The environments are your biggest adversaries most of the time in Anniversary, though through your exploration you'll regularly run into some antagonistic fauna like rats, bats, wolves, bears, tigers, gorillas, raptors, and the occasional Tyrannosaurus Rex. Combat is limited to gunplay, which operates with a simple lock-on system, and Lara can also tumble and flip through the air while keeping a bead on an enemy. New to Anniversary is the adrenaline dodge, which at specific moments allows Lara to dodge a charging enemy in slow motion. When time slows, a target will also slowly move toward the enemy, and if you fire the weapon right at the moment it locks on, it'll produce an instant kill, usually when the ferocious beast is just inches away from your face. It still feels like Tomb Raider combat, which has always been a minor part of the experience, but the adrenaline dodge is a nice little touch that adds a little more drama to the action. Tomb Raider: Anniversary also makes use of the same type of interactive cutscenes seen in Tomb Raider: Legend, where you'll have to quickly react to an onscreen button cue to keep Lara alive. It allows for some beautifully choreographed action sequences, but they're rarely very challenging.
What keeps Tomb Raider: Anniversary engaging throughout is the strength of the gameplay, as well as the quality of the presentation. Even though you're basically just going from one tomb to another, they feature enough individual detail to make them unique. The environments are also huge, using the occasional curvy hallway to mask load times, and aside from some minor gameplay contrivances, they feel pretty real. Lara looks great and moves with a natural grace that makes her incredible acrobatic feats look feasible instead of ridiculously superhuman, and the various wildlife you confront also moves convincingly. It's the little touches that bring the whole thing together: the way water glistens on Lara's skin when she gets out of the water, the way light refracts differently when she's underwater, or the tangible difference in atmosphere between different locales.
It's almost enough to make you forget about Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness.
While the PS2 version doesn't look bad by any measure, a heavy layer of aliasing mars the presentation. The game can be played in widescreen, but we found the progressive scan support to have an inconsistent effect. On certain sets it smoothed out a lot of the sharp edges, while on others it made textures look muddy and text unreadable. The PC version fares much better, with support for higher resolutions and a generally crisper, cleaner look. It's also a really great-sounding game. You'll hear plenty of small ambient effects like animal calls and dripping water, and Lara's grunts and yelps as she scales these incredible antiquities will resonate differently depending on the size of the room. Music is generally used sparingly, but it always swells to a flourish at all the right moments.
Tomb Raider: Legend did a lot to make Lara Croft feel relevant again, and Tomb Raider: Anniversary is another step in the right direction. The acrobatic action is consistently exciting and challenging throughout, and despite being a remake, the experience feels new and fresh. This is the best Tomb Raider game in years, and for the first time in a long time, that actually means something.
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Where to buy
Tomb Raider: Anniversary (PC):
$5.00 - $8.65
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
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$8.65 | Yes |
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Inetvideo.com
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$5.00 | No |
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