists and turns than an Egyptian labyrinth, this is
heart stopping action-adventure; a Tomb Raider that truly
offers...
The Last Revelation.
.com
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Lara Croft makes her Dreamcast debut in Tomb Raider: The Last
Revelation, a must-have title for fans of the busty heroine's
PlayStation exploits. Featuring high-resolution graphics that
rival those of the PC version, this visual masterpiece sports a
"ed-out" Lara in addition to lighting and water effects that
make its 3-D environments seem all the more realistic.
Beneath the surface, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation is pretty
much the same old Tomb Raider action-adventure formula, with
gameplay consisting of exploration, combat, and puzzle solving.
(Which is not necessarily a bad thing, as most Tomb Raider fans
just can't seem to get enough.) However, gamers do get to play as
"young" Lara Croft for the first time, and the gallery mode
rewards players with pictures of Lara as they progress through
the game.
Unfortunately, advancing in Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation can
be quite frustrating at times, as the controls--which utilize all
the functions of the Dreamcast controller--are not only awkward,
but also lack the responsiveness that some of the game's
challenges require. --Joe Hon
Pros:
* Enhanced graphics rival those of the PC version
* Ability to play as young Lara Croft
* Gallery feature a definite plus for fans Cons:
* Poor controls
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Review
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It's been almost four years since Lara Croft brought her boogie
shoes to a Sega console, due to an exclusivity contract Sony had
forged with Eidos. When the Tomb Raider franchise first reared
its Indiana Jones-inspired head, Core was developing it for the
Sega Saturn. Halfway through development, it was announced that
the game would also come to the PlayStation, in improved form no
less. After the original Tomb Raider made its debut on the
Saturn, Tomb Raider swiftly disappeared from Sega's library for
what seemed like eons. During that time, Eidos has raped and
pillaged the TR license for all it's been worth, releasing two
console sequels and numerous PC and Mac iterations. Well, another
year, another Tomb Raider sequel, and Eidos has released the
series' fourth official game, titled Tomb Raider: The Last
Revelation for the PlayStation, the PC, and now for the
Dreamcast. After four long years, Lara is back in Sega's arms.
However, is this a sincere attempt to support Sega's ship
system, or is it a cheap cash-in on a PC port designed to make
quick bucks at the expense of Dreamcast owners? With each of the
first three Tomb Raider episodes, released one year after
another, there were incremental improvements (some would call
them innovations) added to entice gamers to come back. But who's
kidding who? The reason most gamers came back, aside from a
secret archaeological desire to spelunk, was to lead buxom Lara
through a never-ending series of catacombs and labyrinths. That's
not to detract from the often near-genius level design, displayed
in abundance in the seminal "part two." Unfortunately, Eidos is
all too well aware of its greatest asset, but now that we've
progressed beyond the difficult part one, the deviously designed
part two, and the
more-of-the-same-but-look-at-Lara's-two-new-moves part three,
what exactly is there to bring us back to the unofficial part
four, The Last Revelation? At the start, things look rather grim.
In an aggravatingly mandatory tutorial, offered by Professor
Werner Von Croy, you must navigate an adolescent jailbait Lara
through a series of condescendingly trite exercises designed to
introduce you to the controls. Core seems to assume there will be
a bunch of gamers who have never touched a Tomb Raider game
before, as you cannot skip past this seemingly endless ritual,
which will have experienced Tomb Raiders dribbling on the action
button. At least in past games, Lara's gymnasium offered a
secluded space to try out the controls at your convenience. Not
so, here. At one point in the opening, which also sets the
storyline, Von Croy challenges you to a race, half-designed to
show you he's not the old fart you think he is and also to set
into practice your "newly learned" moves in an actual gaming
environment. Unfortunately, Von Croy isn't hampered by the leaden
control, crappy camera angles, and pixilated graphics that you
must contend with. Thankfully, this "race" is merely an excuse to
get you to the next cutscene, in which Von Croy introduces Lara
not to the ways of Indiana Jones but to those of Pitfall Harry!
