Tomb Raider Anniversary (PC) review.

Okay let me first start off by saying that I took screenshots but apparently they like to hide them in some deep dark cave in your computer file structure cuz i’ll be damned if i could find them. I guess that ensures a sequel, PC RAIDER! Anyways no pix for j00. Sorry!

So Lara is back.. Well sorta.. It’s a remake of her original first tomb raider, and for the most part is well done! well.. Mostly…

I wont bother with the storyline since you all already know it.. What i’ll jump right into is the game play and graphics. First off, let me start with the graphics. Lara has never looked better.. Well… thats a lie, in Legend she was pretty damn hot in that black dress. And dont ge tme wrong Legend probably only looked better becuase we got more enviroment types and less ‘generic ruins’, but hell, that’s what tomb raider 1 was all about. But these textures are much much much sharper and clearer, hell 10 years later they SHOULD be. Lara looks nice, very nice, I’m glad they didnt exhagerate her boobs more than they needed to, yes she has large boobs, get over it! (she also has a nice bum!). When lara gets wet, her body and clothes drip  for a few minutes after getting out, this is a nice touch, and while not as impressive as newer games (drakes fortune for instance) its still nice to see developers putting in this added touch.  Over all the game is pleasent to look at and runs at a super smooth silky frame rate on any newer end cards (8800GTS 320 meg here).

Next the controll…. Well lara handles pretty nicely! again if you played legend, there’s no secrets here.. One thing that was a semi welcome edition was the Y button (on 360 controllers) will often times be used to speed up lara on a ledge or climbing a ladder, I love this interactive immednsely, instead of taping your thumbstick up while you go get a hot chocolate and wait for lara to climb the empire state building of ladders, you tap this bad boy a few times and she hustles right up the ladder, same with long ledges. Very nice little touch to help me feel like I’m really pushing her along. My biggest gripe with controlls is probably more with the 360 controll, the way it angles your hand means that when you are technically pushing straight up, Lara is walking at a slight angle to the right, This made me fall off a few boxes right as I jumped more than a few times. It was minorly frustrating but dealable.  Other than that, slamming buttons watching her doing awesome-tastic acrobatic movies with guns drawn is quiet amusic and very hollywood-esque! Bravo on style points!

 Combat, Ahhh the wanking donkey dick reveals itself.. Combat is a bloody damn mess in this game. I am guessing they wanted to stay true to the previous tomb raiders but, well it just sucks ass.  Why? Well firslty, every damn enime besides bats and rats, takes about 40 bullets to kill. I’m not saying a raptor isn’t tough, but if you have 2 baretta’s or colt or whatever the hell she’s using, and you empty 40 bullets into one, he’s going to be nothing but swish cheese as that point. Which leads me to this dodge head shot move thing.. I’m not wild about that either.. Bucuase i played on the PC and becuase they taught me about this move long before i was REALLY required to use it (i.e. the FIRST “boss” fight with the T-rex. I spent about 30 minutes just trying to get this move down becuase i could see my objective was to get the t-rex to charge me, then hit the spikey pillary things. And i found it didnt ALWAYS work, sometimes i’d hit the button and jump and he’d take a lucious bite out of my ass. Crunch! A little frustrating.. After you get the hang of it its not too bad, but comon, are we actually expected to use this thing when 4 enemes are raping us?

Which brings me to the HORRIBLE enemy bullshit of this game. First off whenever you fight shit in groups of more than, ohhh say.. ONE!, you’ll get raped generally. Why? Becuase they’ll attack you.. Knock your ass down, and while you spend countless millenia trying to stand up, they’ll camp your body, and just attack you again before you can even get away or target them again. THAT IS IF their BOYFRIEND doesnt rape you first. Lets face it, 2 enemies taking turns knocking you down is the epodime of ASS FLAVORED CHOCOLATE GAMEY GOODNESS. Who thinks this is fun? Whats with that shotgun too? It’s HORRID.  “Aha wolfy creature thing? !you’re in my sights, point blank range.. and KAPOW! oh , i see your immune to point blank shotgun fire.. hmm maybe this FEATHER Will do the trick!” the shot gun was worthless, why? cuz you have to be CLOSE to use it, yet at close its not very effective, i’m sure it does more damage, but if its not pushing my enemies back or stopping them dead in their tracks, can you give me 1 good reason why I want to let them get into attacking range to do 1.2x damage to them when i can run away and use my regular unlimited handguns far more effectively? That’s right you cant, cuz this was a POOR implimentation of a shotgun.

