Anniversary suffers and only manages to accomplish the weak task of giving a fresh coat of paint to a decade old game.
Many of the locations are genuinely interesting and well designed; “ring” menu is back.
Bad
Puzzles lack any challenge; plot is barely there; game inexplicably gives Lara a grappler hook; controls are a little wonky – Lara will miss jumps (a lot) where she should have made contact; game only casts a shadow for Lara; graphics are generally weak – lack of next-gen options is glaring; music is dull.
Remakes are a sketchy thing in the gaming world, especially so when the developer remaking the game isn’t the same developer that created the original. Such is the situation in which Eidos Interactive and in-house studio Crystal Dynamics find themselves in with Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary. Core Design hammered out the original blockbuster in 1996 and probably would have loved to hammer out this remake as well had they not shuttered their doors in early 2006, the result of having their most (and only) money making franchise snatched away during what was arguably the only real turning point in Lara’s life. Angel of Darkness, Lara’s 2003 outing didn’t fare so well despite bringing the series into all three dimensions and bringing something to the table that the series had never really been known for – an actual plot. In response, Eidos Interactive forcefully purchased the Tomb Raider rights away from Core Design and essentially sealed the studio’s fate. Then, satisfied that Tomb Raider was no longer in danger of being driven into the ground, an observation some weren’t found of, Eidos handed over development reigns to Crystal Dynamics of Soul Reaver fame. The outset of this period became Tomb Raider: Legend and while exceptionally heavy on improvements to the franchise – namely fluid movement and a compelling plot – this game didn’t fare so well either. It seemed that the public was perfectly happy to have the buxom brunette simply traversing a random set of tombs and have that be that. So, it’s unsurprising that Anniversary lets go of most of the improvements the series has made writing wise and gets back to the basics – tomb raiding and enough story to fill the brain of your average ant. The combination doesn’t entirely work too well in this day and age, unfortunately coming across as either boring or frustrating. Anniversary is nothing more than a present to the fans and while it does that well enough, it doesn’t do being a game very well at all.
Going into a full review of Anniversary would be a waste of both time and energy, as Anniversary hardly seems a full game itself. The lack of next-generation graphics options and the game’s availability for only three systems make the fact that this game is geared as a budget priced fan service to Lara’s teeming millions all the more obvious; a fact that isn’t going to be diluted at any time during your play through the game’s dull and tedious campaign.
Anniversary is built atop the Tomb Raider Legend engine and therefore contains many of the improvements that were introduced with Legend last year. Lara’s movements are phenomenally more fluid and lifelike than they were a decade ago and so are the environments she explores. Unfortunately, the one thing that Anniversary is missing is the feeling that Lara is actually doing something worthwhile. The game begins and ends heavily light on plot. The few sequences that are scattered throughout the game are poorly written and acted, and many of them follow the same basic premise: Lara finds a new room, defeats a boss and is confronted with one of her rival characters. Overall, the game is about Lara’s search for the secrets of the long lost Atlantis, in the hope that it can help her inch ever closer to her father’s work in search of her dead mother, but it unfortunately doesn’t really elaborate on this subject other than some brief voice overs provided by Lara’s father and her brief and all too infrequent chirps about him.
As for the tomb raiding itself, it’s frustrating and derives all its challenge from that frustration. The puzzles are brain numbingly simple to the extent that you’ll be able to figure out any one of them with a few quick glances at your surroundings. This lack of challenge and the frustration of the game’s platforming elements will bring it down to the level of a chore before you’re even complete with the first level.
The visuals in the game are on par with the next-generation lacking version of Legend, which means they don’t look very good at all. The only thing in the game that casts a shadow is Lara and this makes you wonder why they even bothered to include the options for shadow rendering in the first place. Any system capable of running Anniversary in the first place would most likely be able to render a full scene of shadows anyways. Aside from that, the game’s water shader is simply horrible. Lara doesn’t reflect in it and it looks as though it’s crawling up her leg. This lack of quality is one of the least appealing parts of Anniversary. Not only does it play and feel like a budget title, it looks like one too.
In the end Anniversary suffers and only manages to accomplish the weak task of giving a fresh coat of paint to a decade old game. Unfortunately, Crystal Dynamics failed to act on so many chances of opportunity with Anniversary –the ability to flesh out a storyline with solid writing and acting, a chance at sharpening and tuning the Legend engine’s platforming mechanics, and improving the engine’s horrible shaders. The consequences are an essentially unfinished game and one hell of a boring experience.