Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary

Welcome to the new Laura Croft as she is more realistic than ever! She still carries the guns and goes through ruins in search of treasure but you have to see to believe what she does:

SHE STUMBLES!!! SHE LOSES HER BALANCE!!! SHE GETS KNOCKED AROUND BY THE ENEMIES!!! SHE SEEMINGLY JUMPS IN RANDOM DIRECTIONS TO HER OWN DEATH!!! SHE IS HARDER TO CONTROL THAN EVER BEFORE!!! SHE HAS TO WANDER AROUND BECAUSE MOST TIMES IT IS UNAPPARENT WHAT TO DO!!!

Seriously, overall I enjoyed the game, but it was also very annoying at times. There are elements of the game that have been improved as this game is essentially a remake of the 1996 game that started it all. The graphics have been improved as this world is very nicely detailed now, the characters look a bit better too. There are also elements of the story that have been improved as well as near the beginning Laura does not try to kill the competition right off the bat. As far as overall game play though I have to say the original is still better than this one. Laura is very hard to control in this one, the controls at times do not feel like you are controlling Laura, but rather sending signals to her telling her what to do and sometimes she does something completely off the wall such as jump off a ledge. The original also moved more slowly, the game is basically the same plot and location wise, but they did change a lot of the puzzles around and add very annoying timing traps that had me cussing and getting the urge to throw the controller at the television. When I was not in a rage over those traps I was at a total loss about where the heck I should jump to or go. This game surprised me also about how long it took, I mean Legends was essentially over before I knew it, this one just seemed to take to long. Though I have to say that the first level with the dinosaurs and the last level where you have the final battle are not to bad and rather fun. The second level was a bit annoying, but it was annoying in the original, the one that caused me the most headaches though was the third level in Egypt. I hated that level with a passion this time around. Also, the makers of this series have fallen way to in love with the grapple gun, which is okay, but really adds nothing. Well it does add another stupid way for you to dispatch enemies in the form of two horsemen that really had my blood pressure skyrocketing.

In some ways it is a decent game, but as I progressed, it became unplayable for me.

It started off OK, but as the puzzles and boss fights got harder, they got more tedious, and the controls got more frustrating. After a while the puzzles feel repetitive (but this is largely a question of personal taste). 95% of the game is pure puzzle platforming (so you should only play this if you really like that sort of gameplay). My playthrough broke down to frustrating trial and error at times. I found the keyboard/mouse controls difficult and at times inconsistent and unresponsive - Maybe it plays better on a console. I got stuck on some of the platforming and boss fights, so I had to look up the solutions online. I'm not a noob, but better hints and tutorials would have been helpful for me. It is also a pity there is no manual save system, and that the save checkpoints are not very forgiving - they were often far away from the part I struggled with, meaning I had to redo a lot after failing a sequence. Also, you have to manually "save" the checkpoint, otherwise, if you quit/reload, you lose all progress since the beginning of the game. Dare I say it, but this game may be too "hardcore" for me (even though I usually don't like it when games are dumbed down). While the experience was too frustrating for me, this is quite a good game within its specific genre.

If you like difficult platforming and old-school boss fights, you may like this game. Otherwise, there are simply too many flaws, so I sadly cannot recommend it.

Gaarrrrrrrrrrrrr... how many of you gave up this gem during the centaur boss battle :-?

I've never liked the feel of the controls since "Angel of Darkness" or "Legend" -- "Underworld" is only now beginning to change that. It took me a lot of remembering and a half-year of casual gaming to finish "Legend". I haven't finished "Anniversary" yet... although I was initially quite thrilled by it, way back when. This was a step back to classic Tombraidering, i.e. no-nonsense-"plundering World Heritage sites" and single-minded Lara, back when she/I didn't take time to think much 'bout Mommy or Daddy. Winston the old butler was enough social life for us.

