Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft

Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft is a platform and third-person shooter game developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive. It is the third installment in the Tomb Raider series and the sequel to Tomb Raider II. The game was originally released on 20 November 1998 for the PC and PlayStation. The story follows Lara Croft as she embarks upon a quest to recover 4 meteorite stones scattered across the world.

Past
Millions of years ago, after the time of dinosaurs, but before the time of humans, a meteorite survived the high density plunge into Earth's atmosphere. It was around the size of a small house, but may have been larger before the atmosphere descent, which would have burned it down to a smaller size. The animal inhabitants of a tropical area that would later become part of Antarctica, sensed the meteor coming and were immediately alarmed. A few minutes later, the meteor crashed into a bed of trees, exploding and vaporizing everything around it. Over the next few million years, this area became inhabited by Polynesians, an early civilization. There, they discovered the meteor, and the strange, unnatural powers that it possessed. The Polynesians worshiped this rock, and sculpted four objects of different shape and power from it; the Four Meteoric Artifacts. The mini-sequel Tomb Raider III: The Lost Artifact, reveals that there was in fact a fifth artifact.

As revealed by one of the tribesmen the inhabitants of these islands fled when one of the natives was born from the sixth king without a face, due to the over-exposure to the meteorite artifacts, similar to the effects of radiation. This naturally shocked the other tribesmen, and so they fled what they now were calling a 'cursed island'. They left the four meteoric artifacts inside a meteorite chamber beneath the Antarctica islands' surface.

It is here, when all four artifacts are combined, that any living thing can be radically evolved.

In 1834--when the frozen continent of Antarctica had been formed--Charles Darwin's HMS Beagle arrived at the site. Some of the sailors fell into the chamber, which was a barren cave, and discovered the artifacts. They were then attacked by a pack of wolves, killing one of them. One of the crew members, Stephen Barr, headed back to London, where he sold his piece of the treasure after the others were killed for their artifacts in Nevada, India and the South Pacific.

Present Day
In 1998, the mining company R.X.Tech (founded by Dr. Mark Willard) set out a mining and drilling excavation in Antarctica to try to find a rumored Meteorite Cavern, which Willard found evidence of in a diary of one of the sailors on the HMS Beagle. Currently, one section of the group is drilling into the ice to try to discover something. Willard is seen speaking to someone on a phone, though the American recipient cannot understand him due to his thick Scottish accent. At this time, the drill bit becomes lodged into some rock, presumably having hit a part of the hard meteorite. The drill breaks just as a man on a snowmobile rides up, asking Dr Willard to come to Site 2 (another excavation area). During the short journey, Willard asks "Find any more meteorite?". The reply from the snowmobile driver is "Something a little younger than that". When they arrive at Site 2, we see a carved Polynesian head, like the ones seen on Easter Island, followed by a camera zoom that shows many more embedded into the snow. Willard then approaches a small depression in the ice. Below it is a small wooden cross, bearing the name of one of the crew of the HMS Beagle. The inscription on it reads "Paul Caulfield, 1812 to 1834." Willard says "This place has a busy history....".

India
Later that year, Lara has somehow heard of the mysterious Infada Artifact shortly after completing her search for the Dagger of Xian, possibly from the rumors spread among the Infada Tribes around Calcutta, India. At this point, Lara does not know that the Infada artifact is one of a set of four meteoric items. She navigates the jungles of India. Lara begins her journey upon a massive sloped hill in the higher regions of dense Indian rainforest, presently unsure where the rumored temple that houses the artifact, is located. After locating the Indra key, she enters a swampy area with a research camp setup. Here, she meets one of Dr. Willard's encamped researchers, Tony, who has gone insane from the isolation and the effects of the surrounding temple. This temple, possibly called the Temple of Indra, was the main fortification of the Infada Tribes who worshipped the stone, until they abandoned the temple and left it in ruin with five Ganesha keys inside and possessed statues of Shiva. Tony says that he is leaving on the next bus out of the area. He explains that two of his colleagues, Randy and Rory, are missing and presumably buried after a recent mudslide in the temple. He then runs away, warning Lara of a similar fate should she step foot in the temple.

In her exploration of the temple, Lara discovers Randy and Rory both dead and mysteriously hovering in the air. One of them has a large hole in his stomach. Lara exits the temple by a narrow sloped corridor. As she reaches the bottom, she balances herself so she doesn't fall over the edge and into an adjacent river. She familiarizes herself with the environment, but suddenly takes a step back as she spots Tony standing on a raft in the middle of the River Ganges.

