Tomb Raider 2600 bt Riddle of the Red Review by: Jamal999 - 6/10
A masterpiece...of its times...First of all, I am Italian, so, if my language isn't correct, I'm really sorry! Now let's read my first review!
Introduction
I'll be honest. I love Tomb Raider saga, the entire saga of Miss Croft's adventures, but the first episode isn't the best of all. The overall rate is 6 just because of the great history of Tomb Raider, from the first appearance to the last one. Ok, I admit that I touhgt about a 7 or even more, so I think this would be the overall rate for the fanatic fans (just like me). For The standards of the time It was quite a good game for the Atari 2600, but It doesn't exploit entirely the (not so high) possibilities of this retro console. A honest overall rate could have been 5,5 or q bit more... But I decided for the 6 because no one knows this is the real origin, the Adam...No, the Eva of all Lara Croft's adventures. Before of Vilcabamba, before of all the pixels and the three dimensions stuffs, this is the real original one. You can see and barely recognize Lara (think about the hair...and just this characteristic is the one that you could recognize, with a lot of fantasy).
Plot
The first work for the greatest female tomb raider of the entire videogames history (dear Nathan Drake, you can eat her dust, if You want). You have to solve the riddle of the Scarlet Dragon, an artifact carved out of ruby. It was discovered in Jipijapa, Ecuador, by an archaeological expedition. No one knows the real facts, the origins, the powers of this ancient masterpiece, but no one is ready to venture deeper in the ruins and find out the reality. No one, except Lara Croft, the rich adventurer, the woman without fear and with two guns. And...That's it. Not really deep, I know, but quite deep for an Atari 2600 game. Go and find out the truth of this mystery!
Aesthetics
Graphics and sounds are well done for the standards of this console. Not a lot of music, just some sounds when you die or use your weapons, or when you collect items. And the one for the footsteps makes me laugh, but I simply don't know why. By the way it is both strange and exciting to see there is something that a Tomb Raider fan could recognize in the graphics (and in the gameplay too). The spiked moving traps, your enemies, the great jumps... The omnipresent colour is the darkness black: it is night? Are you in deep tombs? Perhaps both. Yes, a good game for its times. Not a real masterpiece, but a great promise, and if You see the results of this promise, Lara is still young and alive with new adventures, enemies, tombs to raid and artifacts to study, from the movies to the games, from the comics to the action figures... An icon, a myth, a symbol of the videogames era. Aesthetically you can't compare a 2D old game with the newest 3D games. It will result like a war between a medieval principality army and the modern American Army. It's not about evolutions, but about the contemporary standards. And it was a really good game.
Gameplay
This is basically a 2D platform. If you remember Atari 2600 old times, You surely remember Pitfall! So this game is quite an "upgraded Pitfall", with new weapons, complex levels, a new star (Lara Croft) and new concepts about the puzzle solving mechanics. You need different items to go on with your adventure, and You must collect all the artifacts of the dragon too. For example You need to get a torch to complete your tasks in the dark areas, or you could use pistols to kill your enemies (like fiery beasts). Oh, yeah, your beloved dual pistols: You'll find them in this game too! But the fundamental actions are two: run and jump, jump and run, run, run, elude the traps, jump and run, elude the traps while running and jumping... Sometimes it is frustrating to lose every time for a single wrong move, and if you add the problem that You've got just five life to lose (and You'll lose them really quick, I guess, if You're human), and the You have to start over from the first level, It is not frustrating: it is the worst nightmare of a videogamer. No checkpoints, no crystals, nothing that could save You from repeating the entire game on and on. A terrible and pointless thing, that connected with the bad controls system is a deadly alliance for the gamer's patience...Even for the experts. But You mustn't forgot: It's an Ooooooold Atari 2600 game.
Conclusions
As I said for the entire review, It is an old game, so, the evaluation must be done thinking about it's contemporary standards, not with the eyes of a 3D modern games expert player. If you watch this game (and all the ancient games) with the fascinated eyes of the first videogamers of the history, you could find the real magic of it. Without this grandpas and grandmas, videogames would have been just a dream, not the beautiful reality of this days.
Graphics
6 Sound
5 Addictive
4 Depth
7 Story
5 Difficulty
8
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