Everything in the Folly(!) & the Coliseum still looks great, almost better than the original Tomb Raider -- almost, since Tomb Raider was cutting edge-graphics in '96, and it somehow still looks decent today (it can be run on XP, with a special installer). "Anniversary" has some promising parts that nearly match up to "Underworld" quality levels, especially when you run through half-lit places with vines touching your face. But on the whole, it's not really up to 2007 standards for the PC, and the levels -- or re-created levels -- are smaller than in 1996. The sightseeing objects still look good and sometimes great, and some new chasms and abysses that require complex jumps really evoke pure Tombraidering adrenaline; but what bogged me down eventually was the boss battles.

I don't know if console players can tell a difference between classic Tomb Raider and "Next-Gen" -- the old games required you to defeat "bosses" too, but on the PC this used to be ridiculously easy (since you can save anytime and anywhere, the challenge is to keep shooting and not accidentally blunder over any edges). "Legend" was challenging already, but relatively easy once I had figured out what to do. "Anniversary" is... well, tough.

I've only recently managed the Adrenaline dodge, and only after some vital tips. My Tombraidering instinct -- just keep shooting -- defeated me previously, it seems. And the game, just like in old times, has some issues with reaction time to keystrokes, or maybe it's my basal ganglia. The correct sequence is as follows:

• shoot until your enemy gets enraged (flashing red rage meter)

• stop shooting(!) and get ready to dodge

• once he/it charges you, (1) press direction key (left|right|back) and (2) press roll key, so Lara performs a rolling dodge

• after time slows down and the red target circles match, SHOOT -- once!

It still doesn't work all the time, often Lara doesn't roll, but ducks/slinks sideways -- very useful for hungry Tyrannosaurs --, and most of the smaller animal kingdom doesn't leave you the reaction time to set up a dodge anyway. But one thing you can be sure of -- do it as often as you're supposed to, and your fingers WILL hurt.

Anyone else out there who is having problems, I'd advise you to download a trainer or the "Tomb Raider Anniversary loader" -- the T-Rex battle is Checkpoint 16 -- and practice the A-dodge in God mode. That way, it actually is kind of fun.

What more is there to say? Due to similar issues (keystroke reaction time), the jumps required to reach some goodies mean much trial & error, because unlike in the old blocky universe it's impossible to position Lara accurately or to be certain what can be grabbed -- chances are, it can't be (if you mind death-defying jumps, you probably shouldn't play Tomb Raider). But this is due to the schizophrenia of the "next gen" approach -- more to see, less to do with it. To old-school Tomb Raiders, this is by far the most annoying aspect in "Legend", "Anniversary" or "Underworld", besides the stupid "checkpoint" system and the sometimes game-obstructing camera. (Let's conveniently forget the "Angel of Darkness" catastrophe...)

The Tomb Raider series has always been high on my list of favorite franchises. That's why I was so sad to see it go the way it was going before Crystal Dynamics stepped in and injected some life back into the series.

I had high expectations for the remake considering Crystal Dynamics was doing it. Thankfully all of those expectations have been met and then some. This game has now taken the place of the first one in my opinion. Some people may disagree, but there's no more need for the original now.

Crystal D managed to take what we all loved about Tomb Raider 1 and refine it without destroying the atmosphere of the first. Pretty much everything has been upgraded over the original. If you've played Legend you should be used to this. It uses the same engine.

The graphics are the most obvious thing. What was once a closed in cave with a black cover over it is now outside like it's supposed to be. All the environments are wonderful. Which makes navigating them that much better.

The controls are fine. The combat is a bit more in depth than in Legend. Although you'll spend more time jumping around and solving puzzles than fighting. Which is what the original Tomb Raider was about. I do have to praise the difficulty. Not many games have a well balanced realistic difficult challenge anymore. The story is better written, but keeps the same elements of the original.

