Tomb Raider (1996 video game)
Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive. It was released in 1996 for Sega Saturn, PlayStation and MS-DOS. "Tomb Raider" was released for N-Gage devices in 2003, and for the PlayStation Network in North America in August 2009, and in Europe in August 2010. "Tomb Raider" follows the exploits of Lara Croft, an English archaeologist in search of ancient treasures.
Third-person shooter
"Tomb Raider" (1996) by Eidos Interactive (now Square Enix Europe) is claimed by some commentators as a third-person shooter, and Jonathan S. Harbour of the University of Advancing Technology argues that it's "largely responsible for the popularity of this genre". Other commentators have considered it influential on later third person shooters such as "BloodRayne" (2002), "The Contra Adventure" (1998), "MDK" (1997), "" (1998), "Burning Rangers" (1998), and "" (2000). The game eschewed the popular first person perspective of games such as "Doom", instead making use of "third person" viewpoints, wide 3D environments and a control system inspired by "Prince of Persia". "Mega Man Legends" (1997) by Capcom is another early 3D third person shooter which took a different approach to the genre, mixing this with a role-playing game influence. Around the same time, "Deathtrap Dungeon" (1998) by Eidos Interactive and "MediEvil" (1998) by SCE Cambridge Studio (then "Millennium Interactive") were some of the first 3D games in the genre to include third person shooter influences in a fantasy setting, with fictional or alternative weapons achieving the same effect as a gun for the player. "Die Hard Trilogy" (1998) by Fox Interactive was met with critical acclaim at the time of its release, and the section of the game based around the first "Die Hard" film in the trilogy was another early take on a 3D third person shooter.