At first, he doesn't notice her; he seems to be more interested in the scrutiny of some aquamarine block embedded into his chest. Lara, knowing that this must be the Infada Artifact as the block hasn't killed him, realizes that Tony must have been one step ahead of her, despite what he had said about leaving the Jungle. In fact, he had killed Randy and Rory, one of whom had a wound in his chest as if something had been stabbed into it and ripped out. Lara starts shooting at Tony, who responds by using the telekenetic power of the artifact to create a small earthquake, causing Lara to have to dodge falling pillars. Tony then sails away, laughing maniacally, as Lara regains her footing. Using a nearby quad bike, she traverses the river Ganges canyon and finds that Tony's raft has crashed at the bottom of a waterfall. Behind his raft is an entrance to the Caves of Kaliya. After navigating the mazes within the caves, she encounters Tony who can now levitate, throw fireballs, and convert water into a toxic slime. Once she has managed to kill Tony, she collects the Infada Stone and then encounters Dr. Willard on a boat outside the cave. On board, he recounts the tale of the HMS Beagle, the existence of the meteorite chamber and the locations of the remaining artifacts. Lara agrees to help him find the others.

As the player can choose the order to play the next three events, there are no cutscenes linking them. As such, it is unknown how Lara actually arrives at each location.

Nevada
In Nevada, Lara begins here search for the next artifact. She starts off by sliding into a desert canyon, fighting various wildlife such as rattlesnakes and vultures. She makes her way to a nearby dam, noticing a couple of F-117 stealth fighters flying past. After blowing up a cave with TNT, she gains access to the dam, which leads to a compound guarded by a biker gang and surrounded by an electric fence. After dealing with both, she takes a quad bike to jump over a fence leading to High Security Compound, where she comes off the quad, losing conciousness. A couple of Military Police officers find her and into a cell. Having been stripped of her weapons and equipment, Lara manages to escape her cell. With the help of other inmates to incapacitate guards, she finds her pistols and a Desert Eagle pistol, before stowing away on a truck bound for Area 51. Here, she traverses a secret railway and sets off a rocket on her way to a large hangar containing a UFO. Lara explores this area for a way of accessing the UFO, finding an autopsy room with a dead alien, as well as an orca swimming in a containment tank. She enters the Tardis-like UFO, finding the second artifact, known as Element 115. (Due to a bug in some versions of the game, it may be swapped with the Ora Dagger below).

South Pacific Islands
In the South Pacific, Lara passes through a Coastal Village and arrives at a tree house, where she finds a Royal Australian Air Force crew member lying on a bed, missing the lower half of his right leg. He explains that the plane he was on has crashed in the jungle and that he was taken to the tree house by members of the cannibalistic tribe, who have already eaten his leg. He gives her a map to navigate the swamp separating the village from the Crash Site, and asks her to look out for his men.

As the title of the level indicates, the next location Lara visits is the site of the plane crash. With the help of the Swamp Map she can safely cross the large swamp and proceed to the Crash Site proper. There, she encounters dinosaurs and meets the other soldiers, who will help her battle against the compsognathus and velociraptors. Lara finds the keys belonging to the dead pilots, Commander Bishop, and Lieutenant Tuckerman. The former was found in a T-Rex nest, which Lara then had to battle. Having activated the plane, she deploys a grenade launcher, which she uses to kill a swarm of velociraptors and open the way to a tribal shrine. Here, Lara learns from one of the cannibalistic tribesmen both the history of the tribe from their brief history in Antarctica and that the Ora Dagger is now in possession of Puna, a deity who resides in his own temple in the hills. Lara makes her way to the temple through Madubu Gorge, where she kayaks across the deadly rapids, fights crocodiles and poison-spitting lizards, and drains an ancient pool to reach the entrance to the Temple. After defeating the traps and tribesmen in the temple, she faces Puna, who is able to fire deadly lighting bolts from his throne and summon more poisonous lizards. After Puna is defeated, he and his throne explode, revealing the Ora Dagger artifact (again, this may be Element 115, depending on game version).

