Tomb Raider III
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| Tomb Raider III | |
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| Developer(s) | Core Design |
| Publisher(s) | Eidos Interactive |
| Designer(s) | Chris Coupe and Martin Gibbins (programming), Tom Scutt (AI), Phil Chapman, Jer O'Carroll and Darren Wakerman (animation), Nathan McCree (music). |
| Release date(s) | November 1998 |
| Genre(s) | Third-person shooter/Platform |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Teen |
| Platform(s) | Mac, PC, and PlayStation |
| Media | CD-ROM |
| Input | Control pad, Keyboard |
Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft is the third game in the Tomb Raider series, and the sequel to Tomb Raider II. It was developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive. The game was originally released in November 1998 for the PC and PlayStation. The storyline follows Lara Croft as she embarks upon a quest to recover 4 meteorite stones scattered across the world.
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[edit] Storyline
Tomb Raider III opens millions of years ago, when a meteoroid survived the plunge through the Earth's atmosphere, impacting the then-warm climate of Antarctica. The first people to discover this land were a tribe of Polynesians. Despite the now-freezing conditions, there was an abnormal abundance of life and the tribe settled, worshipping the meteorite crater for the powers it appeared to hold. Generations later, though, catastrophic events forced them to flee in terror. Today, the same area is being excavated by the research company RX Tech, headed by the eccentric Scotsman Dr. Willard. The team is picking up unusual readings from the meteorite's impact zone. Soon after they uncover the body of a sailor from Charles Darwin's voyage on the Beagle. It seems a few of his sailors had explored the interior of the crater.
Following a story from one of the sailors' journal, RX Tech have started to take a particular interest in not only the crater area, but other parts of the globe where the sailors traveled to... and died in. One of these places is India - where Lara is currently searching for the legendary Infada artifact. Unaware of its true history, she only knows that in local beliefs it was supposed to hold great powers and has been revered by tribes there throughout the years. Soon she will discover a whole lot more.
[edit] Gameplay
[edit] Features
The gameplay of Tomb Raider III picks up where Tomb Raider II left off (for a detailed examination of gameplay see Tomb Raider). Once again, Lara's range of abilities has been expanded, now including such moves as the crouch stance, a sprinting move and the ability to "monkey swing" on overhead bars and vines. Sprinting allows Lara to gain a burst of speed while running. A bar then appears in the corner of the screen to indicate the amount of stamina Lara has left. At any time during a sprint she can perform a forward roll, for example to dive under closing trapdoors.
A portion of the game still takes place underwater, but this time new perils have been added. In some levels (eg. Madubu Gorge), the current of the stream will pull Lara in a fixed direction, preventing the player from being able to swim back or grab onto a ledge. These waters can only be navigated using a kayak. Additionally, some tropical pools are inhabited by a school of piranhas. Unlike alligators these fish are invincible, and as soon as Lara enters their waters they will flock toward her, and kill her within seconds. Furthermore, the water in the Antarctic levels is too cold for Lara to swim through it. She can only remain in the water for a short amount of time, and submerged under it for an even shorter amount of time. When she dives into it, a new status bar will appear in the corner of the screen to indicate her body temperature. If that bar reaches zero, Lara's life will rapidly decrease. The only way she can cross these waters over a large distance without freezing to death is by using a motorboat.
Quicksand is a new type of ground that distinguishes itself from regular soil by its moving surface. Should the player fall into it, Lara will sink deeper and deeper until she disappears and drowns. Sometimes these swamps reveal hidden stepping stones for Lara to cross.
As always, the pistols are Lara's most basic form of defense. The shotgun, the harpoon gun, the uzis and the grenade launcher have remained from Tomb Raider II. The automatic pistols have disappeared to make place for the powerful Desert Eagle. The M16 rifle has been changed to a similar MP5 submachine gun. Also new to Lara's arsenal is the rocket launcher.
On the PlayStation version, saving the game is restricted to the amount of Save Crystals the player has stored in Lara's inventory. These floating blue crystals can be found throughout each level, but unlike the original Tomb Raider, they do not require the player to save the game at the pickup spot. The PC version allows the player to save at any point. The developers planned on having the Save Crystal system for the PC version, but this was unfinished and the green crystals act instead as small medipacks.
The objective of the game remains unchanged, although Tomb Raider III arguably has less tombs to explore than the previous games. Instead, most levels take place in a more modern environment, and Tomb Raider introduces an element of stealth into the gameplay. For example in the Nevada adventure, it is sometimes preferable to sneak past guards instead of fighting them. Being spotted may set off alarms and close doors that are otherwise needed to complete the stage and therefore the player will have no other option than to take a more difficult route.
