The joy of going for a swim in Tomb Raider

There’s an old chestnut from gaming mythology – you surely know the one – about the movement in Mario’s 3D ventures being perfected by Shigeru Miyamoto at their very start with Super Mario 64. Core Design managed the same thing with the original Tomb Raider back in 1996, too. Nobody really talks about it now, while the Mario story endures. Possibly because Nintendo didn’t make umpteen identikit sequels over the following decade or splash Mario’s stretchy mug on the cover of The Face.

Really though, the Italian plumber and English graverobber were equally confident that if all their moves were available right from the start with no unlocking needed then that was enough. Both games were – are still, after a quarter of a century – the Platonic ideal of their characters. And they had bloody good swimming sections.

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