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Play the original Tomb Raider in your browser

Boleskine

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http://www.pcgamer.com/play-the-original-tomb-raider-in-your-browser-with-unlocked-fps/

Play the original Tomb Raider in your browser with unlocked FPS

By Joe Donnelly 6 hours ago

In first or third-person view.

GANSRGeJnTNfxawx6uSkQT-650-80.jpg

Inspired by the work-in-progress open source OpenTomb project, Tomb Raider modder XProger has spent the past several months working on their own browser-based version of the '96 original Tomb Raider named OpenLara. It's now playable in both third and first person view.

As an engine remake, OpenLara does not recreate the entire game however its City of Vilcabamba level (level two) can be played right now over here—complete with bloodthirsty wolfpacks, underwater tunnel systems, and ferocious bears. A "browse level" function does however let you load the game's other levels, but I've spent all of my time with OpenLara attempting to relearn its stop/start running-jumping-ledge-catching mechanics which seem entirely archaic today.

Nonetheless, touring Lara Croft around familiar levels at higher than ever framerates—the original was locked at 30 FPS—is great fun, particularly when you can do so instantly from your browser. The ability to switch to first-person is also a nice touch and makes grizzly encounters and acrobatic leaps that little bit scarier.

More information on the OpenLara project can be found via this TombRaider forum thread, and can be played in-browser over here.
 

Ash

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I've spent all of my time with OpenLara attempting to relearn its stop/start running-jumping-ledge-catching mechanics which seem entirely archaic today.

:whatho:

Old and clunky, yes, but still better than modern garbage like assassins creed or uncharted. id rather have clunky + engaging mechanics and controls as opposed to smooth but braindead...although its more overall game design that makes the difference here, yet nonetheless it took skill to handle Lara...even if artificial difficulty its still better than braindead.
 

FeelTheRads

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Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
13,716
I've spent all of my time with OpenLara attempting to relearn its stop/start running-jumping-ledge-catching mechanics which seem entirely archaic today.

:whatho:

Old and clunky, yes, but still better than modern garbage like assassins creed or uncharted. id rather have clunky + engaging mechanics and controls as opposed to smooth but braindead...although its more overall game design that makes the difference here, yet nonetheless it took skill to handle Lara...even if artificial difficulty its still better than braindead.

It's like gaym journalists can't stop shilling. Even if you don't have to shill for some new game made by the company that pays your wage, it's already in your blood to talk shit about how modern gaming is so much better than the old one.
Unless this is a clever advertisement for the recent Tomb Raider games, of course.

But yeah, archaic. Because it required a little bit of skill to do those moves as opposed to pressing an awesome button (or a succession of awesome buttons aka QTEs) and have the game play itself.
 

Biscotti

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im interested, but how to save dis game on browser ???

Not yet implemented, I think. I ran into a bunch of save crystals (which I don't think were ever a thing on the PC version oddly enough), but wasn't able to use them.

Also, damn fighting those bats without the ability to roll. :argh:
 

PulsatingBrain

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Codex+ Now Streaming! Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit. Pathfinder: Wrath
I can usually deal with dated interfaces and whatnot with no issue whatsoever, but this reminded me how much I hate tank controls. I just can't deal with them anymore. For the same reason I wasn't really able to enjoy Resident Evil 4 and ended up playing only a little of it, even though I really liked the atmosphere and look of the game
 

Karellen

Arcane
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Jan 3, 2012
Messages
327
I've spent all of my time with OpenLara attempting to relearn its stop/start running-jumping-ledge-catching mechanics which seem entirely archaic today.

Old and clunky, yes, but still better than modern garbage like assassins creed or uncharted. id rather have clunky + engaging mechanics and controls as opposed to smooth but braindead...although its more overall game design that makes the difference here, yet nonetheless it took skill to handle Lara...even if artificial difficulty its still better than braindead.

The first Tomb Raider is a really good game, so I feel like saying something about its allegedly dated mechanics. When it came out, I always thought of it as a 3D version of Prince of Persia. So the game has stuff like meaningful inertia (can't just magically stop right where you're standing when you're running at full speed!) and when you die, it's probably by falling to your death. This being the case, the controls are necessarily less "free" than they are in games in which you can basically do anything, but then the entire level design is built around the notion that you can't ignore the laws of physics. To offset this, though, the controls in Tomb Raider are just about the most precise I've ever seen in a 3D game; a lot of the game is, for all practical purposes, built on a square grid, and (precisely as you do in Prince of Persia) you can use that grid to figure out what sorts of jumps you can make and how exactly you can make them. So the game really lets you look around and plan and figure out routes, and what's more, because movement is essentially about geometry and physics, the game accomplishes this without relying on Zelda-style hotspots for where you can use a grappling hook and so on, which is what the Crystal Dynamics games did. There are other good games in this genre (I really liked Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, for instance), but just about all of them are basically plotted obstacle courses where you go from hotspot to hotspot using this or that cool ability. Tomb Raider is a more thoughtful game. Consequently, it's also a game with background music like this:



