14 DAY TRIAL // 
New year, new Lara, this time better and with bigger...expectations, specially since we're celebrating ten years since the first Tomb Raider was released. We've played quite a bunch of titles featuring the sexiest gaming world character, Lara Croft, watched two movies and we still want more. Crystal Dynamics aims to give the gamers the "more" through this title, that marks the anniversary of a great series which is not even close to its ending. Tomb Raider: Anniversary is in fact, the remake of the original 1996 title, using the engine of the last installment in the series, Legend. However, if you're expecting combat sequences and fast-paced action, think again, because Anniversary is more focused on its puzzle segments than on hardcore combat.
Story Tomb Raider Anniversary's plot was kept from the original title and you'll see Lara go on a quest to find an artifact, that was split in 3 different pieces, each of them being hidden in some remote part of the globe. Lara's attempt at finding this artifact is fueled by the fact that her father was also searching for it a few years back. Miss Croft will have to visit Peru, Greece, Egypt and many other locations to bring the pieces of the puzzle together in order to finally get the whole artifact. She'll fight a few dinosaurs here and there, trigger a mountain of traps and race against time and Pierre Dupont, a rival archeologist, who wants to find the Atlantean Scion first. The story's not much, but it's good enough to keep you glued to the screen and wanting more, being also a nice memory for the gamers that played the original Tomb Raider. This plot has a very "Hollywoodish" ring to it, but as long as Lara's exploring tombs and defeating the usual pests, we've got nothing against it.
Concept If you're a Tomb Raider hardcore fan and have plans for the next 15 hours of your life, you'd better think again. Tomb Raider: Anniversary can prove to be one lengthy and mind twisting adventure. The game follows the original recipe that spawns action adventure titles, filled with puzzle elements that can make or break your day. Anniversary uses the setting of the 1996 title and the engine of Legend, plus a few nice improvements like Lara's balancing, the use of the grappling hook, the wall-walking and some brilliant puzzles. Our British female hero will start her journey in Peru, the tomb of Qualopec to be more precise, then she'll travel to Greece, where she'll have to roam the Saint Francis Folly, setting off to the dangerous Egypt. Apart from the exotic locations you'll explore, there's the classic Croft Manor, this time bigger and featuring some outdoors action. A thing you'll notice right from the get-go is the lack of opponents, especially human opponents. Lara will only fight beasts like bats, wolves, bears, gorillas, raptors or lions, but those foes will be equally tough to defeat, since they only attack in groups. There a couple of fights that involve humans, but you'll find them out for yourselves.
Since there's a certain appetite for destruction from our lovely British explorer, she'll use a pretty decent arsenal that comprises dual mini SMGs, a shotgun and the trademark 56 caliber pistols. You'll not only shoot dinosaurs or lions, but also objects from the environment in order to move them, trigger some traps or just open doors. At the game's beginning, after a neat cutscene, you're taken to the main menu and greeted by a quality soundtrack. If you're trying to start the game, you'll be prompted to choose between the medium, easy and hard difficulty modes. You should always remember to look for relics, if you've been waiting an eternity to see Lara dressed more casually or in a sexy outfit. Such unlockables are available after the completion of certain trials and by gathering the above-mentioned items. You'll unlock about 10 costumes, some commentaries and parts of the soundtrack.
Tomb Raider: Anniversary can be a great game if you're a fan of the series and an extremely frustrating one if you're new to Lara's universe. One thing that bothered me about this game was the continuous grabbing and hanging on I had to do by pressing the R2 button. That stopped once I realized that using the button was optional and I could set the auto-grab on from the game's menu. All the locations and environments in the latest installment in the Tomb Raider series are taken from the original game, expanded, filled with deadly creatures and puzzles that would make the Cnossos Labyrinth jealous. Like most of the post-God of War games nowadays, Anniversary also features the famous cineractives, those gameplay sequences that are part of the cutscenes and only require you to press certain buttons in order to perform some superb combos. We saw this in Spider-Man 3 and even in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - the Jackanisms.
However, in this game, the cineractives are extremely basic, as they only require the gamer to press one or two buttons. What's cool about them is that they're unpredictable, popping out at the very moment you're resting your mind and fingers, while watching a cutscene. It really adds to the whole experience, making you feel that you're part of the game's action. The environments that surround Lara are highly interactive and you'll be able to shoot certain key objects that trigger pre-defined events. For example, you'll shoot a huge rock in order to make it roll, or a statue in order to make it drop the weight it's holding. Don't worry about the shooting part, because the autolock is here to save the day, but there's also a nice aiming view that appears if you press the right analog stick vertically, or what we call the R3 button. This great shooting angle is more useful when you're looking for details, rather than improving your aim and I can't help noticing that it resembles the famous Resident Evil 4 camera angle.
