Right OK time for another post and this one is on a video game, which celebrates the begining of a very popular franchise, Tomb Raider, and this is Tomb Raider Anniversary. So let's gie this one a looksee...
Right so as this is a remake of the original game, the plot is pretty much identical so I will give it a quick going over although I will keep it to just one paragraph for the sake of not going overboard like I usually do. The story is set in 1996 and Lara Croft (voiced by Keely Hawes) is approached by Larsson Conway who puts her in touch with Jacqueline Natla who wants to her locate a piece of an artefact called the Scion, which is said to be located in the Peruvian mountains, and Laura agrees to go. In the Peruvian mountains, Lara finds a tomb belonging to the Atlean King named Qualopec, and she finds out that he was one of three kings who ruled Atlantis before it sank. Lara soon finds one part of the Scion and escapes the temple before it collapses, and shortly after Larsson tries to steal it from her but Lara knocks him out. After this Lara learns that Natla has sent another archeaologist named Pierre DuPont to find the next piece and she breaks into Natla's office and discovers clues that the next piece is located in St. Francis folly in Greece. Lara travels to Greece and arrives to confront Pierre and she soon locates the second piece deep in another tomb, which Pierre takes from her, but he is killed by the tomb Guardians, which Lara eventually defeats. After this Lara travels to Egypt where she successfully grabs the third and final piece of the Scion but she is captured by Natla who steals the Scion from her and leaves Lara at the hands of her henchman. Lara then escapes and follows Natla, sneaking onto her boat, she intends to try and stop using the Scion for her own ends as she intends to ressurect the Atlantis army and gain immortality for herself.
As a celebratory game for the 10th anniversary of the game series, Tomb Raider Anniversary more than delivers on its promise to celebrate the franchise as it is a very entertaining, varied and at times exciting game (although it was actually released 11 years later in 2007, so its not quite strictly a proper anniversary game!). The game mechanics primarily remain the same with Lara, the young intrepid (and busty) archaeologist running, jumping, shimmying and climbing her way around the expansive environments. Also given the original was made back in 1996 (nearly 20 years ago!) in the 10 years since then, Anniversary makes enormous steps forward in terms of fine tuning the gameplay and also the graphics, which naturally are vastly superior to the very dated looking pixellated and blocky graphics back in the 90s. And in updating itself it has to be said that the remake remains a stronger game than the original as well.
Which brings me on to say a bit about the actual gameplay, which is excellent, and Lara's control system is easy enough to use, and her moves remain much the same as she runs, jumps, shimmies, crouches, dives and swims around her surroundings. The game also adds in one or two of the previous enhancements which we have seen in the previous game, Tomb Raider Legend, such as auto aiming, slow-mo action to pull off better execution shots, as well as Lara can now climb ladders and shimmy round cliff edges at a faster rate. There is also the inclusion a rage meter, which is used when Lara shoots some of the larger enemies, such as the T-Rex near the start of the game, and when it reaches maximum the enemy will charge toward Lara and she must dive out the way and pull off an adrenaline charged head shot to kill or stun them. One thing that hasn't changed however is the weaponary, as Lara still has the same guns, her dual pistols, a shotgun, a pair of uzis and heavy calibre handguns and Lara can pick up ammo which is scattered throughout the game. The game also features some puzzles where Lara will need to either push pillars, blocks, bolders into certain positions to gain access to keys and other items to unlock other areas. The game also features some scripted moments in the cut scenes where you must press the right button at the right time for Laura to peform an evasive action when facing her enemies, which is mostly straight forward but can become a little annoying every now and then to get right.