My only complaints about the game is the camera, no blood, and slight framerate problems. The camera can be a bit of a hassle sometimes when trying to make jumps. Thankfully it never gets bothersome too much. I was disappointed that there wasn't any blood what so ever in the game. I didn't want geysers of blood, because the series has never been about that, but a little blood when she gets stabbed or pricked would have been nice. The original even had blood. The framerate chugged a few times, but it was hardly noticeable. The mansion is the place where it happens the most.

Overall a great game with plenty of great unlockables and I can't wait to see what Crystal Dynamics can do with the series from here.

Okay, first the bad stuff: When TR: Legend came out last year it turned out to be the finest game in the series released in years (perhaps ever). There had been a great many changes made since the previous titles (especially in the graphics quality). Well now with the release of TR: Anniversary we can finally see where Legend had it over it's predecessors. When I heard comments in the lead up to Anniversary about "improved combat systems to give players a bigger challenge" (or something like that), my heart sunk, and my fears were realized as I advanced through the game. Eidos, there is nothing more BORING than watching your character die 15 consecutive times during the same sequence of events. In the "10 years of Tomb Raider" promotional stuff, it was said that Tomb Raider was originally designed to be an "interactive movie". Guys, what do you think the viewing public would say about a section of a movie where you had to surf through umpteen parallel universes, watching Jack Sparrow or Harry Potter die in the exact same conflict fifteen consecutive times until we got to one universe where they didn't f*** up? And by the way, that doesn't just apply to the combat sections, it also applies to the ridiculously-hard-to-traverse sections, especially the ones that were timed. BTW, I don't think that there should be any such thing as a *required* combo move(was it even possible to do an adrenaline dodge in any mode other than "Advanced Toggle"? Thanks for telling us you needed to be in that mode, BTW!) Legend gave you room to think your way through a level, it turned away from the TR tradition of frustratingly-impossible monster combat and jump sequences so that the player could get totally absorbed in the great storyline. From what I hear, that game saved your franchise. Please don't turn your back on those wonderful improvements that made the world fall in love with Lara all over again.

Among my lesser gripes with Anniversary were the absence of Zip and Al (I can understand why you did this, though. They weren't in the original, and Lara wouldn't have met them yet). But their banter with Lara during Legend made the game more fun and I missed them. I felt that the game's big surprise was revealed way too early. When I first saw the relevant cut-scene in TR1, I said to myself "Holy S***! This is the coolest twist I have ever seen in a video game!" By then you were well into the Lost City… Already knowing the twist, Anniversary wasn't really gonna surprise me, but I still think you guys gave it away too early, even if you count the end-of-Egypt cut-scene, but it was pretty obvious by the end of Greece. Finally, I really didn't like one of the choices Lara made in a certain (interactive) cut-scene. When you make the character you play less likable, you make the entire game experience less likable. Anniversary as a whole suffered for it…

Having said all that, I am glad I purchased this game. It would've been a shame to miss out on having it in my collection. The graphics were superb, in terms of both scenery and creatures. Lara, as in Legend, looked stunning, and I thought that the final creature she faces in the game, in all of it's incarnations, was incredibly well done. The storyline, while loyal to the original, was different enough to make the game interesting to a TR1 victor. The new grapple wall-walk move was cool (although I hated the wall-walk jump at the top of a swing – the controls were way too fussy to do this whenever you wanted to). The pole-hop wasn't bad, either. I enjoyed the larger levels, especially the earlier ones and I LOVED Croft Manor. The puzzles (particularly in Greece) were incredibly well done. I love Keeley Hawes as Lara. I would've loved to see her have more speaking lines (another reason to bring back Z&A). And I had misgivings before I played it, but I must say that the enhanced character development of Pierre was a great improvement on the original.

All in all, if a person didn't own either Legend or Anniversary, I'd advise them to spend their money on the former. But for someone who did own Legend, I would definitely say that Anniversary is a worthwhile purchase, especially if they didn't know anything about the original. You developers have obviously put a hell of a lot of work into this game. And while I know a lot of people might disagree with what I've said above, I'm sure I speak for all Tomb Raider fans when I say we can't wait to see what you come up with next.