Tomb Raider Anniversary
by Eidos Interactive
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Video Game Reviews of Tomb Raider Anniversary
Customer Review: Wonderful. But too much of a good thing, perhaps
Summary: 4 Stars
First the good news - this is a fantastic game in many ways. All the things you'd hope for in a 3rd person adventure are duly accounted for: Good, grab it and go controls without any annoying button combinations, gorgeous graphics with great variety and occasional outright beauty, good character movement that isn't spoiled by the need for complicated button work, and lots of interesting puzzles to solve.
It also has one of the best save systems I've ever seen, something so many games get so wrong. You pass checkpoints constantly, and can save at each one. When you return to the game later, even after turning off the console, you have the choice to resume (start at the most recent saved checkpoint) or load (start back at the beginning of the current level). Beautiful. You don't lose progress, and if you find out you missed something important, you can always start the level over to get it.
So what's the bad news? Well, it all gets to be a bit much, frankly. I like "platforming" games a lot, but to me it seems there's just too much platforming and not enough of anything else. I'm about 80% through, and every area has been basically the same: Walk in and get ambushed by a critter or two, then spend the next couple of hours wall climbing, jumping, pole-swinging, crevice crawling and wall running. That was fun for about the first 50%, but now it's just repetitious and quickly becoming tedious.
I understand that this is an old-school platformer and the game's focus is right for that, but I just can't help getting bored with it now that I'm most of the way through. The infrequent bosses have been a nice diversion (they take some effort but aren't ridiculously hard), and again, the environments are really cool. I love all those ancient ruins with their mechanizations, puzzles and traps. But now I'm bored and just plugging on to get it over with. Once you've had a look around at the wonderful scenery and get down to work, it's just the same old thing over and over.
I want to love this game for all it's talents, but the gameplay is wearing thin. Hardcore platformers will probably love every moment, but I'm not quite -that- hardcore.
The good:
Scenery and graphics
Controls
Character movement
Cool ancient environments
Perfect save system
Very well-behaved camera
The bad:
Endless platforming gets tedious, not much else happens
So that's not much bad compared to the good. This review might have seemed a bit too negative up to this point, but I'd like to stress it's benefits here and now. It's a nearly flawless example of the platforming breed. I highly recommend it for serious platformers. If you'd like a little more variety to go along with all your creeping, crawling, jumping and swinging, you might want to consider something with a little more action mixed in.
Customer Review: The Way A Remake Should Be Done
Summary: 5 Stars
Tomb Raider Anniversary is a perfect example of what a remake should be and should be done. This game just isn't a graphic overhaul; it's a great impovement in control (ala TR Legend), bigger maps, and general gameplay.
Players who enjoyed the original Tomb Raider on the Playstation will find many things familiar; while all gamers will also find many new aspects that keep this game fresh and exciting throughout.
Iffy camera controls are about the only real negative in the game. Some frustrating jumps and timed puzzles exist here-and-there, but that makes the game challenging.
This is a great game to own for Tomb Raider fans old and new. For the price, this game is a steal. This is what a remake should be and how remakes should be done.
Customer Review: HELP...BUGS....BUGS....BUGS
Summary: 1 Stars
I loved this game until I entered the second level and there was a bug preventing me from jumping onto a rather close ledge, the game rocked until this point, if anyone knows the bug I am talking about in the second level and knows how to get passed this jump, please let me know, until then this game gets a 1 star because there is no zero, it would have been a perfect ten but the bug prevents me from progressing on my PS2
HELP ME PLEASE!!
Customer Review: A fitting tribute to the original
Summary: 5 Stars
I will say this and only this: If you liked the original Tomb Raider ,circa 1996, you will like the Anniversary edition. Same storyline, better graphics, a few more tools, new game-play elements and the ever sexy Lara Croft help to make this a very enjoyable game to play through "again." I actually never played Tomb Raider Legends which Anniversary borrows the engine and control scheme from, but it didn't take long for me to get used to the controls and remember how much fun it was to guide Lara through the game. Great game and I can hope that this is not the last time we see Ms. Croft. Customer Review: Mad... but loving it
Summary: 4 Stars
Let me get the negative thing out of my system first. The bosses in this game are horrible to beat even on the difficulty level of "easy". They've made it so you just can't "shoot" the boss anymore. You have to perform certain tricks in a certain order to win the fight. I've never been so mad at a game in my entire life. With that out of the way. I love this game. I loved the original. The graphics are great and the design of the levels is not overly complex. The levels are not even as complex as the original but that is a good thing (makes up for the boss fights). Ultimately, I can see myself playing this game again and again and I do recomend it.