London
In London, Lara searches for the Eye of Isis. Lara starts off on the rooftops near a large cathedral. She navigates this area and into various underground and underwater areas, fighting armed guards and heavily-armed mercenaries. When she reaches the top of the cathedral, she is fired upon by another mercenary in a bell tower, but manages to shoot and injure him. He explains to her that he and his colleagues are working for Sophia Leigh, the head of a cosmetics corporation, who is in possession of the artifact. He then attempts to shoot Lara again, but is knocked off his feet by the large bell. Lara heads down a hole underneath the bell into the abandoned subway station, Aldwych, coming across several members of the Damned, former test subjects whom the corporation performed sick experiments on in order to achieve immortality and eternal youth for Sophia's personal gain. She learns that the deformed subjects of Sophia's failed experiments, presumed dead by the corporation, were dumped in the sewers. The leader of the Damned, Bob, offers to assist Lara in exchange for a bottle of embalming fluid from the Natural History Museum. With help from The Damned, Lara makes her way through the Natural History Museum to get to the building housing Sophia's office. Lara climbs through a ventilation shaft to Sophia's office where she is sitting with the artifact on her desk. Sophia mockingly offers Lara a job, telling her that with her lifestyle she would be the perfect face for her products, then Lara tells Sophia that her human subjects she experimented on are still alive. Lara demands she hand over the artifact which she refuses to do. Sophia takes the artifact and runs out of the balcony onto an adjacent building. Lara climbs up Sophia's building as Sophia uses the artifact to fire energy bolts at her. The artifact also makes Sophia immune to bullets, but Lara kills her by shooting a fuse box, electrifying the metal walkway that she was standing on. After turning off the electricity, Lara picks up the final artifact.

Antarctica
Upon arriving to the cold Antarctica, Lara discovers the dangers of the nature as the helicopter she arrived on plummets to the depths of the ice cold water. Lara is able to escape cold death, her pilot being not so lucky. She must now find her way to Mark Willard at the RX Technologies base. To get there, she mounts the RX Explorer, and lowers a yellow Inflatable boat to aid her maneuver on the icy water. There are many dangers ahead in addition to the cold water: apparently the crewmen of the RX Explorer and their dogs don’t like visitors… Lara also discovers something very unsettling inside one partially demolished house at the RX Tech base: a mutated scientist who had worked for Dr. Willard who she later comments might as well have been Brundlefly (a character from the sci-fi horror film "The Fly"). She meets Dr. Willard in his cabin and confronts him on what she has found out. Dr. Willard discloses that he is planning to encourage rather than halt the mutations, only on a global scale, using the combined power of the artifacts and the meteorite they were carved from. As Lara voices her opposition to his operation, Willard betrays her, stealing the artifacts and disappearing into the excavation site.

She chases him through the mines of the research company, riding mine carts and confronting horrible legless mutants and claw mutants. Buried deep to the ice and snow of Antarctica lay the Lost City of Tinnos, the remnants of the ancient civilization that lived there. Deep within the structures of the city there are many dangers ahead.

After fighting more mutants (including insects and reptile like things within the city itself) and navigating the treacherous ruins of the ancient city, Lara collects four Oceanic Masks that are hidden there and places them onto their receptacles and together with the second Uli Key turns off a mysterious pillar of light, revealing an opening below to the meteorite cavern.

Lara finally reaches the cavern and faces Willard, who has now used the power of the four artifacts to activate the even greater power of the meteor: to greatly speed up the evolutionary processes of the human body and thereby turning himself into a terrifying and all-powerful spider-like creature. Lara deactivates the meteor by taking the artifacts out of their positions that they were put in, kills the mutated Spider Willard and escapes by helicopter.

She is greeted by a smiling pilot. Lara smiles back and then shoots him. She takes the helicopter and rises high with it. A gun turret is aiming at her helicopter, but before it launches any missiles, Lara takes care of it with her aircraft’s weapons. Another turret aims at the helicopter, launching a missile towards it. Lara narrowly avoids the hit, leading the missile to explode to a snowy hill. A helicopter appears behind Lara’s, shooting at the tail. Lara tricks it to a dead end, hiding in the air above it. She surprises her chasers, shooting them, causing the foe’s helicopter to explode. Lara takes off with her helicopter, leaving Antarctica for good.

Features
The gameplay of Tomb Raider III picks up where Tomb Raider II left off. Once again, Lara's range of abilities has been expanded, now including such moves as the crouch stance, crawling, a sprinting move and the ability to "monkey swing" on overhead bars and vines. Sprinting allows Lara to gain a burst of speed while running. A bar then appears in the corner of the screen to indicate the amount of stamina Lara has left. At any time during a sprint she can perform a forward roll, for example to dive under closing trapdoors.

