Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary Review

Its hard to believe that its been ten years since the release of the original Tomb Raider, ten years since Lara Croft first graced our screens with her infeasibly large erm… endowments. To celebrate the birth of feminism’s answer to Indiana Jones, Eidos have released Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary, a re-imagining of the original game using the Legends engine. Does the remake live up to the original? Lets find out…

The first thing I noticed when I fired up the game was the fact that a more realistic, less fantastical figure was presented to me. The original Lara Croft’s assets were rumoured to be an error, someone set a slider too high, this mistake has been rectified in Anniversary. Lara is no longer a top-heavy, wasp-waisted, teenage boys comic book fantasy. While still adhering to the comic book rules regarding the female form, Lara’s figure is less exaggerated and better for it. Make no mistake, she’s still sexy and alot of her actions are still deliberately suggestive, but in toning down her proportions the developers, Crystal Dynamics, have made all the more alluring. You feel like she could exist, even if it is only at the very edges of probability.
I decided to play around in the training level for a while and get used to the controls, expecting to have to position Lara exactly as with the earlier games. Croft Manor has been reworked from the original and has a variety of areas for you try out your skills, though some require puzzles to be solved before you get full access to them. The gymnasium is the best place to try out some of the new moves available to Lara and is a bit of a puzzle in itself. The developers have very wisely dropped the need for pixel perfect positioning and the game is far more enjoyable for it, If you jump towards something that Lara can grab she will make an effort to grab it. There is the option to turn the auto grab off for those of you who are complete masochists (or have a gamepad), though the game is much more fun with it on. Ledges and handholds are mostly obvious so your route through a room is made pretty clear and if there’s a ledge somewhere that doesn’t seem to progress the game then it probably leads to an item of some sort.
Graphically the game is what you’d expect from a last-gen (PS2, Xbox, Gamecube) title as opposed to a next-gen game. The lighting and details are pretty and add to the atmosphere though there are some glitches with the shading (possibly due to my setup rather than a problem with the game). While not as impressive as games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or Oblivion it does very well with its almost comic-book style. I’d still like to see it on a really high spec PC though just to see how far the developers have pushed the graphics.
After playing around for abit and getting used to the controls I dove straight into the main game. The story, much like the original, revolves around the search for Atlantis. Lara is hired by the Natla Corporation to find one of the keys to the location of the fabled isle, but soon finds that her employers are not what they seem. I’m now about 40% of the way through the game (I have a one year old son, so I don’t get to play solidly for hours on end) and am gripped by the story so far.
A neat addition to the gameplay of TRA is the interactive cutscenes (see the video below). Much like the Don Bluth animated Dragons Lair of the early nineties, these sequences are linear and require you to hit the correct button, usually a direction, when prompted. Get it wrong and you die and have to go through the scene again, but seeing as these scenes aren’t that challenging or time consuming that’s not really as much of a chore as it sounds.

Adding to the replay value of the game is a rewards system requiring the completion of levels in certain times and the collection of artefacts and relics to unlock various bonus features like commentaries, character bios, new outfits for Lara and production artwork.
As a celebration of Lara’s tenth birthday the game is a fitting tribute to a gaming icon, however I don’t see it as being the classic that the original was. In its time the first Tomb Raider was groundbreaking in its gameplay, its central character, and its sheer ambition. It brought something new to the world of games. Having said that this is a decent game in its own right, its pretty enough to look at and good fun, even when you’re pulling your hair out trying to figure out the latest puzzle. So I have no worries about giving it 7 out of 10. Many happy returns Lady Croft, and may there be many more.

As an addendum,IGN have a gallery of the five real-life models used to promote the games over the last ten years, in latex no less. here are a couple of shots to whet your appetite: