9 Tomb Raider - St Francis' Folly
Lara Croft's modest beginnings are also, arguably, the highlight of a series that has never recaptured the spine-tingling magic of the original Tomb Raider. Clever sound cues, sweeping camera pans and huge echoey caverns - this really was raiding tombs, and even PSone's jag-tastic visuals couldn't prevent Tomb Raider's almost tangible atmosphere seeping from the screen and into your living room.
St Francis' Folly does it all, typifying Tomb Raider's emphasis on using your surroundings as both a challenge and a way to make you feel small and vulnerable. Structured mainly around four rooms - each with its own slyly devised task - and a dizzyingly high pillar, St Francis' Folly is inventive and testing. It also manages to hail a salute to Indiana Jones along the way.
Above: The view from the pillar's top is enough to give you vertigo but it gets worse when you're attacked from below by Pierre
Each of the four rooms are named after a figure of legend: Atlas, containing that Indy-inspired boulder chase; Neptune, the sub-aqua key hunt; Thor, with a don't-put-a-foot-wrong lightning puzzle; and Damocles, the best room of them all, ramping up the tension on your way out with dozens of giant, plummeting swords to tiptoe past, breath held like a prisoner.
From your first peek over the edge atop the pillar your heart is in your mouth as you leap, clamber and heave Lara around and through each of the challenges. But even when your digital feet finally reach the ground there's no time for a breather - a ravenous lion prowls the area, ready to jump Lara's bones if you're not careful.
St Francis' Folly is exactly what we expect from Tomb Raider: clever, atmospheric puzzles and locations that leave you feeling exposed and always in danger. More of this, please Eidos.
Above: The view from the pillar's top is enough to give you vertigo but it gets worse when you're attacked from below by Pierre
Each of the four rooms are named after a figure of legend: Atlas, containing that Indy-inspired boulder chase; Neptune, the sub-aqua key hunt; Thor, with a don't-put-a-foot-wrong lightning puzzle; and Damocles, the best room of them all, ramping up the tension on your way out with dozens of giant, plummeting swords to tiptoe past, breath held like a prisoner.
From your first peek over the edge atop the pillar your heart is in your mouth as you leap, clamber and heave Lara around and through each of the challenges. But even when your digital feet finally reach the ground there's no time for a breather - a ravenous lion prowls the area, ready to jump Lara's bones if you're not careful.
St Francis' Folly is exactly what we expect from Tomb Raider: clever, atmospheric puzzles and locations that leave you feeling exposed and always in danger. More of this, please Eidos.
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