Tomb Raider

The story opens with a prologue in Los Alamos County, New Mexico. A nuclear test causes an earthquake which exposes an ancient device buried beneath the desert. The device is set into motion and reveals a frozen lifeform. The story then continues in the present day.

After Lara Croft returns from an expedition in the Himalayas she is contacted by an American named Larson, who works for the wealthy businesswoman Jacqueline Natla, owner of Natla Technologies. At Natla's request, Lara sets out on an expedition to recover a mysterious artifact called the Scion from the lost tomb of Qualopec, in the mountains of Peru. However after successfully retrieving the object, she is nearly robbed of it when Larson attempts to kill her outside the tomb. Wasting no time, Lara sets out to discover why Natla double-crossed her, and breaks into her office to find out more about the truth behind the artifact, of which there appears to be more than one piece. She discovers a medieval manuscript which reveals the whereabouts of a second piece of the Scion, which is buried beneath an ancient monastery of St. Francis in Greece. It appears Natla has sent Pierre Dupont, a rival French archaeologist, to recover the fragment from the site. Hot on each others trail, Lara and Pierre race each other through the catacombs of the monastery to get to the second Scion first. The battle comes to a head at the tomb of Tihocan, where Lara recovers the second Scion and finally kills Pierre Dupont. An inscription inside the tomb reveals that Tihocan was one of three joint rulers of Atlantis. At some point a calamity struck which sunk the continent into the ocean and scattered their culture over the world. Qualopec continued to rule in South America, Tihocan in Greece, and it appears a third ruler thrived in Egypt.

Lara travels to the Valley of the Kings where she quickly discovers the third Scion, and is faced with Larson one last time. Upon leaving the tomb however, she is awaited by Natla and her henchmen, who steal the three artifacts from her and nearly kill her. Lara escapes and follows their trail to a remote island, where mining operations of Natla Technologies have partially exposed the Great Pyramid of Atlantis. After making her way through the mines dispatching Natla's goons, Lara reaches the heart of the pyramid chamber, where the three Scions are fused together as a source of power. In a flashback, it is revealed that Natla was the third ruler of Atlantis, and that she betrayed her co-rulers by abusing the power of the Scion amulet for genetic experimentation. As punishment, she was locked into a stasis cell by Qualopec and Tihocan, and buried beneath the ground. The power released by the pyramid and the Scion caused a major cataclysm destroying the once powerful and advanced civilization. As a result (similar to Easter Island) the survivors lost all their knowledge and power, and had to slowly rebuild from the ground up. Centuries later Natla awoke when the cell was exposed by an earthquake. With her cunning and knowledge she quickly became incredibly rich and powerful around the world.

Having regained the power of the artifacts, Natla now attempts to restore her former power with an army of genetic mutants. However Lara manages to destroy the Scion and kills Natla. The pyramid is destroyed along with the mutants, and the remains of the Atlantean civilization.

LOCATION

Before commencing the actual game, players may choose to complete a training course set in Lara's home. This tutorial is designed to get the player acquainted with the basics of the game and includes jumping and climbing techniques on ten vaulting boxes. The story mode begins with an introductory sequence, after which the player is taken to the first level in Peru. Throughout the game, Lara travels across the globe in search for the three artifact parts in four different locales:

* Peru (4 levels): The game begins in the mountains of Peru, where the player discovers the entrance to the long lost city of Vilcabamba. Deep within the mountains near Vilcabamba, she finds the ancient tomb of Qualopec. The action takes place in valleys and tombs around an Incan city.

* Greece (5 levels): The levels in Greece are set inside the medieval monastery of St. Francis, which was built upon the side of a mountain that conceals layer upon layer of civilization, hearkening back to the Golden age of Greece and Rome.

* Egypt (3 levels): In Egypt, in a hidden canyon near the Valley of the Kings, Lara explores buried pyramids and a sphinx in a place called the Sanctuary of the Scion.

* Atlantis (3 levels): The final part takes place on a remote island in an unspecified location, where mining operations of Natla Technologies have partially exposed the great pyramid of Atlantis. This is where the mystery unfolds.