Tomb Raider, the reason why all girls want to raid tombs...and boys want to watch.
I had never played anything like this before, I don't think I remember what I played before Tomb Raider to be honest (apart from Sonic The Hedgehog of course).
This is the story of a young archaeologist named Lara Croft and her hunt for the legendary Scion Of Atlantis and also her battle with the uber-witch Natla, who has set Lara to reclaim this for her, only for Lara to later find out that Natla is some evil Goddess of Atlantis who wants to use it most likely for world domination...as they do.
One thing most people notice about Lara are her guns. Both pairs of them. But I won't go into that myself, you can see the box cover so I'll leave that with you, now moving on...
Now graphically it might all look a bit square, not in the way that's uncool but in the way that everything actually does look a bit square (apart from certain very triangular areas). But in the day those graphics were amazing.
The locations such as Peru and Greece or Egypt are remarkably done; beautiful ruins of ancient buildings and tombs to climb, jump and shimmy across and loads of puzzles to complete before you can get any further. St Francis' Folly is definitely a favourite of mine as is the enormous underground lake you will see in the latter levels of the game, for it's time, it was a remarkable feat.
Not to mention the various types of wild life that try to eat you along the way, some of which terrified the life out of me to be honest and part of that was because of the amazing soundtrack. (The other part was helped by the shock that awaits you in The Lost Valley level...my heart ever really did recover.)
One minute you are bragging to yourself about how well you did on the last puzzle and the next, some face-paced music is telling that if you don't get your butt in gear your either going to be eating or more than likely squished by a giant boulder that is now rolling straight towards you.
Or you enter an area with a particularly nice view and some very peaceful music leaves you actually looking around at your surroundings and thinking, "Wow." Again the St Francis' Folly level comes to mind. The main theme tune to this game is one that will stick, as it has mine, in your head for a very long time, it is beautifully composed.
My personal enjoyment from this game came from finding very high places (as seen in Vilcabamba) and diving off of them, whether water be below me or just the floor. Either way, it's pretty good to dive off of things in this game.
Now I know I've praised this game alot and as a Tomb Raider fan girl, so I should but there are some vaguely bad sides.
The one that I think of mostly is that back in 1996-7 there weren't really as many graphical options as there are today and you noticed this a lot in Tomb Raider. Mostly from the fact that even when you supposed to be outside, you can't tell that. There is no sky. It's just blackness so it feels like your in a cave through most of the game. I had no idea that Lost Valley was actually supposed to be outdoors, because in game, it's not. This was sorted out by the time TR2 got here though.
Most of the other little details I think of as negatives to this game are because I'm comparing them to the later games, so I won't add them, as I'm trying to review this game as individual. This is where it all started and whatever has happened to the series these days, Tomb Raider will and always be a classic and must-play game.