Yes, in Tomb Raider: the Last Revelation, Lara can now swing from
ropes! In your first encounter with a rope, the game's faults
immediately reveal themselves. On reaching said rope, Lara must
jump to it, pump a few times for momentum's sake, then vault
across to the site platform. While most gamers have at some
point taken the rope-swinging plunge in one 2D platform game or
another, doing the deed in 3D is an altogether different story.
From the very first moment she tries a rope swing she is impeded
by a sideways camera angle, which doesn't let you see the edge of
the platform, let alone the rope. She also has the funky problem
of trying to align herself with the rope, which often results in
her plummeting off-angle into the pool below - there's a lag
between the time you press the jump button and the time Lara
actually jumps. All these problems come to light within the
first, frustrating hour after you turn the game on. A new change
to the control scheme, which allows you to switch from digital to
analog, assigns sidestepping and Lara's "cautious walk" to
whatever pad is not being used for running. This requires the
gamer to switch back and forth between the two control pads for
the different functions. The Dreamcast's lack of two extra
buttons most likely contributed to this, but it's not exactly
intuitive. After a short CG sequence that sets in motion the
reason she is here at all (this year's adventure is in Egypt!),
it's back to the future for Lara and the start of the game
proper. While the game is actually better than the introduction
indicates, it's still not great. The worst part about this
particular adventure is that it feels as if you have done it all
before. Back in its day, Charlie's Angels was a pretty fun TV
show to watch, but after a while, even 13-year-old boys got tired
of watching Farrah Fawcett go through the same-old, same-old
motions. The same goes for Lara Croft - her tomb raiding has
become an exercise of been-there, done-that. Although lengthy and
designed to be more action-adventurey than mind-bendingly clever,
Last Revelation still puts you through your paces in a series of
find-the-chain-and-pull-it,
put-the-item-in-the-slot-and-open-the-door mechanics. There are
some devilish situations that will require clearheadedness and a
thoughtful mind, but in spite of the odd and oddly frustrating
rope-swinging sequences, anyone who has played any of the first
three episodes has played Last Revelation. While the graphics are
better than those in the PlayStation version, they are only
marginally improved over the PC's. Yeah, everything is running in
high-res, and Lara does benefit from a stunning real-time shadow
that bends according to the light source and her surroundings.
However, the environments are still ped over with low-res
textures anti-aliased to death, giving the game an almost N64-ish
look in some places. Usually up for debate is whether Lara's
s have been d, reduced, or whether her ass has more
polygons for a smoother, all-natural look. Quite honestly, who
cares? As time goes by, it becomes harder and harder to look at
Lara, despite how perky her s have gotten. Since her debut,
games like Metal Gear Solid, Soul Calibur, Space Channel 5 and
Dead or Alive 2 have come out, and as a result, each new Tomb
Raider game ceases to amaze, despite its blocky, pixelated
waterfalls and improved lighting effects. The game's frame rate
veers wildly from acceptable (in closed corridors) to
staggeringly bad (usually when Lara comes out of said corridors
into wide-open areas). Even with the Dreamcast's powers, the
frame rate often stumbles into the 15fps category. Blame Windows
CE, but this game hardly takes advantage of what the Dreamcast
can do. Coupled with the iffy frame rates are the occasionally
obnoxious camera angles, which, when combined with the
pivot-and-then-go gameplay, can cause much frustration in a game
centered on various platform elements. The most the game has to
offer are some unnaturally angular environments designed to alert
the gamer that "Yes, you can go there," or "No, you cannot."
While the ambience certainly offers a realistic setting, the game
can often revert to that overwhelming feeling of solitude found
in the first Tomb Raider. Although you have a torch-lighting
lackey in your service during the opening moments of the game, he
is nothing more than an AI drone designed to trudge onward as you
tackle puzzles and pull switches. For gamers who prefer a little
more company in their adventures, there is occasionally a
scorpion or wolf that will try to bite you. --James Mielke
--Copyright ©1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of GameSpot is prohibited. -- GameSpot Review
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