Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - Anniversary

The Good
Tomb Raider: Anniversary is the follow-up to successful Tomb Raider: Legend by Crystal Dynamics mostly known for their Legacy Of Kain series. While Legend being a great game on its own and certainly a welcome addition into a long-run Tomb Raider series I felt it was somewhat lacking. It was a sunning professionally executed brilliantly written game. Superb action and a new revised look of the main heroine showed that finally after years long years of constant failure, franchise started to move in right direction. But still it remained just number two in my book. Despite of mind-boggling action of this new offering the game was extremely linear. The exploration was the centerpiece of each Tomb Raider. And there certainly wasn’t enough of it in Legend. I always felt led by hand through a sheer dozen of beautiful levels with no step left or right allowed. So to remind myself what once made the original Tomb Raider such a hit I took my old dusty copy of this oldie …. and was utterly disappointed. “What the #@$% is this?” I cried. It’s not the game I played ten years ago. How on earth could I see ancient Coliseum in those lumpy sets of polygons or be impressed by the detail in that triangular breast? Now mind you, I’m a very tolerant person in terms of old titles. I still think of the VGA-era of graphic adventures having the most beautiful artwork and ingenious game design this side of Milky Way has ever seen. But on the dawn of 3D era the game engines were so limited and controls were so atrocious and unintuitive that it’s pretty understandable that those titles crumbles under heavy weight of sands of time, especially those from a third-person perspective (another one that immediately comes to mind is Fade To Black). And then like a send from the heaven a new game in the series was released. And what a game it is! Tomb Raider: Anniversary is not simply a remake; it’s the reinvention the old genre in regard of modern gamer demands. My memory must be playing tricks upon me, but this is THE game I played 10 years ago, and not that monster from 1997 I carelessly installed a year ago. I am not talking about specific details because most of the game has been altered due to all the possibilities that exist in game mechanics these days. I am talking about the spirit and the essence of the original Tomb Raider. And it most certainly resides now in the body of Tomb Raider: Anniversary. The game firmly reminds players why it’s actually called Tomb Raider and not any other title. It’s about exploring tombs, for god’s sake, finding lost civilizations and experiencing the sense of grand adventure. Obviously not shooting cops in Louvre gallery or hiking through military base number 245. Above all I’d like to mention an incredible level design. Taking basic ideas from original game the designers have revised them and then expanded upon them. No room serves no purpose. Each level is unique and aesthetically pleasing. The Greek-inspired level with a crumbled stairway is a bright example of what most of the current game designers aren’t capable of. Except for Crystal Dynamics, with a little help from Core Design. As for others aspects of the game, everything is really top-notch. The game features the most fluid animations of animals I have ever seen. The battles are fast, dynamic and really vicious. Be sure to the turn the lights on while playing Tomb Raider: Anniversary or you might lose a bit more of them nerve cells then you would do otherwise. The music is beautiful and fits the game so well that you start to feel affection for it on a really close, personal level.


The Bad
This game is faithful to the original. Maybe too much faithful for it’s own good. Of course it’s nice to see so many familiar places spread over four grand levels of the game, but Crystal Dynamic doesn’t have to prove us anything, we know what they are capable of, so a bit more of creative freedom would have been certainly welcome. The only major grudge I have with this game is the unfortunate decision not to include next-generation content at all. I can’t care less about marketing policy Eidos is taking, so don’t start on me. If they don’t want to release it on the next-generation console then why we the PC gamers have to suffer technologically dated graphics. Just imagine what would the game look like with the entire next-gen extravaganza… Not gonna happen! Sorry.

The Bottom Line
If you still remember what the word “adventure” actually means, if forgotten civilizations still send you spinal shivers, if you young at heart and open in mind, then don’t miss this one. You wouldn’t forgive yourself if you do!

The Good
I played TR1 a lot, getting up to the T-rex. As a young kid seeing a T-rex pop out of the dark in front of little 'ol Lara Croft kind makes you jump out of your seat. By the time I was a little older, and had a little more courage to go on, I realized how much of a treat the game was.

  I didn't even realize how complex the games worlds were, and how large they were. So, I wanted to go farther into the game to see everything. Even finding TR1's box, in the game store for the first time, was like finding a lost artifact in a gauntlet of others, that were to much like DOOM or Myst clones. It had a nice cover art too :) But before I make this sound like a review for TR1, let me continue.

