Tomb Raider I-III Remasters Give Lara Croft A Loving Makeover For Valentine's Day
Short of emulation, the original Tomb Raider game trilogy is rather difficult to play these days. You've either got to track down copies of the physical games and working retro hardware to play them on, or you'll have to set up the PC versions in DOSBox or 86box, or perhaps a virtual machine running Windows 95.
That's why we're pretty excited about Aspyr's new package containing remastered versions of all three of the original Tomb Raider games. The release was announced at Nintendo's Direct stream yesterday, but the company later confirmed on Twitter that the new package is coming to basically everything, including both current- and last-gen consoles as well as PC (via Steam).
As you'd naturally expect from a remaster the games boast considerably-upgraded visuals, although even the upgraded graphics have a clear retro appeal, looking more like a PlayStation 2 game than something modern. Like with the Halo Anniversary remasters, you can swap the game back to its original graphics for maximum nostalgia at any time, if you prefer. No word on whether there'll be a pixelization filter to render the games at their original 240p resolution, though.
There's also no word yet on gameplay changes in the remaster. While your author is a massive fan of the original Tomb Raider and its direct sequels, and he even liked the PlayStation 2-era Angel of Darkness title, there's no denying that these are old games, and they play like old games. Whereas most players who see a 3D character in a 3D world will expect simple analog controls like those established by Mario 64, Tomb Raider actually uses weighty "tank controls" like its contemporary release, Resident Evil. This could put off players who aren't familiar with the original games.