Gameplay Aside from the funky wall-walking and the lack of enemies, the game features a very nice concept called adrenaline dodge. The few enemies you'll fight (specially the most resilient ones) will become angry and charge towards you. Well, when this happens you'll be able to press the circle button and trigger a bullet time event that will give you a chance to hit their weak spot. Usually that spot is the animal's head and you'll just have to wait for two crosshairs to join and turn red to see that it's time to shoot and kill the beast. So, it seems that we've got Matrix and Jurassic Park in one single gameplay event, where I'm chased by three raptors and Lara decides that it's time to make a bullet time attack and kill them all. Aside from the dirty job of fighting four-legged creatures, Miss Croft will swing on ropes and poles, that are usually placed above dark and bottomless pits. She'll also be able to climb higher on a rope or descend if she wants to increase or decrease the length of her swing. I could say that you'll spend about 60% of the game hanging on ledges, the ones you'll notice on every wall of the surrounding environments.
Lara's natural enemies are, as you might already know, arrows, spears, huge swords, blocks of rock, walls and about any trap that can be set inside a many-century-old tomb. The only thing you'll get from seeing Lara die because of one of these traps is the satisfaction of hearing her scream, complemented by the frustration of the fact that you're reseted to the previous checkpoint. Anniversary features and autosave function that will only work between various missions, so you'll be using the checkpoints for the rest of the time. So, if you're having a power failure and you're about 90% done in a level it's "Bye! Bye!" and you'll have to start all over again. Pray that it doesn't happen while looking for certain keys named after Greek gods, but you'll see what I'm talking about when you get to that level. It was nice to see that I'm not the only one that has to face the traps, because your enemies can also get wiped out by them. For example I was being chased by a Raptor in a huge corridor, that I knew quite well. Since it was filled with traps and the beast suffered some temporary blindness attack it followed me and got hit by a few arrows, getting killed.
The player will be able to interact with some objects like boxes, blocks or rocks and move them around by grabbing and pushing them by pressing the triangle button. We've mentioned puzzles before, but it would be a real pity to forget the underwater sequences that still torment some gamers' sleep. They're the classic swimming and searching for the switch quests, with the frustration of watching your oxygen meter get depleted and the life meter afterwards. If Miss Croft can trigger a bullet-time event, why couldn't she run on walls? What's more, she can use the grapple hook, start swinging in a room filled with pointy steel swords AND run on walls. How about that for an action hero? There is a tendency to get lost or feel lost in Anniversary, but it quickly disappears when you notice that all the ledges and edges you can grab on are whiter and shinier than the rest of the environment. Also the points where you can use the grappling hook are signaled by a small icon showing the square button and the direction of the grapple point.
Hail to the analog control as it will be the one used to control the sexy Lara, while the D-pad changes your weapon or uses an item from your inventory. In case you're lacking health, feel free to use medipacks, either small or large ones. All of your items will be stored in a rotative menu that can be easily accessed and it also holds a journal filled with hints in case you're stuck. Lara's getting old, or it would seem so, judging by the clumsy moves she can do every once in a while. Anniversary features an innovative pole hopping concept, but if you leave Lara sitting at the top of a ledge or pole for more than 5 seconds, she'll start slipping and falling towards her death unless you balance her by pressing the triangle button. That can also happen after performing lengthy jumps, that seem impossible to complete. One of the most exciting moments in the game was the fight against a huge T-Rex (are there any tiny T-Rexes in games?!), an extremely tense confrontation and you could feel the pressure of the AI as the gigantic creature charged towards you. Too bad for the T-Rex that it always rammed into a wall bumping its head and losing health.
Video I didn't expect Anniversary to be such a collection of eye candy and great-looking sequences. However you should do some serious tweaking to your TV and video options if you want to see in the tombs' darkness, specially when it comes to grabbing those highlighted edges. A little downside of the graphics would be that the enemies disappear after they get wasted, but this is a Playstation 2 game after all and the producers can't do magic with a pretty old console. The vegetation, architecture, general atmosphere can really make a gamer's day, specially if he's a die-hard Tomb Raider fan searching for a new thrill. Also, unlike the titles I've played recently, the game features some realistic water flow. After seeing the pixelled blue jelly that was called "water" in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, some skinny dipping in the huge waterfall featured in Anniversary is a true blessing.
Lara's shadow and the lighting effects create a package that's pretty easy to enjoy and even adore, if you like paying attention to this sort of details. There is a major flaw with the game's camera angle, but that's nothing new for a console. However, in certain gameplay sequences it can be really frustrating to try and jump to a location you can't see. That's the upper hand that the PC games and mouse usage have on the joysticks and console titles.
Sound There were times during Anniversary's gameplay when I thought that I was crazy, because I couldn't hear any music. It's true, it seems that the music is lacking from some parts of the game, being only replaced by environmental noises like water dripping or raptors screaming. The few times you can actually hear a song, you'll adore the orchestral score, that's good enough to be featured in any of the blockbuster movies being released nowadays. The lions, gorillas, panthers, dinosaurs and all the other critters play their part by growling, howling and attacking you, complementing the atmosphere with the finishing touch.
Conclusion Tomb Raider: Anniversary is a great title, a reward for the fans and a true reason to celebrate the 10 years that we've spent watching Lara solving puzzles and shooting her foes. This is probably the last Tomb Raider we'll ever see on the Playstation 2 and we're eagerly awaiting for a strictly next-gen title. Otherwise, we're witnessing an evolution of the series and good old Lara hasn't aged a bit, so we hope that the series is truly returning to its roots and not just offering us a remake of the first title. Just hope we'll see such quality in more titles and before we reach the Anniversary 2 edition 10 years from now.
