C:\ArsGames We love games here at the Ars Orbiting HQ, from modern to ancient and all points in between. With that in mind, we’ve partnered with the folks at GOG.com to create a store page featuring a curated list of some of our favorites from GOG’s catalog. At the end of every month, we’ll rotate a couple of titles off the list and add a few new ones; altogether, we have about 50 games to set in front of you. Once or twice a month, we’ll publish a personal retrospective like this one, where we’ll feature one of the games from the list—perhaps a retro game you’ve heard of, perhaps a modern title you missed. Regardless, GOG will have a DRM-free version of the game ready to go. Be sure to check out the earlier pieces in the series!
For a lot of the games I’ve written about in the C:\ArsGames series, I’ve come to the conclusion that the games hold up pretty well, despite their age—Master of Orion II, Jill of the Jungle, and Wing Commander Privateer, for example. Each of those have flaws that show now more than ever, but I still had a blast revisiting each of them.
This time I’d like to write about one that I think doesn’t hold up quite as well for me: For the first time in almost 30 years, I revisited the original Tomb Raider via 2024’s Tomb Raider I-III Remastered collection.
You might be thinking this is going to be a dunk on the work done on the remaster, but that’s not the case, because the core issue with playing 1996’s Tomb Raider in 2026 is actually unsolvable, no matter how much care is put into a remaster.
The age of tank controls
Tomb Raider was part of the first wave of multiplatform games with fully 3D gameplay, releasing the same year as similarly groundbreaking 3D titles Super Mario 64 and Quake. I think you could make a pretty compelling case that most of the modern AAA games industry can trace its lineage in some way back to those three titles.
Because it was the beginning of mass-market 3D games (yes, I know other, more niche 3D games existed before), there were no established best practices for things like the controls or the camera.
Tomb Raider opted for a modality that was common for a few years before it was replaced by clearly better solutions: what we now call “tank controls,” where forward or back moves the character forward or back, but hitting left or right turns the character on its axis in place without moving.
Samuel Axon As a side note, the ability to swim in a fully 3D environment was fresh for many players, even if this wasn’t the first game to do it. As a side note, the ability to swim in a fully 3D environment was fresh for many players, even if this wasn’t the first game to do it. Samuel Axon Samuel Axon Here’s how that looks in the updated graphics, by the way. Here’s how that looks in the updated graphics, by the way. Samuel Axon As a side note, the ability to swim in a fully 3D environment was fresh for many players, even if this wasn’t the first game to do it. Samuel Axon Here’s how that looks in the updated graphics, by the way. Samuel Axon
The way it works is naturally intuitive enough, which is part of why it was so popular early on. But the industry has moved on because it’s ultimately frustratingly sluggish and clunky. I loved Tomb Raider‘s level design and atmosphere, and the designers did about as good a job as they could designing around the limitations of the controls for most of the combat sequences. But ultimately, there was enough combat that the sluggishness of this input method significantly detracted from my enjoyment.