Gaming's Defining Moments - Tomb Raider

An equation, committed to without doubt at the edge of an abyss, embodied a defining moment of freedom and adventure that's never been recaptured, even after fourteen subsequent years of trying.

For all that defines the early years of the Tomb Raider series to most - the T-Rex fight, the fall from gaming's graces, the planetoid-sized blouse bunnies - mine mightn't seem all that important.

That equation - nonsensical without the reference, launched Lara Croft into a forward roll on flat ground, and Olympian swan dive at any elevated height.

And it was that leap taken in the first few minutes of the Lost Valley level, after following a winding river to a cliff edge and hearing the increasingly louder roar in my ears, off a jutting piece of rock.

A dive. Seconds of silence. Croft's body stretched completely vertical, fully committed to whatever fate awaits. We hang in the air so long we realise the magnitude of the drop. The bellow of water rushing up to meet us and -

splash. Liquid green and blue swallows us whole, Croft's velocity so that even with breaking the lake's surface she's got enough momentum to bring her down to the cavern pool's bottom. We swim up, break the surface again, and with a camera sweep drink in the height to waterfall's top.

We took a chance with our gut instinct and survived. Within seconds, I'd pulled her out of the water and made for the top to do it all again.

Yet for me, that single instant in the 1996 PSOne original that captured the spirit of adventure that Lara Croft embodied, and unblinkingly connected with sure hold to early childhood: clambering up trees and throwing yourself into the unknown, natural athleticism and nimbleness -perhaps naivety - of the young relishing the flight, ignoring consequence.

And like childhood, once the moment was over, it was a race back up to the top to do it all over again. Underwater caverns got bigger, cliffside drops bigger as the series rumbled its way through the decade, but it's in this moment I felt most connected to.

The 2007 Anniversary edition reversed the sequence, making the climb up the waterfall, now extended in height by at least half again, as the main highlight of a small segment of gameplay early in the game. But pulling yourself up a cliff isn't as thrilling as launching yourself off it.