Tomb Raider 3: awkward

I bought the entire Tomb Raider series on Steam a while ago, and I was inspired to play something after a short conversation with Sue on Twitter.

@suekitchen But which game? Looks like TR2 or TR3. Not angular enough though!
— Tim Miller (@Xexyzx) October 31, 2013

I never completed Tomb Raider 3, despite loving the first two, so this was an obvious thing to try. It took quite a while to get it working on my work laptop, and then configuring it to use the Xbox 360 pad took even longer.  I eventually settled an a scheme which meant I only needed to use the keyboard for crouching and walking slowly, and set off the the jungle.

The game looks a little rough nowadays, but that's not necessarily a bad thing given the paltry processing power of my laptop.  Rendering at 1280 x 800 meant that the game ran really smoothly; the cumbersome controls were a much bigger hindrance.  This was only part due to my inability to configure the 360 pad properly; the absence of a second stick to look around really hurts a game based around exploration.

It took a while to come across the first enemies.  I shot a monkey because I was convinced that he was looking at me funny; later on I realised that the monkeys only attack if attacked first.

That's not true of the tigers.  These took quite a few bullets to finish off, and bounded towards me very quickly.  Lara's not really a conservationist.

I got stuck on this bit for ages, mainly because the controls just weren't responsive enough for me to be able to pull the switch, turn around, and jump into the wall cavity before the big spiky wall killed me.

Despite the issues, it was fun to revisit the game.  As there doesn't seem to be a plan to remake TR2 and TR3 in the same way as Tomb Raider Anniversary, I may need to dig out my original PlayStation TR3 disc and play it on the PS3, which will overcome at least some of the control issues - plus, of course, in a month's time I'll be handing back this work laptop and have no idea if Steam will run on the next one.