Tomb Raider 1+2+3

The first Tomb Raider game is fantastic, an eerie experience exploring empty environments with a fantastic soundtrack (make sure to install this via a mod - the game just isn't the same without it). Loved it ever since it released on the Saturn (yes, Tomb Raider came out on the Saturn first - which is probably why it's so good). This is the PlayStation/PC release though, so has all the extra savepoints that were installed to allow lesser gamers to complete the game (joke!). Two is rubbish even when working properly, sadly. The combat was by far the weakest aspect of the first game, so guess what this entry concentrates on? Three was an improvement, blending the first two games together, but didn't come close to replicating the majesty of the original. The Last Revelation would continue refining this approach, and I'd say was the second-best in the series. That's a different bundle, however... Buy this pack for the first game. Chuck the other two in the history bin.

The Tomb Raider games are very much of their time- the graphics are jagged and grainy Playstation-era primitiveness, Lara Croft is thoughtlessly sexualized and kind of a terrible person who guns down endangered species and anyone who gets between her and her goal, even innocent security guards, the constant globe-trotting in the series has a very 90s Carmen Sandiego feel, and of course the aged controls involve slowly rotating Lara as though driving a tank and making leaps of faith because the bad camera angles prevent you from seeing what's immediately in front of or below you. But once you adjust to the controls, it's easy to get immersed in the games all the same, because they were and are just plain fun despite all their foibles. It's still thrilling to explore abandoned tombs and temples (or, later in the series, more diverse locations like sunken ships, secret government labs and the London underground), and the graphics are still good enough to evoke a sense of mystery, awe and intrigue as you navigate larger-than-life archaeological wonders, evading deadly traps and always on the watch for an attack from a vicious snake or supernatural guardian. Lara's extreme peril, where a single slip of the thumb or miscalculated jump angle means instant death, is a lot less frustrating on this PC version, where you can save at any time rather than only at fixed checkpoints, leaving you free to seek out secret areas without losing all your progress. There are a few bugs I ran into- sometimes the game would just randomly skip a cutscene, leading to the next level where, say, Lara is imprisoned in a cell with no indication of how it happened, and sometimes the graphics in a level would be all muddy and black, forcing a reload to correct them. I'd also highly recommend using an app called Tomb Raider Mouse Helper, which lets you use the mouse to look around and vastly improves the experience. But don't write these games off just because of their age, they still hold up!

We love these games, they have certainly earned their place in gaming history. However in all honesty, I think the PC versions of these classics (1-6) aren't worth your time. I spent a few weeks patching and modding PC versions to get an "as close as possible" experience to the console releases. Across the 6 games I used files from the GOG, Steam, CD, and PSX versions (as well as some of the amazing work by the community on tombraiderforums.com) and got them running how I wanted - so it IS possible to have fully functioning PC versions... ...but it's not worth the time doing all of that, unless you really have nothing else to do with your life - like me for the last few weeks :)

The game only shows the intro video and afterwards crashes. The graphics are not good. Using Win10 but tryed compatibility mode too.

Were the controls "updates" with respect to the original game or do they stay the same, i.e. when you press the forward arrow does Lara go forward in her coordinates, or in the screen coordinates? In TR1+2 which I enjoyed some years ago it was all in Lara's coordinates, what was perfect. Now when I played TR Anniversary Edition (10 years of TR) I couldn't play, because of the silly steering.