September 23, 2011

Tomb Raider 30-Day Challenge Day 23: What fond memories do you have of the Tomb Raider series or of Lara Croft?

UPDATE: This month-long challenge has officially finished, but you're still welcome to post your comments below at any time. We'd love to hear what you think.

A series that's been around for 15 years is bound to have inspired its players; otherwise it wouldn't have lasted as long as it has. What are your most memorable Tomb Raider moment? Is it something that happened in one of the games or a real-life experience you've had as a result of being a fan?

Today's challenge question is very similar to one I used in last year's Book Bonanza Contest Part 1. If you entered that contest, I hope you'll answer again here.

Return to Egypt
Return to Egypt screenshot courtesy of Katie Fleming.

24 comments:

  1. I'm a bit pressed for time this morning, so I'm going to copy my answer from that previous post. I also have *many* fond memories of my interactions with other fans over the years. I've made lots of wonderful online friends through these games. You guys are are great!

    My favorite single moment from within one of the games occurs in the first Tomb Raider Gold bonus level: Return to Egypt. As you're exploring the desert at night, you climb up the side of a stepped pyramid and suddenly the camera shifts to a wide-angle view of the pyramid and surrounding dunes. There are more dramatic moments, more exciting scenes, for sure, but somehow this encapsulates the special feeling of solitary exploration that the early Tomb Raider games evoked so well.

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  2. I have plenty os memories, I think I could write a whole book about them! The best one is, after experiencing TR for the first time, to buy the first game... I was so excited, I remember it was lunch time, and I went to Toys'R'Us to get it. While in the car in the way home, I was so anxious to play the game! I was reading the instruction manual (or seeing the pictures, since I was so young I didn't know english yet, since it isn't my mother language) and when I got home I simply spent the whole afternoon playing (and I barely reached the 4th level, ahahahah)

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  3. A fond memory from within the game includes a scenery from Tomb Raider I. Somehow when thinking back to the good old times I always come up with the beginning of the Colosseum level. Don't ask me why, I don't know. Other fond memories include the Maria Doria levels of Tomb Raider II and the India levels of III, or... there is one fond memory of each game in my mind.
    Other fond memories are from the Tomb Raider Meetings, just chatting, playing custom levels together and so on.

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  4. I have plenty of memories to share but the most effective one for me was when I was playing Venice in TR2 for the first time I felt so bad ass threw the whole level LOL. Being that Lara and this series has been apart of my life since I was like 10 her courage has in a way rubbed of on me.

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  5. I have a fond memory of re-playing Sanctuary of the Scion from TR1 with the sound turned down and "Smack My Bitch Up" by the Prodigy on the soundsystem. That and re-playing TR3 with an audience - it was like we were all watching a movie.

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  6. A big real life memory comes from/after playing TR4. I wasn't a fan of the dragging Egyptian theme or of history itself, but your walkthrough made it so interesting giving historical and mythological details about monsters, legends, and locations.

    Then a few months after finishing the game, my mother & I were in Egypt in transit, and we got to take a tour of Cairo.
    We saw the Sphinx and memories of the game all came flooding back. I even got to enter down into a pyramid.

    The passage was crawl-small and the 1 ante-room was all stone, so it felt like a real-life Tomb Raider experience!!

    I really wanna thank you Stella, for all your great walkthrough help. It really added so much value to the game and also real life!! :)

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  7. Killing her :3 My favourite part of the game is finding fun ways to kill her.

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  8. Most of my favorite TR memories have to do with cutscenes involving sprawling vistas, or just coming across sprawling vistas through exploration. One that stands out to me was in TR3, in the Nevada Desert. I got Lara past the quicksand at the beginning and climbed up to come out above the same area. The view was awesome...and then that dang stealth fighter came up over the ridge and scared the living heck out of me!

    Really, Tomb Raider is responsible for me even becoming a gamer. If I had never picked up TR3, I might not be playing today! By extension, a lot of my best gaming memories can be traced back to adventuring with Lara Croft.

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  9. One of my favorite TR memories is of an OMG moment where I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at myself. I was playing Legend for the first time when I got to the place (in pursuit of Takamoto) where the hallway is guarded by a machine gun turret. I found the switch to activate the sprinklers, which lit-up the red laser beams, and I thought I was being pretty smart. I then proceeded to spend the next few hours trying to get through the laser beams without activating the gun turret. I made it 2/3 of the way through countless times, but I just couldn't get past the last set of beams. Finally, I admitted that I needed a hint, so I went to Stella's walkthrough, and of course, she said to pull the big (and really obvious) ball off it's stand and use it as a shield from the gun turret!!! I had walked right past the thing dozens of times without paying any attention to it. :)

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  10. It's nice to read about the early versions of TR, I've never played the PC games. I didn't start playing Tomb Raider until Legend, for me it started in a Virgin Megastore. My son was in fits laughing at my totally inept use of the controller, to which, I bought a PS2 and 2 copies of the game then challenged him to beat me! I work away from home a lot and it was heaven when I got the phone call to help get him through the England level ( I didn't tell him Stella's website had been my source to move Bedivere's coffin ;0)) needless to say I beat him to the end of Legend including all of the speed runs and I've been hooked ever since. I bought copies of Angel of Darkness and Anniversary for PS2 and had to have a PS3 for Underworld. We went on a tour of Europe a couple of years ago on my motorcycle, we had a 4" figure of Lara with us as our mascot and took pictures of her in various places in France, Switzerland, Italy and Spain. I keep meaning to post them to my twitter profile, maybe I will one day!

