What do you guys think of the game? I think it's one of the best in the series.

It's the best of the "original set". When they got to Anniversary and AOD and Legend they tweeked the game play and mechanics so I really don't think you can compare them to 1-5. I will say that 4 gets on my nerves in the city levels when you are constantly having to go back and forth between areas; it's confusing AND kills the flow. Other than that it is hands down the best. The lighting on Lara in the opening tomb area (not the prequal tutorial) is worth the price of admission alone.

The constant switching between the levels was a bit too much, imho. And you never knew if you missed something 10 levels ago. XD

In other metroidvania games like zelda or castlevania, it doesn't interrupt the flow, because it seems natural, the world is always connected, and most of those games also have brilliant game design, but in Tomb Raider IV they overdid it. It felt disconnected and the game suffered because of that.

There even was a theory at that time that they made it so hard and unintuitive so that they could sell their shiny strategy guide.

Whatever the reason, I enjoyed TR4 less than TR1-3. The essence of TR was there, exotic locations, exploration, adventuring, but there also was non-existent story, no link between the levels, and a frustrating amount of guesswork. TR1-3 huge levels at least were solvable, but TR4 was way over the top.

I didn't like it.

Ha ha, really? Never heard of that theory. Hmm I thought quite the opposite, acutally. I felt that it was the most story-coherent game of the classic games. It really kept me looking forward to seeing another cut scene, all this rivalry between Lara and Werner and Lara trying to fix what she had messed up. But I'll admit that it was easy to lose track of the story as the game is extremely long and confusing in places, like you said. But I felt the same with TR3 except that in TR3 there was nothing in the story itself that would make me want to keep playing.

Thanks for your opinions!

By the way, if you want to see other games that use this multi-layered level structure, I would strongly suggest that you check out the Hexen series.

They are by far some of my most favourite games, and I fondly remember how immersed I was when I first started playing Hexen 1 so many years ago. I think I played for eight hours straight that day.

Hexen is played in the first-person perspective, and you also happen to switch between levels in it, but everything is so masterfully done that I kept being amazed at how fantastic the level design was. I kind of wished that Tomb Raider IV was more like it.

It's true that there isn't much story in Hexen either, but its gameplay, on the other hand, is astounding. It's hard to describe how smooth the game progresses.

It is still not available on GOG, but you can grab it on Steam, if you are interested. :)

I rate TR4 my favourite on the PS1

Huge game and great improvement in the graphics to prior games in the series.

I hate darkness in games though, which you encounter here and there in TR games,
just hoping you're not out of flares hehe... but the game was awfully generous with those.
It was when I came to Cairo however, that I became so frustrated with the constant nighttime
in it -_- I think that's pretty much when I got tired of it all and wanted it to end.
The level designs before Cairo, I absolutely fancied :)
I understand it was done to look like the world was really gonna end as it went on,
but I did not approve the drastic lights turned out.

The secrets in the game was too hard to keep track on, absolutely impossible without guidance.
And the fact the counting of them is not split up between areas, made you have to save many
different files to be able to return earlier in the game. Rather than playing the whole game over again?

It was not only the secrets really that I would have failed for sure, without a guide.
But there was this certain pyramid towards the end, where you'll find the east key.
Pushing a none suspicious looking rock onto a bird symbol, very vaguely showing on the ground,
to open a passage. There is no way I would ever notice that. I just passed that area to the last pyramid instead
and had no clue where to get the east key from :/ Stuff like that made TR4 alot harder knowing what to do.
You would never know where you missed something from earlier areas.

Still my favourite after Anniversary though!

I think that the best TR in the original serie is actually the III ( except the first of course ), because for me it's real TR experience for the old standard. The main problem with the III is that it really isn't played in closed levels and misses that "tomb raiding feeling". The IV has that "tomb raiding" feeling like the first but i find it a bit repetitive.

I think it's stupidly long. I remember the first time I played, it took forever. Still a cool experience but I found 2 and 3 more enjoyable, as for me, levels there had more variety. With this one is like... you better like Egypt.... But yet I guess if we stay true to the concept of the original tomb raider, this gives you just that...

There a couple of letdowns with this one though:

1. I don't remember any boss fight aside from Seth... which you can hardly call a boss "fight" since you don't really fight him (he's a god after all)

2. For a game this long, it really lacks of vehicles to drive, specially compared to TR3

3. 70 secrets to find... for nothing!! TR3 at least gives you an extra level...

I'll take no vehicles over a repeat of that fucking kayak any day! :P