Which brings me to a FURTHER point, the targeting system in this game sucks as well.. Somehow it decides it wasnt to auto target something and its a hassle to switch to something else (usually CLOSER), why doesnt it just auto target who’s closeset no matter what? Better yet, how about the guns NOT shoot THROUGH the godamn wolf who is leaping at my face to hit the one i have targeted behind him, Yup thats right, Countless times i’d have the shitgun, oh i mean SHOTGUN, out and aimed at that guy over there in the corner, here comes wolfy’s boyfriend up in front of me, ahh i’ll just shoot him… NO YOU WONT YOU ARE AIMING AT THIS GUY PAST HIM SO THATS WHO YOU ARE GONNA SHOOT! AND YOU’LL LIKE IT! Craptastic! Thanks I died again cuz the game knows what i want more than i do! STicky targeting not so good, I tried other options in the menu but they seemed to do little, and at this point i didnt care anymore i just wanted the nightmare to be over.. Eventually i got the uzi’s and life was good again cuz they actually do damage and kill rather quickly.

I cant finish this review without bitching about the godamn flying imps with fire balls.. Why is it i allways have to fight 2 of these? Better yet, why is it that their godamn fire balls knock me down, no, WAIT, they dont know me down, FIRST They have me stumbling backwards for a good 2 seconds, THEN i casually fall down, and take another 2 seconds to stand up and bush myself off.. Why is it that each of these bitches shoots every 4 seconds, therefor pretty much creating and endless cycle of me stumbling and getting up to immediately get shot again and stumble back down.. OH YEAH the godamn fireballs have SPLASH Damage.. cuz this is definately DOOM RAIDER.  These enemys were complete total and utter bullshit. I dont remember from 1996 but if you say they were there.. I guess i gotta believe it..  BIG ASS thumbs down on this aspect of the game..

Boss fights again are a little loose, and mostly base off the whole ‘dodge headshot’ system. Once you figure out the patterns and what you are supposed to do, its not bad in theory, i just doesnt feel as tight and clean as it could have been. I had the same problem with legend, I struggled alot with the boss battles becuase they were just kind of un-polished.

The level layout themselfs is generally the gem of this game. It’s allways delightful to hang from ledges and leap to others, watch lara pull herself up, make that giant leap you are sure you cant make only to have her grab on with one hand and you save the day by hitting the Y button to get her to re-grip it. There’s something about climbing things and hanging from them that is fun and marketable.. Eh Assasins Creed? I have to agree with Zero punctuation , it is a bitch when you cant see WHERE you’re jumping too, the camera can get quite bad in this game and half the time you cant see the opposite direction lara is trying to jump. Also it really sucks whn you get into a wall run action and the camera is at a 90 degree angle and now all of a sudden the ‘left’ that you were holding to go left is now DOWN and she slaps on the brakes and just stands on the wall. utterly frustrating, I have a BIG Issue with game that update the controlls as the camera movies and espically when it does a damn ‘FLIP’ when down becomes left or left becomes RIGHT or some other wacky shit. Its un-neccessary and annoying, and it happens to a small degree here.

I have to point out that the last level or 2 of TRA feels very hashed together at the last minute, I swear it wasn’t in the original game and it can get very frustrating, it feels like it wasn’t as solid or tested as much as the previous levels, as there’s little things like stepping in a crack of lava melting you or jumps that need to be ABSOLUTELY timed perfectly, when the game itself has laggy issues with the controlls. Often times if i am slide off a ledge and I jump (or run and jump) and then immediately try to hit the button to grapple (yes i got the prompt to do so) it would not register becuase i was hitting the button too fast. I’m not lighting bolt speed freak, it just wont accept quick action and it sucked on occasion and towards the very end, there’s some jumps where right as you land you are sliding and nearly sliding off the edge almost immediatly, i couldn’t ever even get this jump so i just ran and jumped at an angle and was still able to graple onto the area i needed to be, I dont think they MEANT for it to be cheated this way, but i feel this whole last level (you know the level if you beat it, my favorite godamn imps are there,  and your’ climbing an alien level pit chamber shit hole thing) was just tossed together without much time left to make it good. the game just falls apart on these last levels, But forutnately i had enough determination to finish the game.  The last boss fight is is a push over for the most part of course it didnt hurt that I had a kajillion health backpacks. The fight probably lasted me 20 minutes.

I do have to make a quick comment how much I like the voice actor they got for lara in this game. I really hated angilina jolie as tomb raider, big lips and polished hair in your face does not a tomb raider make.  The voice actor in this game really pulls of british well, i’d say she probably IS british, and she does the acting with sincere surprise, perplexment and vanere. I’m glad they chose her and I think/hope she’s the same gal from legend. Hopefully she’ll stick around, Becuase lara was allways a curious acrobatic yet still fragile and cautious hero, and i didnt like the movie adaptation making her an invincible bad ass who is better than everyone else.

In the end i have to say this game was alright. If it was this frustrating originally then I just loose my temper easier now. You’re better off playing Legend instead, it’s a better game IMO or at least I dont remember quite as many frustrating moments, Even still, it mostly players solid and only about 20% of the game is ruined by stupid combat and sloppy level design at the end. Becuse of that.. My verdict is..

8/10