Tomb Raider

Official Nokia packshot (EuropeAfrica)

A 3D action-adventure game developed by Ideaworks3D and published by Eidos for the N-Gage at launch in October 2003 — a port of the 1996 Core Design original, spanning 15 levels across South America, Greece, Egypt, and Atlantis as Lara Croft hunts for the Scion, a relic of the lost continent.

Tomb Raider was one of the N-Gage's marquee launch titles, positioned to demonstrate what the platform could do. Ideaworks3D used their proprietary Segundo3D graphics codec to compress the original 40MB PlayStation game down to just 5.7MB on an MMC card — a remarkable technical reduction. The port retained the full original level set and all the major puzzle and platforming sequences. A downloadable Assault Course allowed players to race a ghost image of a friend's recorded run for asynchronous competition. Critical reception was mixed: reviewers acknowledged the visual achievement — fully texture-mapped 3D on a mobile device in 2003 — but flagged an inconsistent frame rate, sluggish controls, and camera problems near walls as material obstacles to enjoyment. GameSpot rated it "Mediocre". Nevertheless the AAN review was enthusiastic, calling it potentially competitive with Japanese mobile games and singling out its clever multiplayer hooks.

Screenshots