OP2M UK Gives Tomb Raider: Anniversary Very High Marks

Casual D · Apr 22, 2007

Since you bastards don't even view my TR thread nor reply to it when I make updates, I thought I'd make a whole new post to get your attention.

The Official Playstation 2 UK Magazine just got their hands on Tomb Raider: Anniversary and gave it a higher score than Legend. Take a look!

A 'reimagining' of the nearly-11-year-old original PS1 title, Anniversary puts Lara's classic, virgin outing through the up-to-date game engine of Legend. It's a fusion of old ideas and new technology that works well.

How so? First and foremost, Anniversary shows great respect to the things that made Tomb Raider such a hit when it debuted. Like the original, it prioritises a sense of adventure above everything else as it follows Lara's quest to unearth Atlantis, via tombs raided in Peru, Greece and Egypt.

If Legend was your first lump of Lara, then Anniversary's going to be a shock. There's little gunplay, and far fewer popcorn moments involving mounted guns, frantic motorbike rides, button-prompt action sequences and the like. You'll spend most of your time alone - an important part of the game's ambience - and the enemies you do face are rarely human.

There are still action scenes that require well-timed button presses, but they're infrequent and much more restrained by comparison to Legend, so they shouldn't annoy even the most fanatical of those who hold the original dear. There are a handful of other additions, but they're not excessive or invasive enough to taint the game's strengths. The major strength is this: very few games do environmental puzzling as well as Tomb Raider did, and Anniversary does.

That's not to say each stage is filled with puzzles; the levels themselves often are the puzzles, which just goes to show the scale and intricacy involved. Often, some of the grander setups can be testing, but that's why there's such a satisfying payoff when you find the solution.

There are moments when your next step is staring you in the face, but you lose it among the scenery; you slap yourself once you spot it, but there are a handful of times when you feel it's the fault of the game, rather than you.

By and large, though, this is a playground built from some serious spatial logic, with epic conundrums that feel intensely good to solve when everything slots into place and you move on to the next section. Incidentally, the stages are now streamed, so there are only loading screens when you move between countries - a minor touch but effective.

Anniversary also provides that classic Tomb Raider atmosphere of solitude, the feeling that you really are creeping around long-forgotten, mystical and enigmatic vaults and chambers that haven't heard human footsteps in centuries. The perfectly moody music buffers that sensation well and the infamous sights - the Colosseum, the tomb of King Midas, the Sphinx - still wow, especially if you're a return visitor. Indeed, having pleasant memories of Tomb Raider re-ignited is a lovely sensation, as well as testament to how much Anniversary sticks to the roadmap of the original.

And that's a good summary of the experience awaiting you. When it all works it feels as good as your memories of the first game do. But there will be times when it won't work as smoothly as you'd have liked. Lara can still misbehave on rare occasions, missing a vital jump or grab because the camera has attempted to pan automatically. The combat's fine, but can still feel humdrum.

And the checkpoint system is a bit weird. When you die, you restart at the last checkpoint, and you can save at any point to make the most recent checkpoint the one you'll start at when you next boot the game up; nothing strange there. The problem comes when you're stuck and want to respawn at the last checkpoint, but you haven't manually saved - then it's a case of finding a way to kill yourself, or simply having to bite down and return to the last point where you did save. See? Weird.

Yet despite these issues, Anniversary is a success. It pays knowing homage to one of the most highly regarded adventure games without feeling like lazy recycling. And it provides plenty of slow-burning thrills that can snag your attention for hours at a time, so you'd best be ready to put the effort in if you want to get at the immense satisfaction and atmosphere that offers.

It's definitely not something for dipping into on a whim, and anyone after brutal, nose-cracking action should stick with God of War II.

But for the rest of us, this is the Tomb Raider game we've long been waiting for. And it speaks volumes about the games market that something that's essentially a remastered update can seem such a breath of fresh air.

Graphics - Great lighting, but the odd splotchy texture.

Sound - Nicely remixed music, spooky ambiance.

Gameplay - Genuinely head-scratching and involving.

Lifespan - Longer than Legend, plus extras to collect.
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Looks like Anniversary is the best game since the first in the series. Ironic considering its a remake of it.

Thoughts?

Dean · Apr 22, 2007

I thought OPM2 had been discontinued? I'm not trying to slag the game off but being the official magazine they were incredibly biased and generally they would give any game that had been hyped up enough a high score even if it didn't deserve it.