[edit] Characters
- Lara Croft: Once again, the player assumes the identity of Lara Croft, the intrepid archeologist searching the world for treasures and artifacts. This time she is on a quest to obtain four powerful meteorite stones.
- Dr. Mark Willard: As the head of an excavation crew near the meteor crate of Antarctica, Dr. Willard has began to show unusual interest in the continent's history, and its relation to four stones that were taken from there decades ago. After a coincidental meeting in India, Lara agrees to work for him.
- Tony: Under orders of Dr. Willard, an exploration party was sent into the forests of India to recover the ancient Infada stone. Tony was on board of this mission until jungle fever got hold of him and he went insane. He has left his team members for dead and taken the Infada stone with him. Now Lara is forced to deal with this loose cannon before he causes more havoc.
- Marines: A plane carrying these Australian soldiers has crashed into the mountains near Madubu Gorge. One of them was captured by the native Indians, and provides Lara with a map to traverse the nearby swamp. Others were scattered around the crash site of the plane, their commanders Lt. Tuckerman and Commander Bishop dead.
- Puna: A man of which little is known, Puna is the high priest of a Polynesian tribe of cannibals near the South Pacific. He wields his tremendous magical powers through the Ora Dagger.
- Sophia Leigh: This ruthless businesswoman stands at the head of a rather unsavoury cosmetics giant in London. Sophia is obsessed with everlasting beauty, and her company is rumored to experiment with illegal substances. Either way, she is in possession of the Eye of Isis, a piece of the meteorite rock, and she is not ready to give it up easily.
- The Damned: In the abandoned tube station of Aldwych lives a fearsome street gang of masked men. They were ordinary men once, before they were subject to horrible product tests by Sophia Leigh's company. Disfigured, they were left for dead in the sewers. Now they live their lives in seclusion, choosing to hide their deformity from the world.
- Winston: Lara's faithful butler Winston keeps Lara's mansion tidy while she is out travelling the world. On the training course he assists Lara in some target practice.
[edit] Levels
[edit] Lara's Mansion
Tomb Raider III features the largest tutorial level yet seen in a Tomb Raider game. The assault course from Tomb Raider II is drastically expanded to include exercise of Lara's new moves, target practice and a racetrack to hone the player's handling of the quad bike. Inside the mansion, a secret room can be discovered filled with artifacts and memorabilia from Lara's past adventures.
[edit] India
The game begins in the dense, humid jungles of India, where Lara is on the trail of a mystical relic called the Infada stone. She travels by foot and on a quad, as the game takes her through old temple ruins and along the shores of the River Ganges. Whilst exploring these parts, she comes across a researcher hired by Willard called Tony, who eventually goes mad and steals the Infada stone from its shrine. The levels in India are generally of an easy difficulty. After they have been completed, the player may choose their next mission from there on.
- Level 1: Jungle
- Level 2: Temple Ruins
- Level 3: The River Ganges
- Level 4: Caves of Kaliya
[edit] Nevada
The American government has obtained one of the stones, and named it 'Element 115'. It has been stored deep within Area 51, a secret military base in the Nevada desert, where all sorts of experiments are rumoured to take place. Unbeknownst to them, it is one of the four pieces of meteorite rock on Lara's treasure list. After a haphazard attempt to break into the base, Lara is locked up in a cell and stripped of her weapons. From here on the game takes her through prisons, laboratories and military testing hangars. The levels in Nevada range from average to hard, and the emphasis lies on stealth rather than action.
- Level 5 - Nevada Desert
- Level 6 - High Security Compound
- Level 7 - Area 51
[edit] South Pacific Islands
Among the beautiful, tropical scenery of the South Pacific, Lara fights tribal warriors, finds a crashed plane, and kayaks through the dangerous currents of Madubu Gorge. Her trail leads her into the Temple of Puna, where the legendary Ora Dagger is supposedly guarded. In this episode, she also learns of the Polynesians' journey to Antarctica and why they fled in such a sudden manner. The levels in the South Pacific are of an average difficulty.
