Lara Croft's latest adventure in The Last Revelation reached gamers hands in March 2000 courtesy of developers Core Design and publishers Eidos Interactive, and it was meant to end in the hot pants loving adventurers death. Cue sharp intakes of breath from the gaming world. (But we secretly knew Crofty wouldn't expire.)
The basic gist of the story was Lara had unwisely unleashed the Egyptian God Set onto the world (nice one lady) and now had to get him to his resting place pronto before the foul stuff hit the apocalyptic fan. And we are talking a major change in the worlds appearance here, think global warming with a BAD attitude.
In a first for a Tomb Raider title, Lara's air miles were cut severly short and included visits to only 2 countries, Cambodia and Egypt, where previously her globetrotting was enough to put a Rolling Stones world tour to shame. And when you take into account that the Cambodia level was only a simple introduction to the games controls before starting the adventure proper then it was Egypt which was the main focus.
I remember this arriving in the post back in 2000 and rushing to play the 'next gen' Tomb Raider. Don't forget before this game arrived we had only plundered tombs in 32 bit graphics on the Playstation, so jumping to lofty 128 bit visuals offered by the Dreamcast was quite a leap for Lara's gum booted feet. And it did look good, I for one dropped my jaw at the opening cut scene of Ms Croft on a camel crossing a desert in a sand storm.
Gamewise it was the usual solve-a-puzzle-to-open-every-door but at the time I forgave it for this irritating aspect. It was all about looks back then. Ive started playing it again and to be honest it hasn't aged well like other Dreamcast titles. The cut scenes still look great but progression is such a tedious affair of puzzle solving to open EVERY scene/door/blah that it quickly begins to get on your nerves. Yes you expect puzzles, they're a big part of the game but must they appear so often? Lara has a shotgun for Heavens sake! Surely a shotgun can deal with a locked door?
I paid around £2 for this on an auction site and that just about sums it up. Pay any more and someone will have raided your tomb.
On 9th September 1999, Sega released a new console to an excited public, the now legendary Dreamcast. Many would argue the first in Next Gen visuals, and online gaming, the Dreamcast was overtaken by Playstation2 but never forgotten. To this day, a decade on, it is still a powerful force in the gaming world. This is my tribute to the console and games, where a poet becomes fanboy.
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