A portion of the game still takes place underwater, but this time new perils have been added. In some levels (e.g. Madubu Gorge), the current of the stream will pull Lara in a fixed direction, preventing the player from being able to swim back or grab onto a ledge. These waters can only be navigated using a kayak. Additionally, some tropical pools are inhabited by a school of piranhas. Unlike alligators, these fish are invincible, and as soon as Lara enters their waters they will flock toward her, and kill her within seconds. Furthermore, the water in the Antarctic levels is too cold for Lara to swim through it. She can only remain in the water for a short amount of time, and submerged under it for an even shorter amount of time. When she dives into it, a new status bar will appear in the corner of the screen to indicate her body temperature. If that bar reaches zero, Lara's life will rapidly decrease. The only way she can cross these waters over a large distance without freezing to death is by using a motorboat.

Quicksand is a new type of ground that distinguishes itself from regular soil by its moving surface. Should the player fall into it, Lara will sink deeper and deeper until she disappears and drowns. Sometimes these swamps reveal hidden stepping stones for Lara to cross.

As always, the pistols are Lara's most basic form of defence. The shotgun, the harpoon gun, the uzis and the grenade launcher have remained from Tomb Raider II (though the grenade launcher's grenades will now bounce around unless directly hitting a living target, unlike the instant explode upon impact style of Tomb Raider II). The small-calibre semi-automatic pistols have been replaced by the powerful Desert Eagle. The M16 rifle has been changed to a similar MP5 sub-machine-gun. Also new to Lara's arsenal is the Rocket Launcher.

On the PlayStation version, saving the game is restricted to the amount of Save Crystals the player has stored in Lara's inventory. These floating blue crystals can be found throughout each level, but unlike the original Tomb Raider, they do not require the player to save the game at the pick-up spot. The PC version allows the player to save at any point. The developers planned on having the Save Crystal system for the PC version, but this was unfinished and the crystals are instead coloured green and give the same health boost as a small medipack when picked up. The crosses on the medipacks were changed from red to green in this game and subsequent titles, as the unauthorised use of the Red Cross symbol is a violation of the Geneva Convention.

The objective of the game remains unchanged, although Tomb Raider III arguably has fewer tombs to explore than the previous games. Instead, most levels take place in a more modern environment, and Tomb Raider introduces an element of stealth into the game play. For example in the Nevada adventure, it is sometimes preferable to sneak past guards instead of fighting them. Being spotted may set off alarms and close doors that are otherwise needed to complete the stage and therefore the player will have no other option than to take a more difficult route. Unlike its predecessors, after completing the India levels, the player can then choose which of the next three areas of the world they want to explore in any order they wish.

Characters

 * Lara Croft - Main character and heroine of the game, this time in search of the meteorite artifacts.
 * Dr. Mark Willard - Lara's employer and head of R.X.Tech with secret evil ambitions.
 * Tony - Crazed former R.X.Tech researcher.
 * Puna - The local tribesmen's god who lives up in a temple in the hills.
 * Sophia Leigh- Head of a cosmetics corporation who mutates her workers while searching for immortality.
 * Bob - The leader of the Damned and one of Sophia Leigh's former experiments.
 * John - Sophia Leigh's hitman. He shoots people for her.
 * Commander Bishop - A commander in the Australian army.
 * Lieutenant Tuckerman - A lieutenant in the Australian army.
 * Randy - An R.X.Tech employee stationed in India.
 * Rory - An R.X.Tech employee stationed in India.
 * Billy - An R.X.Tech employee.
 * Stephen Barr - One of Charles Darwin's sailors. He returned to England with the Eye of Isis.
 * Paul Caulfield - One of Charles Darwin's sailors. He was killed in Antarctica by a wolf.
 * Smythe - One of Charles Darwin's sailors. He went to the South Pacific with the Ora Dagger.
 * Henderson - One of Charles Darwin's sailors.
 * Jonson - One of Charles Darwin's sailors.
 * Mauki - One of the Polynesians who was born mutated by the power of the meteorite artefacts.
 * Winston - Lara Croft's butler.

Tutorial

 * Lara's Home

1. India

 * Jungle
 * Temple Ruins
 * The River Ganges
 * Caves of Kaliya

2. Nevada

 * Nevada Desert
 * High Security Compound
 * Area 51

3. South Pacific

 * Coastal Village
 * Crash Site
 * Madubu Gorge
 * Temple of Puna

4. London

 * Thames Wharf
 * Aldwych
 * Lud's Gate
 * City

5. Antarctica

 * Antarctica
 * RX-Tech Mines
 * Lost City of Tinnos
 * Meteorite Cavern

6. London

 * All Hallows

Lara's mansion in England, UK
Tomb Raider III features the largest tutorial level yet seen in a Tomb Raider game. The assault course from Tomb Raider II is drastically expanded to include exercise of Lara's new moves, target practice and a racetrack to hone the player's handling of the quad bike. Inside the mansion, a secret room can be discovered filled with artefacts and memorabilia from Lara's past adventures. It is the last game of the series to feature this level until Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend.