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  11. I guess I should add that researching, writing and posting online fan fic has sometimes been good and memorable for me. I actually visited Hungary to research "Byzantium" and I've written quite a lot of stuff whilst next to the beach, whether it be in Goa in India, Cornwall in the UK or some other sunny locale. :) (Not sure if this question was supposed to cover IRL stuff or not.)

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  12. Out of the countless, one that sticks out is me and my best friend sitting playing TR2 and 3 together; whenever I got to a scary bit, I'd make her play. We spent the whole day playing one of the games once, and then we visited a firework display later that evening...it was so dark, I instinctively asked her to draw a flare. :D

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  13. The India section in Tomb Raider 3. This distinctly stayed in my head because it was the first time I saw one of the Tomb Raider games being played. When I was too young to play myself, me and my brother watched my dad doing the india levels on the Tomb Raider 3 Demo. :) The final level "Caves of kaliya" was especially scary!

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  14. Lara's mansion in TRII and III, I was always too scared to play the game. And the whole first level of Tomb Raider III; my first completed level... Ahhhh!

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  15. I am really attracted to exploration and archeology and all things related. I love museums and the Indiana Jones movies. A long time ago I even got Archeology as a possible career to choose in college!!

    To be able to actually do some exploring in jungles, ruins, temples, etc; to be looking for lost artifacts or relics was a way to somehow atone for that long lost dream.

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  16. For some reason, the music in Tomb Raider 3, with its "adventure" theme really sticks with me as happy music. It's so exhilarating.

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  17. For me it's the moment when the T-Rex burst out from behind the rock and trashed the velociraptors! Pure awesomeness. My second favoutite memory though is the Rome levels in chronicles. It's just that that was the first tomb raider I ever played. I actually kind of agree with Mary on the TR3 music!

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  18. First: getting actual vertigo atop the center structure of the Greek temple (Tr1), and my first success in the Lost Valley (looking UP to see the path was my first 3 dimensional breakthrough in a game, if you understand my meaning-I had only been thinking linearly). Tr1 had so many startling points. Very exciting to play.

    I have a fond memory of the innovative locales, especially the changes of pace where Lara's weapons are gone and you have to make do, like the oil rig, and Anniversary's Mines.

    I think my best memories are from playing at my friend Jessica's place; I'd watch her play Resident Evil, and she'd watch me play TR. :.) Good tines

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  19. i'd say most memorable thing of TR is stage with trex from TR1. its the most thing i remember from childhood and everything about the stage is just beautiful.

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  20. One fond memory for me is the moment I fell in love with the games: I had played a demo on my not-powerful-enough PC back in 1996, in 1997 when TR2 was released I rented a PlayStation and a copy of TR2, and as Lara ran out of the door in the Chinese Wall and the camera tracked back to show you the breathtaking, endless scenery and the scale of it all, I was done for.

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  21. The TR games were the first real action/adventure games that I ever played, so they've always had a special place in my heart for that reason. And she's basically the most influential female character in video games. I'm not really one to get into the whole "girl power" thing, but at the same time, I don't feel like the games would have had such an impact on me if it wasn't for Lara. When I first beat the original TR game was a really crazy moment for me. I had literally been playing it for about 10 years but always got stuck in the St. Francis' Folly level, so I could pretty much play the first few levels with my eyes closed because I had played them over and over so many times (and they never got old). So when I finally slid down the ramp after defeating Natla and watched the closing scene, I felt so much relief, but it was sad at the same time.

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  22. Grace, thanks for adding your comments to all the 30-day challenge posts. I'm glad to see people are still reading and participating.

    My husband also got stuck in St. Francis and gave up on TR, which was indirectly how I got into the games in the first place. (See http://blog.tombraiders.net/2009/07/beginnings.html) Congrats on finally beating it--and most of the other games as well. Good luck with AOD, and hopefully we'll "see" you again when TR9 comes out. ;)

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  23. Of course! I wish I had participated when you initially posted this whole thing, but due to a very busy year of college, I had to take a TR break. Thank you! (and I will definitely be back :)

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  24. Whenever I finally get a puzzle, fight, or something other than that that took me so long and I used no cheats, those are my favorite memories. And, like Stella, any panoramic view you get after climbing high. I play Assassins Creed, and they have viewpoints, which I adore. It feels absolutely great when you get up there and the camera turns to show everything below and around you.
    -GrtGreekBear

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