Tomb Raider 3do -

Let us know in the comments below. And if you have a spare $700, you can buy a 3DO on eBay and stare at it, wondering what could have been.

The market did shift. It shifted away from expensive, multimedia boxes and toward focused gaming machines. But for a brief moment in 1996, Lara Croft was supposed to help one last console stand up. tomb raider 3do

Before Tomb Raider became the PlayStation’s killer app and the face of an entire generation, there was a ghost on the release schedule: The Promise of the Interactive Multiplayer Let’s rewind to 1995. The 3DO was dying, but it didn’t know it yet. Panasonic was touting it as the ultimate multimedia machine—CD-quality audio, full-motion video, and "true" 32-bit 3D graphics. While the PlayStation and Saturn were fighting for arcade ports, the 3DO was getting PC ports and experimental titles. Let us know in the comments below

And for a brief, tantalizing moment, Lara Croft was supposed to join it. It shifted away from expensive, multimedia boxes and

But graphics? The 3DO struggled with texture mapping. Lara would have likely been a flat-shaded, gouraud-shaded mess. And the loading times? The 3DO’s 2x CD drive was notoriously slow. Every door in St. Francis’ Folly would have meant a 45-second load screen.