  Tomb Raider Anniversary will have the classic fans, having flash backs, in a good way, of course. The game wasn't entirely designed to play like the classic game. But everything will be familiar to the fans.

  There is new graphics and new physics technology in the gaming world. So, might as well put them to work. You will especially notice this in Lara Crofts glorious makeover. Her polies and animation grew up real nice :) Still it's not an ultra realistic character model of the human body, but its getting there.

  The level design is basically a makeover as well. You will recognize almost everything from the classic levels, with few or many updates. For instance, some structures that looked like they were supposed to be separated from the rest of the level design as a individual structure. Now small huts, buildings, arent blocked squarely into the level design any more. Overall, things look a lot more realistic. Instead of feeling like you are just going through a large subterranean structure, some places are broken up more, to feel like you are in a large open cave with ancient buildings inside. The geometry of design isn’t boxed up so much, anymore.

  Music and ambient sound pretty much like the classic game. Fortunately, that’s good because it was done well. It was re-mastered too. TR1 had a great intro track that can put you into a trance. The level sounds are updated to sound better, but still have the same edge as TR1. The raptors new sounds make them feel even more like stalking predators, then what they did in TR1. You can hear them sometimes echo down a tight corridor, around a corner.<br><br>**The Bad**<br>      There are few things I didn't like about the game. Most that doesn’t bother me at all, because they were done in ways to keep the gameplay fun.

  For instance, I expected to see maybe a little blood on Lara. The again, I am not sure how realistic her character model is, to add that kind of detail. It might look a bit unreal. They could have maybe shown a raptor ripping off her limbs, if she died. Then again, if the gameplay gets to realistic, it takes away from the fun of the game. Lara Croft never gets to tired or injured to do what she is supposed to, to make the game fun.

  I'm also not going to argue with some of the control flaws in TRA, because they are way better than TR1. Lara Croft may have seemed to move smoothly in TR1, but a lot of it made her feel a lot heavier than she really was. I can get through TRA a lot faster and easier than TR1.

  Then there is the fighting. You basically are defending yourself from wild-life, prehistoric, and fantasy predators, along the category of non-human. Except for what you see in some cut-scenes. That’s how TR1 was. So I'm not upset about it.

  Lara Croft makes action and avoiding traps of death it more interesting now, with her new or improved moves, and her ability to lock on, dodge, and attack with a deadly headshot all in one.

 For an updated game, the bosses were about the same level of difficulty in the classic game. The final boss in TR1 was also easy to defeat, if you knew the trick. The bosses have basically the same idea, but a few things have noticably changed to make it more interesting.

The Bottom Line
Tomb Raider Anniversary is one of the best action adventure games with a female character. If you played the classic, this has that, and so much more including new unlocks.

  If you are new to the Tomb Raider world, you should like it as well. Especially if you like the console style action adventure games. Just realize that this is a game that was improving on an older one. So, it's mostly a fan based game. But, I wouldn't doubt it attracting a lot of the new younger crowd, like I was 10 or so years ago.

The Good
Toby Gard consulted Crystal Dynamics and served as the story designer in reimagining the original Tomb Raider. Gard borrows heavily from the first film in that Lara Croft uses research preceded by her father, Lord Richard Croft, to discover the Atlantean Scion from the original game. Also, Crystal Dynamics reverted back to traversal environments and made controlling Croft more fluid thanks to their Legacy of Kain technology. The score in the original Tomb Raider consisted of choirs by Nathan McCree that would cue when a new puzzle or vista was discovered, which is replicated again in Anniversary by the BAFTA winner, Troels B. Folmann.

The Bad
Unfortunately, the QTE's introduced in Legend return in Anniversary and these can break away from the puzzles and exploration the original emphasized on. Due to the Wii exclusive controls, the grappling sections later on are even more challenging than the console versions.

The Bottom Line
It was a bold move for Crystal Dynamics to value Gard’s industry experience, having worked on Tomb Raider and Galleon with Paul Douglas. In retrospect, Anniversary captures the essence of the original Tomb Raider, but falls short with unnecessary arcade elements that break up the pace.