Video Game Hall of Fame: All 24 Inductees Ranked - Part I (24-13)

#16 Tomb Raider (inducted in 2018)

The original Tomb Raider, just as a game, hasn't exactly aged gracefully. It's still a fun game, to be sure. But, compared to the games it inspired - hell, compared to its sequels, spin-offs, and reboots - it's a bit of a clunky mess.

The controls are stiff (although those back and side flips are still so satisfying) and the graphics are just... meh. That first level with the T. Rex, though.

Fortunately, holding up after twenty-odd years isn't all it takes to be in the Hall of Fame. Tomb Raider is an important title in the pantheon of gaming history for many reasons, but two specific ones put it at this particular point in this list.

Lara Croft in Tomb Raider (PS1)

Not those reasons. Stop it.

The first is the way it presented the action genre in a 3D environment that was (even now) pretty simple to control. Sure, it's not great compared to, say, some of the Assassin's Creed games (some might disagree with that, sure), but it's certainly not unplayable. And, at the time, it was a revelation. It's was light years above anything else out there and it led the way for more games like it.

Secondly, it helped solidify the idea of games having full fledged characters. Obviously, it wasn't the first game to have a protagonist with a backstory and motivation - RPGs were a thing for years by then, for example - but it was one of the first ones, if not the first to capture the public's imagination.

Lara Croft was featured on magazine covers, commercials for products other than the game she starred in, and treated in the media (in a tongue-in-cheek fashion) as a real person.

Tomb Raider helped position games as a storytelling medium in the world of entertainment, and games haven't been the same since.

Also, that first and the latest Tomb Raider movies were pretty good, I don't care what anybody says.