Tomb Raider 5 : Chronicles
Well, I don't think I really need to mention what this game is : It's the 5th part of the Tomb Raider series,
and it's called Chronicles. Tomb Raider 5 starts, where The Last Revelation ended : With Lara's (supposed) dead.
The player experiences several advantures with Lara before that point of time, where he learns much more things
about her - TR5 surely reveals most facts about Mrs. Croft from all 5 parts ! Of course, Lara also features
many known outfits, like you can see on the pics below.
Other than in the previous parts, it's possible to go to any mission in gameplay. This means that no mission is
related to each other, so you're actually playing through certain parts of Lara' life. Though this should mean
that the story is not really combined over the missions and you might have less motivation to continue, Eidos
was able to keep the player fascinated during the whole game again !
But most gamers haven't really awaited Tomb Raider 5, since they got tired of the way Eidos updated the game
during the previous parts. Well honestly, Tomb Raider 5 isn't really a new beginning, but it's yet again
able to fascinate the games during the complete gameplay and certainly worth a look for most action PC fans.
| Game motivation |
 |
Like already mentioned above, Tomb Raider 5 isn't really a completly new game. It uses a slightly improved
graphic engine from the last part. That's not really a problem since the Tomb Raider engine became better
and better with each version, and so it also does it job in this version pretty well. The engine allows Lara
to use new weapons like a Sniper rifle chloroform (!) and to learn new moves like tightrope walking.
There're still some clipping errors, but it's expected that this might look different in the other versions
(TR5 will also be released for PC and Dreamcast). And keep in mind, that this is the last version for the PSX
according to Eidos.
But what interrests us more of course is the question, how Tomb Raider 5 looks on the available emulators. Due
to lazyness I tested it on the best one IMO, ePSXe ! It runs the
game very well, I tested it on three different machines. On a 450 Mhz machine with Voodoo 3 card you should already
get very good frame rates using Lewpy's latest glide plugin ! On an 800 Mhz Athlon you should get no slowdowns and
full speed all the time. And now, take a look at the taken screenshots :
Start screen |
Opening MDEC |
2 keys required |
|
Fight against dog |
Still works :) |
Item menu |
|
Camera flight |
Using a key |
Rope trapping |
MDEC sound is still a bit stuttering but I guess this will be fixed within the next ePSXe version. Otherwise, this game
runs at a solid framerate and is certainly worth a try for all emulator and Tomb Raider fans on ePSXe !
| Graphics |
|
None of the Tomb Raider parts ever had real good music. But they feature very nice sound effects which
bring much exitment into certain situations. Nothing is more exiting than when you have to walk through
a dark dungeon listening to a slow violine sound (I nearly got a heart attack when that happened). But
otherwise, there isn't much music and the sound only the sound effects aren't to exiting either.
| Sound rating |
 |
It doesn't take to long to play through the complete game, keen players will ask for more levels after
they finished the 4 included (Rome, Spooky Island, U-Boat and a big tower). The biggest fascination
surely comes from all the facts you see from time to time and the persons you already know from the
previous parts. Alltogether, Tomb Raider 5 belongs to the better side of the serie, but the complete
game could be a bit longer.
| Gameplay |
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| Quick facts |
Tomb Raider Chronicles
Buy for $39.99
| Motivation |
4 |
| Graphics |
4 |
| Sound |
3 |
| Gameplay |
4 |
| |
|
| ePSXe |
5 |
| Pro |
 New weapons
New moves
Many unknown Lara infos
|
| Contra |
Game is a bit short
|
| Result |
Another solid part from the Tomb Raider series - Nothing really new though.
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