Tomb Raider I-III Remastered
Developed by: XProger
Published by: Aspyr
Date of Release: February 14, 2024
Price: $29.99
Back in the good old days of 1996, PC gaming was really starting to enter the realm of real 3D games rather than the sprite based affairs of Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. Games such as Descent and Quake had really made an impact, and proved the power of polygons beyond a doubt. Tomb Raider exploded onto the scene with it's third-person 3D exploration and action, choosing to show the main character on screen at all times, rather than viewing the game through their eyes as FPS games of the era chose to do. And what a choice that was, as the main character in question was none other than Lara Croft, who would immediately become the face of 3D action/adventure gaming for quite some time. With Tomb Raider II and III hitting the scene in the coming years, Lara's status in the 3D action scene was set in stone. And now Aspyr has brought that original trilogy to modern systems, with a decent glow-up for Lara to boot.
Here's the kicker though: Aspyr has been pushing out half-assed "remasters" for some time now, and they have all been pretty much colossal piles of jank, basically taking community-made patches incorrectly applying them to games that have been quickly and poorly ported to consoles without much thought to things such as graphical aspect ratios and proper optimization. A perfect example of such a scenario can be seen in their "remasters" of Star Wars Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy, both of which took the games original 4:3 aspect ratio and simply chopped the top and bottom off of the image to make it "widescreen", losing quite a bit of the viewport and first person weapon model in the progress. Third person view modes are just as bad, cutting off visibility for the legs of the character models.
Fortunately however with Tomb Raider I-III Remastered that is not the case this time around, as Aspyr had wisely decided to hire someone who actually gives a shit to oversee the project for them. Thanks to the work of fan modder Timur Gagiev, AKA XProger and his team, the Tomb Raider Trilogy has actually been treated with the care and respect it deserves, basing the remaster on his previously unauthorized personal remaster project. It may be shocking, but for once Aspyr has not shat the bed with one of it's remasters. Tomb Raider is definitely the series to finally break the Aspyr curse.
All three games in the trilogy have been overhauled with upscaled cinematics, redrawn textures, 60fps gameplay and much needed modern controls (you can choose between modern and tank controls in the settings), however at the click of a button you can switch back to the original pixelated software-rendered 30fps experience at any time you wish. Comparing the old look to the new is very much impressive, with the character models and a fair amount of the level architecture getting an impressive boost as well. Add to that a photo mode that can be used to create some very interesting shots, and this is quite an impressive package, and one that is well worth the asking price. Anyone who is a long time fan of Tomb Raider should pick this collection up immediately, and those who want to experience Lara Croft's adventures for the first time would be hard pressed to find a better way to get started than this fine remaster.
