As announced a while ago, ROTTR Web will celebrate the 20th anniversary of Lara Croft and Tomb Raider by (among other things) walking down the Tomb Raider memory lane with you! In the spotlight today: Tomb Raider II!
Introduction:
Tomb Raider II – starring Lara Croft is an action-adventure game developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive. It was originally released for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation in 1997 and for Mac OS in 1998. The game is the sequel to the 1996 video game Tomb Raider I – featuring Lara Croft. Over 8 million copies were sold worldwide as of 2003, making it one of the best-selling games released up to that point and the second best selling of the franchise. In Tomb Raider II, Lara Croft is searching for the ‘Dagger of Xian’, a mythical weapon which was used by an Emperor of China to command his army.
In 1999, Tomb Raider II was re-released for PC as Tomb Raider II Gold in North America and Tomb Raider II: Golden Mask elsewhere.
Music:
The music for Tomb Raider II was again composed by Nathan McCree, who also composed the Tomb Raider I music. He spent 3 months working on the Tomb Raider II OST.
Listen to the full Official Tomb Raider II Soundtrack below!
Did you know..? Trivia facts:
– The first game for Lara to use flares to light her way in the levels.
– Two key members of Core Design left the team when this game was in development, most notably Croft’s creator Toby Gard. As he disagreed with the idea about marketing Lara’s sex appeal. After that Gard’s role for this game was replaced by Stuart Atkinson.
– Composer Nathan McCree provided the grunts of Lara’s butler, Winston, within the Lara’s Home level. It is unknown though if he reprised the role to voice a new set of grunts for the next game, Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft. Also, it was the first appearance of Lara’s butler, Winston Smith.
– The first Tomb Raider game where you are able to control vehicles.
– Unlike the original, this is the first Tomb Raider game where you can save your game file anytime you like.
– The name of Marco Bartoli’s cult is the “Fiamma Nera” which is Italian for “Black Flame”
– This is the only Tomb Raider game so far where you need to collect 3 different dragon statue secrets (stone, gold, and jade) to gain extra weapons and ammo.
– The regions around the world Lara explores are: Croft Manor (Lara’s Home) in England, China(twice), Tibet, Venice, and the Mediterranean Sea.
– Development of this game was already in its conceptual stages before the first game was released.
– This game is set one year after the first game.
– The reason there was no Sega Saturn version of this game was because Adrian Smith cited technical limitations of the console to program an adequate conversion.
HD conceptual artworks:
In-game screenshots (PC):
Fan art:
sources & further reading: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190839/trivia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_Raider_II
TOMB RAIDER WEB 
All creds to Toby who opposed Lara as a sex figure. I wish he is still making games. The gaming industry needs more Men with those standards.