Tomb Raider II Gold

Name: Tomb Raider II Gold Publisher: Aspyr Developer: Core/Eidos Mac Conversion: Westlake Interactive Media: 1 CD HD Installation: 17.4 megs(no Gold), 64.6(with Gold) Got it for: Christmas! A buddy of mine picked up it for me...thanks again Thai!!!
TR2 Gold was played on my iMac DV SE, 400Mhz machine under OS 9.2.2 with an 8 meg ATI Rage card and 512 megs of ram. It was running at a screen resolution of 800X600.
Patches?	Just for kicks, let me present the system requirements:
Tomb Raider 2, 1.0.3 Patch - Size: 580k Tomb Raider 2 Gold - Size: 24.2 megs Click above to get the patch	Mac OS 7.5.3 or later. 80 Mhz PowerPC(100 Mhz or faster recommended). 16 MB Ram(24 MB or more recommended). 4X CD-Rom(8X recommended). Hard drive and color monitor. Quicktime 3.0 or later(included). Optimized for 3D Acceleration Cards.
After her adventures in Atlantis, Lara is back again, this time in search of the legendary Dagger of Xian. As per usual, she's not the only one looking for it...and will run into the mafia, a cult protecting the dagger and even a creature of mythical proportion in her quest to recover it. What's it all about? More than anything, it's a slow paced adventure game with a heavy emphasis on exploration. Playing as Lara Croft, you'll visit various locales all over the world, and try to make your way through them(on foot and, later on, in vehicles). Along the way you'll encounter enemies, and will be able to defend yourself with a variety of weapons. All in all, it's lots of walking around mixed with a little bit of action and a hint of story...
Graphics - Excellent. With the option to turn on Rave smoothing, TR 2 has never looked better! Levels are simply breathtaking with their vast amount of textures and lush color. Be sure to use the "TR2 Setup" control panel for any changes you need to make BEFORE you start playing. I have noticed a lot of graphical glitches while playing with the graphics settings during the game(via the F-keys).
Sound - Great...what little of it there is. Thing is, in TR games, they make use of short, ambient musical bits to highlight certain events and discoveries. They are all very nice...but all very, very short. A few levels(Venice for example) do have background music, but they are few and far between. Most of the time all you really get are Lara's footsteps and the occasional grunt as she makes here way around ledges and such...
Control - Though Lara will, at times, seem to go off on her own, for the most part the control is very good. She responds immediately to any command, and her only real issue is with the game's targeting system(it has a tendency to lock on to enemies and continue to track them even after they're dead). Setting up the control scheme is easy as the game has a very convenient "TR2 Setup" control panel that will allow you to quickly configure your controller, sound and graphics all in one trip(then start the game immediately afterwards). For best results, I recommend MacAlly's iShock as it's exactly like a PSX controller, which is what the game was originally meant to be played with.
AI - Mediocre. The enemies see you, then run at you and either stand there shooting or swinging until you move. Once you move, they move...that's about the extent of it. As the TR games have never really been about action, this isn't too bad...though it can get annoying on certain levels with a mob presence.
Replay value - Low. Once you get done just absolutely busting your ass to get through this one, then taking on the Gold levels...you'll not want to come back for quite some time. It's not that it's a bad game, it's just so looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong(and tedious at times). Now, this probably won't keep you away from playing the various TR2 add-on maps that users have created...
Getting it to run - Just pop in the CD and run the installer. It will take 90 megs of free space to install, but when finished only leaves about 18 megs worth of data. Most of the levels are still on the CD, with only a few select files being copied onto the HD, and with a decent CD/DVD rom you shouldn't see any lag moving into new areas and such. For the Gold levels, simply unstuff the TR2Gold archive and drop the TR2Gold folder into the old TR2 folder. The TR2Gold folder contains all of the files needed for the Gold levels, thus increasing the space taken on the HD by (about)48megs. Also, the game requires the CD to be in the Mac, so put it in before starting.
Tips for better gaming experiences: This is another one where a good FAQ is almost mandatory. With that said, the good people at Stella's Tomb Raider site have produced an excellent walkthrough, not only covering the original game but the Gold levels as well. Still Supported? Kinda. Aspyr has taken down the TR2-specific page(as well as the page for TR1 and 3) and replaced it with the TR Trilogy support page(which has none of the patches anymore). Stella's Tomb Raider Site is a more than worthy alternative though, providing everything for TR2 that Aspyr has dropped(patches and the Gold expansion). Be sure to check it out.
My rating: 90(out of 100) - The best TR game to date. Takes everything that was great about the original TR and kicks it up a notch. Interesting levels, gorgeous graphics, more firepower and vehicles more than make up for the still seriously lacking action bits.
Baraka's meow: OMG, could this be any more mind-numbingly boring!? Yay, let's run around for 45 minutes looking for some key, just so we can unlock a door and run around for another 45 minutes looking for yet another damn item. This kitty craves action...and this game just doesn't deliver...reow!

Lara's House.	Caught by the mob!

Mowing down some birds over at the Great Wall...	Swimming in the icy waters of "Cold War", the first section of the Gold levels.
Fun Stuff on the CD: A demo of the game as well as six wallpapers(really high quality!!!).
Renders in the house?: Yes, in fact, all six wallpapers off the disc are available to view in the House of Renders...