Tomb Raider III
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| Tomb Raider III | |
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| Developer(s) | Core Design |
| Publisher(s) |   Eidos Interactive Enix[1] |
| Designer(s) | Chris Coupe and Martin Gibbins (programming) Tom Scutt (AI) Phil Chapman, Jer O'Carroll and Darren Wakerman (animation) Nathan McCree (music) |
| Engine | Tomb Raider II |
| Platform(s) | Mac PC PlayStation |
| Release date | 1998 November 21, 1998 March 4, 1999 2007 (PlayStation) 1999 (Platinum) 1999 (Greatest Hits) |
| Genre(s) | Platform Third-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Teen |
| Media | CD-ROM |
| Input methods | 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, worshiping the meteorite crater for the powers it appeared to hold and then forged parts of the meteorite into four artifacts. 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 therein died. One of these places is India - where Lara Croft 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. After retrieving the Infada stone she meets Dr. Willard on a sail boat who informs her of the story of Darwin's sailors as well as the existence of the other three other Meteorite Artifacts. They are found in London, the South Pacific and in Nevada.
Once she has collected all four pieces Lara travels to Antarctica where she meets Dr. Willard and learns of his true intentions. Apparently each artifact individually can cause a significant rise in the number of genes within a persons DNA thus causing a mutation. However when all four are combined with the meteorite they can rapidly accelerate human evolution. After testing on a few of his employees he steals the artifacts from Lara and heads towards the Meteorite Cavern where he transforms into a large immortal arachnid that Lara defeats by reversing the process. Once he is dead Lara escapes and heads for home.
[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, crawling, 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 defence. The shotgun, the harpoon gun, the uzis and the grenade launcher have remained from Tomb Raider II. The small-calibre semi-automatic pistols have been replaced by 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,[citation needed] 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 game play. 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. Unlike its predecessors, after completing the India levels, the player can then choose which of the next three areas of the world they want to explore in any order they wish.
[edit] Characters
[edit] Locations
[edit] Lara's Mansion - England
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. It is the last game of the series to feature this level until Tomb Raider: Legend.
[edit] India
The game begins in the 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 the ruins of ancient Hindu temples 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, driving it into his chest.
[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 (for this reason it is preferable to play through the game with this level being the first of the optional levels, as important arms such as the Rocket Launcher can be lost forever otherwise). From here on the game takes her through prisons, laboratories and military testing hangars. The levels in Nevada have an emphasis on using stealth rather than action.
[edit] South Pacific Islands
Among the beautiful, tropical scenery of the South Pacific, Lara fights a tribe of cannibalistic warriors and reanimated dinosaurs, finds a crashed plane, and kayaks through the dangerous currents of Madubu Gorge. Her trail leads her into the Temple of Puna, where the Ora Dagger meteorite stone is supposedly guarded. In this episode, she also learns of the Polynesians' journey to Antarctica and why they fled in such a sudden manner. Prolonged exposure led to one of the natives being born without a face leading to the shocked tribe fleeing the cursed land. Later, she manages to defeat Puna in his temple and acquire the stone.
[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, which is currently kept in possession by the infamous cosmetics tycoon Sophia Leigh. After a brief detour through St Paul's Cathedral, she goes down into the disused Aldwych tube station, where she is introduced to a secret gang of masked mutated men who call themselves "The Damned". These were experimented on by Leigh with the Eye of Isis in order for her to achieve eternal youth only to leave them disfigured and immortal. Later, she visits an Egyptology department in the British Natural History Museum. Lara then goes on to infiltrate Sophia Leigh's gigantic cosmetics factory, and makes her way through a system of air ducts to reach Sophia Leigh's office for the final confrontation. Lara also visits "All Hallows", a level taking place in All Hallows-by-the-Tower, if the player has collected all of the game's secrets by the end.
[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 recently excavated Lost City of Tinnos. The heart of the meteorite cavern is where the mad scientist performs a ceremony to transfom him into a large immortal mutant until the artifacts are removed.
[edit] Tomb Raider: The Lost Artifact
Tomb Raider: The Lost Artifact[2] is a mini-sequel to Tomb Raider III, sometimes unofficially called Tomb Raider III Gold. It was released exclusively for PC in 2000. Unlike the expansion packs for the first two games, this was sold as a standalone product rather than as part of a re-release, and was not available for free download for existing owners.
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 Channel Tunnel in Dover and then ultimately ends up in the catacombs of Paris, where she is confronted by Sophia Leigh.
[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[who?] 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. This also included plot twists and characters that had far more depth to them, and this made many[who?] gamers want to play to the very end to see the final part of the story and the true intentions of characters such as Dr. Mark Willard.
The level of violence however was once again criticised, as many[who?] 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. Many[who?] 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. However the newer "urban" environments also received some[who?] praise for adding more variety to the gameplay and providing characters that fitted more easily into a modern environment, such as The Damned.
[edit] References
[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, strategy, and savegame files.
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