{"id":201,"date":"2026-09-07T17:28:38","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T17:28:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/?p=201"},"modified":"2026-09-07T17:31:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T17:31:24","slug":"celebrating-tomb-raiders-tank-controls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/?p=201","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Tomb Raiders Tank Controls!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In 1996 Core Design would release the first Tomb Raider title, originally for the Sega Saturn and followed closely by ports for MS-DOS and the Playstation. It would very quickly become a critical and commercial darling, spawning a franchise which would become synonymous with video gaming and the Playstation brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was in part, because the games were really bloody good, Tomb Raider 1,2,3 and Last Revelation all providing really solid action-adventure experiences! It was also because Lara Croft was an incredible strong lead character and very marketable, to the point that she became a cover girl for a lads mag in the UK and was even used to sell Lucozade! (Not the only video game character to be associated with the brand of course, let’s not forget about our lad Superfrog!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The franchise would sort of slip away in the early 2000s, Chronicles is a title I’ve heard very few people speak of, Angel Of Darkness nearly killed the franchise. There was the Legend Trilogy, comprising of Legend, Anniversary and Underworld in the mid 2000s, strong games and perhaps a touch underrated and this was followed by the newer reboot Trilogy of Tomb Raider, Rise Of The Tomb Raider and Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, which were all really bloody good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ll be getting a new Tomb Raider in 2027, Legacy Of Atlantis, a remake of the original which actually got a remake with Anniversary. So the franchise is still out there, still in peoples minds but maybe not as strong as it used to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to keep this with the original Tomb Raider games though, the PS1 titles that I and my friends grew up with. I want to take some time to celebrate them, in particular their control systems that helped craft a challenging, sometimes awkward but ultimately rewarding style of gameplay!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see, sometimes you have people who can be a bit dismissive of the classic Tomb Raiders. They’ll never deny the impact the games had, but I think sometimes that gets boiled down to Lara being a mascot. A few times I’ve seen the ol’ “Can we all admit that the original Tomb Raider wasn’t any good actually.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, a few of that is contrarians or people on a bit of a wind up, but I can also really understand how going back to those classic Tomb Raiders would be really jarring to people who either never grew up with it, or people who have become so much more accustomed to how games are now. A lot of it can boil down to how Lara handles in those original adventures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 1996, developers were still figuring out this whole controlling a character in a 3D space thing and we were still a few years out from dual analogue being a universal standard. Sonys own dual analogue controller was a year or so away, the N64 pad had a single analogue stick and the Dreamcast which’d release in 1999 only had a single analogue stick too. It wouldn’t really be until the next generation (PS2, Gameplay, Xbox) where dual analogue sticks became standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, developers experimented with the best way to work out how to position cameras and move the player, and we ended up with TANK CONTROLS!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The premise was simple enough, hold forward on the D-Pad to move the player in the direction of facing, left and right on the D-Pad would rotate the character and back would make them step backwards. Face buttons would allow other functions like modifyin movement speed or doing a 180 turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A number of games employed them, Resident Evil perhaps being the most famous example. Resident Evil would combine tank controls with fixed camera angles, to really ramp up the scares in those earlier games. The big problem with Resident Evil is it was very easy to get disorientated when the camera would have a sudden change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tomb Raider doesn’t have those same issues with the cameras, it can be fiddly at times with the tighter areas but it’s generally easy to get the camera placed behind you again should you need it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tomb Raider did however employ a form of tank controls, which I have also seen referred to as the ‘Grid System’, and I absolutely love controls. I think they are perfect for the type of game the early Tomb Raider titles are. With the early Tomb Raider tank controls, it’s all about making sure Lara is positioned on a ledge accurately, it’s about knowing when to press or hold the jump button, it’s about remembering to hold grab when sliding down a ledge and eventually linking it all together to get to where you need to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I always felt that the tank controls for Tomb Raider gave Lara a proper sense of weight and momentum in her actions, and yes they can be cumbersome and it can be easy to mess up, but I always felt that every mistake taught you something, and it was something of a natural evolution to the likes of Prince Of Persia, Flashback or Another World!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much like those games, there is a satisfaction to figuring out and executing your actions. Think of Another World, the opening can be brutally punishing but how satisfying is it when you figure out those crucial timings and eventually outsmart the monster that chases you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about Flashback when you link it all together and traverse the jungle without issue? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How about the original Prince Of Persia when you manage to get past those horrible gaps and timed doors?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tomb Raider is no different to those examples, navigation is a puzzle waiting for you to conquer it. It’s wanting you to examine it and work out the right paths and timings and its rewarding when you do so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve just recently done a playthrough of Tomb Raider 2, a game that is sat firmly in my top ten games of all time and to this day I still get that same satisfaction playing it that I did all the way back when I was a kid playing it for the first time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First up we have the Great Wall, which has some nice challenging sections but enough opportunity to learn the basics of your standing and running jumps because challenging you with a nice section of traps where you have to outrun a boulder, hop some gaps and climb up before some walls crush you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Venice always stood out to me as a favourite level, partly because of the novelty of the vehicle but it was also quite a fair bit of fun figuring out how to traverse the rooftops, the Venice set levels have a really nice set of challenges culminating in the Opera House which sort of ties everything together you’ve learned at that point into a level that challenges from the offset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You progress through to an Oil Rig and Underwater Wreck which again continue to add to the challenges, you get a few timed sections where you have to combine the platforming with speed, and there is no better feeling than managing to perfect those routes and finally get to where you need to be! Even if, in my opinion, there is maybe one too many underwater wreck levels!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One challenge I really enjoyed undertaking during this playthrough was getting through the first TIbet level without resorting to using the snowmobile! A really fun challenge that had me exploring the the level in a completely different way to how I’ve done in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually we do return to the Great Wall, for the Temple Of Xian, Floating Islands and the Dragons Lair, where you really have to tie together everything you have learned into a really fun and challenging set of levels… Although the giant spiders in the Temple Of Xian can absolutely get stuffed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of which, as much as I love the controls for the traversal I do have to dock some points for the combat. Things sort of fall apart with the fighting which sort of becomes an awkward mix of just leaping backwards or side to side, and a lot of the time it just feels quite unresponsive and not too fun, especially when the enemies are shooting back at you from some awkward angles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I appreciate why the games wanted to have a cheeky bit of combat in them, and I appreciate that the combat is the way it is due to the limitations but genuinely doesn’t feel great and I just sort of wish the enemies weren’t there and all I had to content with were traps and figuring out how to navigate to my next destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Tomb Raider and games like it have developed they’ve obviously moved away from the Tank controls, and they’ve had to, but in that I do feel like maybe we have lost a step. Now when you jump towards a ledge you just grab on, maybe you have some stamina or a quick time event to contend with but it’s very much jump and go and I totally get it, but I also miss it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I miss having to time things right, having to position myself correctly and remember to grab at the right time. I miss having to pull off tricks like pulling up, holding to backflip and turn in midair and grab a ladder behind me and I’d love for the next Tomb Raider or something to pick up that sort of gameplay again because I adore it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1996 Core Design would release the first Tomb Raider title, originally for the Sega Saturn and followed closely by ports for MS-DOS and the Playstation. It would very quickly become a critical and commercial darling, spawning a franchise which would become synonymous with video gaming and the Playstation brand. This was in part, because … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[32,45,46],"class_list":["post-201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-ps1","tag-tomb-raider","tag-tr"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208,"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions\/208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}