Wait, what score did it get or is this a preview?

Casual D · Apr 22, 2007

This is the UK version, the American version was discontinued due to the fact that demo mags were useless since you can download demos from the PS3's online marketplace.

This was a full review, it got a 8/10 but so did Legend. They gave the older games 10's so it just goes to say score wise they don't know what they are talking about, I read the mag for their actual reviews. In other words the score wasn't what concerned me, it was the review itself.

The actual game comes out in June. They just played a basically finished version.

Dean · Apr 22, 2007

Studious Derek said: ↑

This is the UK version, the American version was discontinued due to the fact that demo mags were useless since you can download demos from the PS3's online marketplace.

This was a full review, it got a 8/10 but so did Legend. The score wasn't what concerned me, it was the review itself.
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Oh, it's just that I stopped reading it about a year ago and I hadn't seen it for a while. Future did relaunch the original OPM for the current consoles though so I thought it had replaced the one this came from.

It sounds good and it's a game I want to play but I'll wait until I see a review from a source that I trust more, like gamestm.

Casual D · Apr 22, 2007

Oh, yeah who knows.

There is another review out there but its translated so its really rough. This is less biased for you:

"It's been some months since we last updated on Tomb Raider Anniversary. But now that we are less than two months away from the release, we have been one of the first to play this game and can share with you our impressions of what we think is one of the best remakes to hit the PS2.
Eidos has only allowed that we talk of Peru, Greece, and Egypt, but this is more than enough to give you an idea of what the game is like.

Even from the start we experienced a sudden deja vu as we encountered familiar sceneries, enemies, and puzzles. It made us recall that day in 1996 when we first played the original Tomb Raider. Lara's adventure has us looking for pieces of the Scion, a mystical artifact. We met those same enemies and puzzles and we realized that not only are we reliving the same game from years ago, but we are having fun as well! And that's saying something since we are not big fans of "Remakes".

New fans don't have to worry if they haven't played the original, and old fans might even enjoy this game more than the news ones as they face the ferocious T-Rex, run from/dodge the big boulder in the Tomb of Qualopec, and solve the puzzle of the three golden bars in Palace Midas. Even those who've played before will smile as they see all these memorable elements from the original, but that doesn't mean they have the upper hand on the new fans. Crystal Dynamics have redesigned the game, and although they've kept the main points of the original, they have made great changes to the majority of the game.

The game still focuses on exploration and observations, obviously that will help for solving puzzles, but now we will be able to do many things on the environment with Lara's moves; jumping, running?, and swimming. We'll be able to use more of the environment ( corners, crevices, and beams) and use Lara's grappling hook to pull objects and even improvise by using it to jump or run along walls. These moves are a must because we'll have to make big leaps?, avoid deep pits, avoid fiendish traps, pathways that seem to have no way out, and renovated/innovated puzzles? ( Some of them are hard)

TR:A is based off of Tomb Raider Legend's engine. So we'll have enormous environments full of detail, fantastic human and enemy models, and animations of Lara like the one she does when she pulls out from the water. [I think they talk about the rinsing animations]"

Speaking of enemies, they are the same ones from the original (bats, bears, wolves, gorillas, crocodiles, raptors, and monsters?) But now they have been improved drastically and are very different from their original counterparts. Lara has been upgrade from 400 to 7000 polygons allowing Lara to have a better looking outfit and a braid (an improvement over the bun that was given due to time limits with the original game)

In conclusion, get ready to play the first game like you've never dreamed of. Tomb Raider is a name that has continued to entertain us and has been good to us for the past ten years???
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Dean · Apr 22, 2007

Obviously I'm not in a position to say the first review is biased. I was just saying that they tended to be when I still read the magazine.

Casual D · Apr 22, 2007

It's probably slightly biased but from reading between the lines it seems this game is hard as fuck which is a plus.

Dean · Apr 22, 2007

Studious Derek said: ↑

It's probably slightly biased but from reading between the lines it seems this game is hard as fuck which is a plus.
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I agree.

Casual D · Apr 22, 2007

Dean said: ↑

I agree.
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I love it how they say often the answer on where to jump next is in front of you but you get lost and slap yourself for it later.

Can we say..nod to the old days?

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OP2M UK Gives Tomb Raider: Anniversary Very High Marks

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OP2M UK Gives Tomb Raider: Anniversary Very High Marks

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