Finally the slate is wiped clean and Lara Croft is once again sitting on the Playstation throne.
One of my favourite days in recent memory was on Hogmanay. Somehow I managed to con my way out of working that traditionally busy day and I spent the last day of 2006 raiding my music collection looking for old classics I had forgotten. While I listened to them I played the first Tomb Raider. The idea to replay the classic game had been running around in my head for a while, ever since I heard, to my horror, that Crystal Dynamics were going to remake the game on a PS2 format. I was truly gutted. My view of this was similar to my view on George Lucas sticking a bunch of digital effects into the original Star Wars trilogy – you don’t paint over a Picasso just coz it doesn’t look realistic. What exactly could they do to improve upon an already brilliant game? I was sure they were going to run the series into the ground for good.
Fast forward to last Wednesday when the game arrived. (Yes, I had it pre-ordered months in advance. I may be worried, but it was Tomb Raider of course I was going to buy it. If I could play through Angel of Darkness, I could play through anything.) Into the machine it went and as the old theme kicked in from the first game I found myself relaxing a bit. As I started to play the game my fears were dispelled almost immediately. The Same But Different
The game opens up pretty much the same as the original in terms of story, and yet the opening of the doors into the cave was the first big change. In the original we watched an FMV of Lara climbing up and flipping the switch. Here we actually do it. Once we’ve watched a cut scene of her taking on a bunch of wolves, she steps into the tomb. The doors slam behind her, she whips of her shades and raises an eyebrow – exactly as she does in the original. This immediately tells the player two things:
1. The game if faithful to the spirit of the original.
2. If you watched it in the original, you do it here.
In Anniversary, it’s actually not so much what you do, but how you do it that has changed. There are some new puzzles thrown in, and they’re good, but the main focus is on taking the original puzzles that we remember so well and enhancing them. The cog puzzle in The Lost Valley level, for example. In it’s simplest form, the goal is the same: find three cogs, put them into the mechanism to operate the damn that will stop the flow of water and allow access to the Tomb of Qualepec. But while the basics are the same, in this game you have to climb up the mechanism, swinging on poles and platforms that are constantly turning with the gears. Remember the small sphinx at the beginning of the Egypt level, after blowing a mummy to hell, you climb up on to a block, and then onto another block and then flip a switch behind the sphinx. Your goal is the same – flip the switch. But now you have to climb up a pillar, work your way across several platforms, a bit of wall running that takes you all the way around this room and puts you in the only place you can jump down to the back of the sphinx to flip the switch. The same but different.
Good Graphics Do Not A Good Game Maketh (But Atmospheric Ones Do)
If they had just slapped some new graphics onto the old game it would have been awful. The great thing about the original was that the graphics were atmospheric, you really felt that you were a in some lost tomb that hadn’t been stepped into in a thousand years and was in an advanced state of decay. They’ve stayed true to that in the re-make. One of my favourite levels was always the Cistern. It wasn’t the stand out level of the game, but what I always loved was the atmosphere of that level. The huge room filled up with water and you could see the mould growing in the corners. Hell, you could almost smell the dampness. When I stepped into the Cistern in the re-make, I could have wept with happiness. It’s absolutely beautiful (if you consider a dank, mouldy sewer to have beauty). This is the norm for the whole game. Even in their decay, the tombs/caves/big pools of water come to life in the most beautiful ways possible. Lara’s world is alive and thriving and you feel like you could step through the telly and into the ancient Egyptian tomb to have a look around (after she’s delt with the freaky mummies, of course…)
It’s Time For A Cut Scene
What they’ve done with this re-make is taken all of the really memorable moments and milked them for all they’re worth. Everyone remembers the first time the first time the t-rex came charging towards them, so they’ve turned that into a bigger boss battle. The statues coming to life outside the Tomb of Tihocan is another. There are both shown in cut scenes and at first I was disappointed at this, but as I watched again, I realised it actually adds to the drama, showing Lara’s reactions, and in the latter the death of Pierre. Other great moments include the first time she sees one of the mummy creatures (only to realise one of them are standing behind her!) and the creatures bursting out of their cocoons in the great pyramid. It’s hard not to be smiling while watching these scenes unfold. It’s like old memories that lay dormant suddenly awake and you remember how you felt seeing this all years ago. Like I said earlier, they honour the spirit of the original.
The New Stuff
Yeah, there’s some new puzzles, but it’s kept to a minimum. One that jumps to mind is at the end of Natla’s Mines. In order to access the Great Pyramid, you have to climb up some rocks then leap over onto some pedestals, and leaps from one to the other jumping on certain ones to unlock the door below. Its really to show off Lara’s new standing on top of polls and small pillars move, but it looks wicked cool once you figure out how to pull them off successfully. Another new puzzle is in the Sanctuary of the Scion level, in which you have to go to two roons to get the two keys to open the door. The puzzles in both room involve raising four pillars to open a door to the room with the key. Despite the execution of this being slightly different in both rooms, it’s essentially just the same puzzle repeated and gets somewhat boring the second time around. The adrenalin rush is another new addition and works better than the matrix style slo-mo from Legends. It’ll take a few turns before you get the hang of it, but one you do nothing fells better than taking down the centaurs with a head shot.
Last Thoughts
The re-make is a success. My fears were dispelled completely and I’m now delighted that it happened. I will always love the original, but this is going to be remembered as a classic in it’s own right. It’s an example to everyone of what a re-make can be if its handled properly and with respect to the original source material. You see, Tomb Raider Anniversary is good. Like, REALLY good. It’s everything I wanted Legends to be, but it never quite got there. I hope this has been a learning experience for Crystal Dynamics. Going through the original (and lets face it, still the best) has shown them how to really make a Tomb Raider game. The future’s bright for Miss Croft.