A thank-you for some wonderful games.
I am the right age to measure out a lot of my life in Tomb Raiders.
unstable, with those jagged edges around the sides of the screen when Lara was exploring underground corridors.
I love these games.
I properly love them.
More than anything how enthused they seemed for what they were doing.
Let’s celebrate these wonderful games.
These games are transporting.
The buried Sphinx in Tomb Raider 1, the leap from the summit revealing its face.
The first Crystal trilogy holds up extremely well in this regard.
From Anniversary, the middle game, I think of that wonderful puzzle-box version of Croft Manor.
And that assault course in Midas' palace which required perfect understanding of the Croft moveset.
Underworld next in my out-of-order memory tour.
I remember dripping caverns with a brilliant - truly brilliant - roping puzzle.
The scale of it, the ambition, the glorious design of clockwork spaces.
What a marvelous, imaginative, generous game.
Finally, memories of Legend, the first of the trilogy and, in truth, my absolute favourite.
Legend was an introduction to this slightly new Croft.
And a slightly new world for her.
What I think of most often with Legend, though, is Tokyo.
Night again - Tomb Raider’s always been wonderful with night.
Climbing a skyscraper to a boss fight at the top.
Going back now, I’m surprised how much remained from the Core era.
Lara Croft is wonderfully unreal here, a vision of impossible competence and grace.
Which is to say: after playing these games, I see the world a little differently.
Just a second lost in this silly fantasy.
Thanks for that, Crystal D. Thank you so much.