What I'm saying, I guess, is that Tomb Raider is not, primarily, a parkour game about awesome stunts; you only get to do that if you really master the mechanics and the levels, but until then, the game rewards playing slowly and thoughtfully - particularly so as the original Tomb Raider limits saves to single-use checkpoints that are quite distant from one another. What really makes all this work, though, is that for all of its awkward mid-90s graphics, the level design is pretty great and the game has these great, explorable, vertical open spaces that benefit from slow-paced exploration - it's a game worth taking your time in. This made the first Tomb Raider a game with a surprising amount of dignity - it's one of those rare games (and the only one in its series, really) that trades primarily in sense of wonder and mystery instead of the delectable pleasure of shooting dudes and dinosaurs in the face.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Just pointing something out of interest, Tomb Raider has got a pretty active community similar to games like Thief and Quake.
It pretty much grew out of the level editor when it was released in 2000 and shows no signs of stopping.

http://www.tombraiderforums.com/

Essential links for Tomb Raider fan levels:

The "Hall of Fame" of some of the best fan-made levels:
http://hof.trle.net/

Current top-rated levels available on trle.net:
http://www.trle.net/toplevels.php

Most of these are playable without owning any of the TR games.
Just download, extract the zip, and play.

You can thank me later.
 

Ash

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for all practical purposes, built on a square grid

Yes, the gameplay revolving around grid-based geometry really worked in the game's favor, made platforming an easy language to learn (backstep=one 64x64 grid block, running jump = requires one 64x64 grid block run-up) and meshed well with the limited controls.
 

Biscotti

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Essential links for Tomb Raider fan levels:

The "Hall of Fame" of some of the best fan-made levels:
http://hof.trle.net/

Current top-rated levels available on trle.net:
http://www.trle.net/toplevels.php

Most of these are playable without owning any of the TR games.
Just download, extract the zip, and play.

You can thank me later.
Don't want to judge a book by its cover, but the third highest rated mod looks like a furry mod made with the creator's OC or something.

"Luke the wolf" :rpgcodex:
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Yeah just ignore that one.

Best missions are those in the "Hall of Fame". Top rated tends to be skewed towards newer releases with glowing reviews, the more critical reviews tend to take a while to arrive.

Also, furry mods will ALWAYS have high ratings because furries are crazy autists who would sign up on a website like this just to upvote the furry mod :M
 

Biscotti

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Some of these do look really good. I think I might have to make room for binging custom levels like I occasionally do for Thief FMs.
 

A horse of course

Guest
Tomb Raider tank controls were shit. Anniversary had vastly superior movement (with the notable exception of the swinging/wall-running).

"b-bu-bu-but look at muh webm of someone who perfectly memorized the the first level in Tomb Raider II"

Kill yourself, friendo.
 

pippin

Guest
Its controls were made with a PS1 controller in mind. They were certainly not as obnoxious as old RE ones, though.
 

A horse of course

Guest
Most RE games were built around the shit controls. You could tear out the grid movement from Tomb Raider and replace it anything and it would be superior.
 

Karellen

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Messages
327
Most RE games were built around the shit controls. You could tear out the grid movement from Tomb Raider and replace it anything and it would be superior.

I'm not really convinced. For one thing, there's far worse out there than Tomb Raider's tank controls. Among Tomb Raider's near-contemporaries, the original Soul Reaver comes to mind; the perspective-dependent movement combined with a jumpy, unreliable camera and a fluctuating frame rate made the platforming a mess, particularly so since the level design actually called for precision that the controls could not reliably produce. I'm not even grasping at straws here, particularly since Soul Reaver is still a pretty good game - it's just that it suffered much more for its non-tanky controls than Tomb Raider ever did.

As for Anniversary, I actually liked it quite a bit. However, I think it's rather telling what they did with the game, which is to say, they filled the game to the brim with highly telegraphed climbable walls, color-coded ledges, conspicuous poles, ropes, miscellaneous grappling hook receptables and whatnot, so the game became an obstacle course that, honestly, started to get old after a while. Why did Crystal Dynamics do it? I can only assume it must have been because they concluded that the new game engine they had was not well suited for platforming based on precise jumping, so they had to do something else instead. Which wasn't even all that bad - it's a decent game, and in particular the combat (which Anniversary wisely doesn't have a lot of anyway) is markedly better than the original Tomb Raider's, since tank controls are particularly poorly suited for that. It is inferior in exploration and platforming, though, and I think the blame for this falls squarely on the new control scheme. Sometimes the old ways are the best.
 

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