India
The game begins in the jungles of India, where Lara is on the trail of a mystical relic called the Infada stone. She travels by foot and on a quad, as the game takes her through the ruins of ancient Hindu temples and along the shores of the River Ganges. Whilst exploring these parts, she comes across a researcher hired by Willard, called Tony, who eventually goes mad with Jungle Fever and steals the Infada Stone from its shrine, driving it into his chest. This chapter has 4 levels: Jungle, Temple Ruins, The River Ganges, and The Caves of Kaliya.

South Pacific islands, Oceania
Among the beautiful, tropical scenery of the South Pacific, Lara fights a tribe of cannibalistic warriors and reanimated dinosaurs, finds a crashed plane, and kayaks through the dangerous currents of Madubu Gorge. Her trail leads her into the Temple of Puna, where the "Ora Dagger" meteorite stone is supposedly guarded. In this episode, she also learns of the Polynesians' journey to Antarctica and why they fled in such a sudden manner. Prolonged exposure led to one of the natives being born without a face leading to the shocked tribe fleeing the cursed land. Later, she manages to defeat Puna in his temple and acquire the stone. This chapter has 4 levels: The Coastal Village, Crash Site, Madabu Gorge, and The Temple of Puna.

Nevada, USA
The United States Government has obtained one of the stones, and named it Element 115. It has been stored deep within Area 51, the secret military base in the Nevada desert, where all sorts of experiments are rumoured to take place. Unbeknownst to them, it is one of the four pieces of meteorite rock on Lara's treasure list. After a haphazard attempt to break into the base, Lara is locked up in a cell and stripped of her weapons (for this reason it is preferable to play through the game with this level being the first of the optional levels, as important arms such as the Rocket Launcher can be lost forever otherwise). From here on the game takes her through prisons, laboratories and military testing hangars. The levels in Nevada have an emphasis on using stealth rather than action. Unlike the other chapters, the Nevada chapter has 3 levels: Nevada Desert, High Security Compound, and Area 51.

London, England, UK
Lara crosses the rooftops of London on a dark and rainy night, in search of another mysterious artefact called the Eye of Isis, which is currently kept in possession by the infamous cosmetics tycoon Sophia Leigh. After a brief detour through St Paul's Cathedral, she goes down into the disused Aldwych tube station, where she is introduced to a secret gang of masked mutated men who call themselves "The Damned". These were experimented on by Leigh with the Eye of Isis in order for her to achieve eternal youth only to leave them disfigured and immortal. Later, she visits an Egyptology department in the British Museum. Lara then goes on to infiltrate Sophia Leigh's gigantic cosmetics factory, and makes her way through a system of air ducts to reach Sophia Leigh's office for the final confrontation. Lara also visits "All Hallows", a level taking place in All Hallows-by-the-Tower, if the player has collected all of the game's secrets by the end. This chapter has 4 levels: Thames Wharf, Aldwych, Lud's Gate, and The City.

Antarctica
After Lara's helicopter crashes into the icy waters of Antarctica, she makes her way through the abandoned research stations of R.X.Tech. After meeting up with Dr. Willard to hand over the stones, she descends down mines and into the recently excavated Lost City of Tinnos. The heart of the meteorite cavern is where the mad scientist performs a ceremony to transform him into a large immortal mutant until the artefacts are removed. This chapter has 4 levels: Antarctica, RX Tech Mines, The Lost City of Tinnos, and Meteorite Cavern.

Reception
Tomb Raider III received generally good reviews. Some reviewers commented that gameplay had not changed a lot but still praised the game, saying it had "In-depth gameplay, good graphics and an established, unique theme." IGN commented the levels show "Real thought and Insight from designers" and praised the new vehicles but expressed frustration that the control system had still not improved. "Absolute Playstation" praised the game, saying it surpassed the previous two installments, complimenting Lara's new abilities and moves, also saying the save system was an improvement from the previous games. Gamespot praised the game, saying it will provide "hours of fun" but also stating that if players want "something new" they will have to "look elsewhere". The game is generally considered the best of the original trilogy of Tomb Raider games, but reviewers consistently commented gameplay hadn't changed a lot from the original Tomb Raider game.