The games enemies are also fairly varied in that in addition to humans, which there aren't many, Lara has to defend herself against aggressive animals such as gorrillas, panthers, wolves, as well as some mythological enemies such as minotaurs, sand monsters, and a big ugly blob near the end (which is a pain in the ass to kill off!). In fact in the original the big blob that Lara has to kill, if it kills her it made for a rather nasty and graphic death as it violently flings Lara to the ground, breaking her neck, and we get the rather nasty crunching noises of her neck snap (something which this game has probably rightfully not repeated!). Still Lara can die in a variety of ways and not slipping and falling from great heights, she can also drown, be killed by the baddies of course, be burned, spiked, crushed and of course there is the neat effect where in one level where Lara stands on the hand of Midas, which turns her to gold! And the difficulty level of the game is fairly manageable although towards the end in the last level it becomes very tough to finish off and the last game boss (i.e. Natla) is also very hard to beat and requires alot of fast and frantic button pushing. This isn't a bad thing as the game should present a fair challenge and its also a very lengthy single player campaign as it must clock in at about 15-20 hours of gameplay (or thereabouts).
Which brings me onto the graphics which light years ahead of the original of course, 11 years on, Anniversary looks terrific and the expansive environments are quite stunning. The character models are also fairly impressive for their time and Lara looks pretty good and her chest is just the right size! (I know perv!). Another nice graphical features in the game is when Lara dives into the water and swims, when she get's out the water she is all wet and her character has a glistening effect to show this, which is a nice touch and welcome progression from the previous games where Lara got out of the water and was bone dry! The game also has plenty of variation in its graphics as well as Lara has to navigate tombs, temples, mines and other terrains. However it has to be said that the different versions of the game on its release looked better than others, as the Xbox 360 console version was a disappointment graphically as the colours and detail are soft and washed out looking, but the PC version is by far the best looking and runs great. And for its time in 2007, it was and still is a mighty good looking game. Music wise, Anniversary is also excellent, and it features a really good score which was closely composed in the same vein as the original, and it was done by the Danish composer, Troels Brun Folmann, who went through many of his original compositions and reworked them in an orchestral fashion and there are plenty of fine tracks which invoke the atmosphere of the original game. And lastly I will mention the voice acting which is very good and it once again features Keely Hawes (who was prior to this known for her role in the TV show Spooks) in the role as Lara Croft and she does a great job here again. The game also allows for the odd bit of humour, such as in the scene where Lara has to find a way of getting rid of her doppledanger, which is identical to her (except her skin texture) and she eventually manages to outwit by opening a trap door, which sees her doppledanger fall into a lava pit, and Lara after says "Talk about being your own worst enemy!".
Getting onto the games flaws..... well Anniversary does have the odd one, such as the control system, while it is largely easy and straight forward, it also does have one or two frustrations to it. The main one being the Lara's use of her attachable rope swing, which she can use to wall run between different areas and jump to reach other walls or surfaces. It can be useful but on the other hand its easy to mistime using the rope swing and Lara can end up falling to her death, and this is quite evident in a later level where she tries to traverse her way up to the top of part of a temple and she has to wall swing, then climb up another level and do the same, but its too easy to get wrong. The adrenaline charge metre is also a bit of a pain as its easy again to mistime getting it right when Lara dives backward in slow motion she has a limited timeframe to pull off the kill shot to down her enemies. The game also becomes quite frustrating towards the end as the difficulty level takes a big leap in the final level and the toughest part of the game comes when Lara has time a series of jumps to reach an upper level, with slide out platforms, which only stay out for so long, and again if you miscalculate or take too long, Lara will fall to her death again! And it threatens to almost ruin the enjoyment of the game as up to that point it is a very entertaining adventure.
Another thing is that you have to remember the game's mechanics are built upon the original so it does feature some tedious moments such as the constant having to run back and forth between areas, to drag stone blocks out to access ammo, health packs or to get something else. And this brings me onto another thing which might go past some people, which is Lara's unnatural and freakish physical strength! This is shown in one scene where in one of the tombs, Lara has to physically push two GIANT stone pillars, which must weigh many tonnes, yet somehow this slim built athletic lass has the superstrength pull it around like a shopping trolley! But then again it is just a game after all.
Anyway all that aside Tomb Raider Anniversary remains an excellent remake of the original, which surpasses it in terms of gameplay and certainly graphics and if you haven't played it and like the series, its worth a shot.
So I will leave it there for now.
Later.
No comments:
Post a Comment