Hello again, old friend
I played the original Tomb Raider around the time Tomb Raider III came out. After buying Tomb Raider: Legend to see how Lara Croft is getting along these days and then winning Tomb Raider: Anniversary on steamgifts, I decided to start with the one that’s likely to be somewhat familiar. It’s been long enough for me that the first three Tomb Raiders all blend together in my mind, so what I remembered as the beginning of the original may have been the beginning of Tomb Raider II, but certainly wasn’t the beginning of Anniversary. Oh and back then my computer wouldn’t play the cutscenes from Tomb Raider so “the beginning” to me was when you actually start the first level.
Or maybe I just didn’t remember the cutscenes and story because even while playing Anniversary I frequently forgot the larger picture while all alone in a tomb focused on how I might get Lara to that next doorway. There’s probably less forgetting where you are in Anniversary in 1080p than there was in the original at 640×480 (or was it 800×600 by then?) due to loads more visual detail, but you’re still there by yourself (except for the dinosaurs, panthers, rats, etc. who attack you on sight). The cutscenes now are interactive, in that you have to press direction keys at certain points . . . or see Lara fail and have to attempt the cutscene again. To me interactive cutscenes are a chore (I’d rather sit back and just watch), but hopefully that’s not everyone. The story did start to get somewhat real toward the end where a cutscene has Lara make a questionable decision I didn’t agree with, and then is shown regretting her action immediately after as well as in the next few cutscenes.
The climbing and jumping is as satisfying as ever, including accidental falls to the death. I’m sure I’m not the only one who makes Lara dive from the top of a rocky cave knowing full well there’s nothing but rock to land on below! The only times it got frustrating is when pressing what seemed to be the correct controls for what I wanted Lara to do translated into her doing something else . . . 5 times in a row. Generally this happened when swinging on poles and sliding on slopes near walls, where the camera angle would change abruptly and you should have pressed left now instead of forward as a result. I started to learn when the camera was going to move (after failing once) and adjusting my strategy accordingly instead of trying to swing the camera back where I expected it to be using the mouse. This probably happened less than once per level and the rest of the times I died it was my own fault and usually entertaining. Actually, one of the changing camera angle spots was actually frustrating and then hilarious each time, because pressing the wrong direction resulted in Lara falling into the lava below (I probably did this 20+ times, never on purpose).
Back to the familiarity I was expecting, I’d say less than half of Anniversary felt like I’d done it before. I’m sure part of that is due to my memory, but they did say they changed parts of the levels rather than simply re-skin the thing with better graphings. Lara wears the same teal tank top and beige shorts the whole time (though I may have unlocked different outfits I didn’t bother figuring out how to use), even in snow. Again, I appreciate Tomb Raider for the sweet moves you can get Lara to do more than for the weather-appropriateness of her outfit. They also added boob physics, which you can see in effect at the menu screen if you just wait for Lara to stretch her arms and then bounce on her toes.
It’s probably been a while since you played the original Tomb Raider (or maybe you didn’t play it at all), so for $10 on Steam (or by luck on steamgifts), it’s most likely worth it. I spent 17 hours playing all the way through and the familiar parts were like seeing an old friend again.
