The handstand was so cool. I did find out via a mag rather than by myself.

“Feast your eyes on this, Lara. Does it make your stomach grumble?”
*lots of notes floating around*
“I’m sorry. I only play for sport.”

This has been a fun read.  I've got the old games on Steam so decided to try TR1 for the first time since last century.  The graphics hold up pretty well (IE it looks cool and stylish) though the old CGI videos are pretty rough now.  Haven't played enough to get a good feel, but I do like how Lara controls.  She's not floaty.  Really weighty, physical.  She really strains to pull herself up on ledges.  None of that Nathan Drake monkeyboy stuff.  The jumping and grabbing is good but I remember it being tricky even back in the day.  It'll probably go to hell once you get to the more complicated bits and it gets beyond the camera's limitations.  I do like how it's already clear if you can make a jump and doesn't require great reflexes to pull off.  Also, VERY generous auto aim on the guns!  Was a bit worried about that.

Won't be playing this version for much longer though; you have to use a keyboard.  Stuff that I'm sure a ROM/PS Mini will work better.

Aye, OG Tomb Raider was revelatory in it's day. A real showcase for what was to come with world building in games. Incredible level design, and just oozing atmosphere with the fabulous sound design.
Pre-internet times as well, and I can remember being stuck for several days in one of the early levels (underground river with a big waterfall at the end), because I just could not find the route to progress. It was all new back then, so what probably seems obvious now with decades of gaming hindsight, could be absolutely baffling at the time. 
Such a game.

The swan dive animation was just magnificent.

Yup, and once you did it was like a kid in a sweet shop. Again! Again!

Lord yes, the handstand!
There really was sooooo many jaw dropping moments in that game.
The level design was just so good. Multi-stage levels that just kept ramping up the spectacle to insane levels, and the joy of trying to work out where the fuck do I go next, and how the fuck do I get there???

OG TR was a never to be repeated moment in games for me.  Mario 64 was impressive but TR absolutely shat awesome into my brain.  I remember cowering for long minutes in the little hidden alcove I found in the T-Rex bit, popping off a couple of rounds each time it loomed into view. 

That pull back and reveal at the top of the Sphinx gets another mention, as does the number of times I deliberately swan-dived from an extremely high climb safely into water.  Or rock.  Less safely. 

I still have my Saturn and probably TR somewhere but I'm guessing I can't play it on a new TV so now I am sad.

hylian_elf wrote:

Don’t know about the latest TVs, but 2 of our LCD TVs have RGB scart sockets. No doubt games will look like dog shit, but I can run my old consoles on them. Fired up the SNES not long ago. Tiny little box in the middle of the screen and still huge pixels!

Ooh, I still have the old Bravia in the playroom.  I'll check that out.

I was trolling earlier btw. TR OG on Saturn, along with RE was a big moment for me. Absolute baller of a game.

I still maintain that TR 2013 was a [10]

I enjoyed all 3 of them...happy to kill...

It was a great reboot. Diminishing returns since then.

Rise is not better, unless you're mental.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Last time I played properly was on Vita iirc. I can't remember how far I got but I definitely stuck with it a while, stage 5 perhaps. In modern games you'd probably get an arrow pointing you to the next area of interest, or Lara parroting hints out loud to herself after being flummoxed for a few seconds, but there was none of that pish back then. Not that I don't appreciate the pish in modern games - I wouldn't trade back - but gamers have been trained to be incredibly lazy by the big titles these days; most are reluctant to allow the player to get stuck, but TR thrived on it.

After a couple of hours f**king around with joy2keyboard.exe, mods, and ROMs, I'm starting to think Vita might be the way to go.  It's quite cheap + imagine it would look pretty decent on the small OLED?

Also downloaded some other TR games on Steam just to have a quick feel around, see if any grabbed me

TR: Legend - looks surprisingly good (and my old PC can run it at 1080P/240FPS!  Unfortunately I don't have the eyes of a german shorthaired pointed and it just looks the same as 60FPS).  Pretty fun to play but a bit bloated with tools (binoculars with scanner, grappling hook etc).  Also Lara has her friends on the intercom to guide you which is a bit intrusive.  The shooting seems worse too.

TR 2013 - You can't really just drop in and have a play for half an hour, so I'm not sure.  There's a lot of story.  It does look nice, especially Lara's hair.

TR Guardian of Light - This looks quite good actually and I remember people liking it.  I've never actually played it.  Not much like a normal TR at all but will probably give it a decent crack this year.