- Level 8 - Coastal Village
- Level 9 - Crash Site
- Level 10 - Madabu Gorge
- Level 11 - Temple of Puna
[edit] London
Lara crosses the rooftops of London on a dark and rainy night, in search of another mysterious artifact called the Eye of Isis. After a brief detour through St. Paul's Cathedral, she goes down into the disused Aldwych tube station and later visits the British Natural History Museum. In Aldwych, she is introduced to a secret gang of masked men who call themselves "The Damned." In the second half of the third level, Lara also infiltrates Sophia Leigh's gigantic cosmetic factory, and makes her way through a system of air ducts to reach Sophia Leigh's office for the final confrontation. The levels in London are generally of a hard difficulty. Hazards include incredible heights (particularly in the Thames Wharf rooftops), speeding trains, a tunnel borer, and disorienting, maze-like underwater passages.
[edit] Antarctica
After Lara's helicopter crashes into the icy waters of Antarctica, she makes her way through the abandoned research stations of RX Tech. After meeting up with Dr. Willard to hand over the stones, she descends down mines and into the Lost City of Tinnos. The heart of the meteorite cavern is where the story ends. The levels of Antarctica are the hardest in the game.
- Level 16 - Antarctica
- Level 17 - RX Tech Mines
- Level 18 - Lost City of Tinnos
- Level 19 - Meteorite Cavern
[edit] Bonus Level
After the Antarctica missions are completed, and the player has managed to find at least 59 secrets in the game, a secret bonus level called "All Hallows" loads up, a level taking place in St. Paul's Cathedral, back in London. It is arguably one of the hardest levels in the entire game, hence the amount of effort required to unlock. Once this level is completed, the player is awarded with all weapons and infinite ammo.
- Level 20 - All Hallows.
[edit] Tomb Raider III: The Lost Artifact
The Lost Artifact is an expansion set of Tomb Raider III sometimes unofficially called Tomb Raider III Gold. It was released exclusively for PC in 1999. In The Lost Artifact, Lara learns of the existence of a fifth meteorite artifact called the Hand of Rathmore. She begins her investigations at the castle of Dr. Willard in the Scottish highlands, progresses to exploring the Chunnel in Dover and then ultimately ends up in the catacombs of Paris, where she is confronted by a familiar enemy. The levels of The Lost Artifact are:
- Level 1 - Highland Fling
- Level 2 - Willard's Lair
- Level 3 - Shakespeare Cliff
- Level 4 - Sleeping with the Fishes
- Level 5 - It's a Madhouse!
- Level 6 - Reunion
[edit] Reception
As with its predecessor, the release of Tomb Raider III was widely anticipated, making it one of the most popular games of 1998. Many critics and fans praised it as the definitive Tomb Raider installment. The game received generally good marks on graphics and the flexibility of gameplay, as well as its increasingly cinematic approach to plot development.
The level of violence however was once again criticized, as many people felt that the killings in Tomb Raider III were even less necessary than those in Tomb Raider II, where she was only seen shooting thugs and monsters. Tomb Raider III features such "enemies" as museum guards, US soldiers and tribesmen. The lack of tombs to explore was also met with discontent. Most gamers did not appreciate the way Metal Gear Solid like stealth tactics were forced upon the gameplay, and preferred the quiet, atmospheric exploration of the original Tomb Raider.
Nonetheless, the game was a critical and commercial success, and it paved the way for three more direct sequels (until the series came to a temporary halt after Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness).
[edit] Trivia
- Once again, Tomb Raider III pays homage to Indiana Jones in a number of ways, most notably by referencing The Temple of Doom in the India segment. In the South Pacific, certain traps can be triggered by walking into a beam of light just as in Raiders of the Lost Ark. In the secret room of her mansion, next to the artifacts of the previous games, Lara keeps a gold idol stored resembling the one Indiana Jones recovers in the introduction of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
- References to other popular movies include Jurassic Park, Independence Day, Batman and Mission: Impossible.
- The model of Sophia Leigh is the same one used for Lara herself, but with a different hairstyle and other clothes.
- Some versions are censored, making Lara's blood pink instead of red.
- For most of the Antarctica levels, after the "Antarctica" level, Lara seems to be going down deep into to the Earth until the "Meteorite Cavern" level.
[edit] External links
- Tomb Raider III at MobyGames - info sheet on all ports of the game.
- Tomb Raider III at Tombraiderchronicles.com - contains images, walkthroughs and media related to the game.
- Tomb Raider III at Stella's Tomb Raider Site - Walkthroughs and savegames.
- Deborah's Tomb Raider shrine - screenshots from all segments of the game.
- Speed Demos archive - A speedrun of Tomb Raider III with a final time of 2:28:20
