Pages: 1 2 3 Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Developer: Crystal Dynamics
System: PC
Minimum requirements: Pentium 3 1.4 GHz or Athlon XP 1500+; 4 GB free hard drive space, DirectX 9.0c compatible 64 MB 3D accelerated card with TnL; 512 MB RAM (Windows Vista) or 256 MB RAM (Windows 2000/XP); DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card; Windows 2K/XP/Vista
Genre: Action Adventure
Release date: Available now
Review by: Michael Smith
 When gamers think of icons (significant characters, not on-screen symbols), many different images come to mind. From Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog and Duke Nukem to Gordon Freeman and Master Chief, the history of gaming is filled with characters who define their respective genres. Principal among these is adventuring heiress Lara Croft, pony-tailed heroine of the Tomb Raider series, which encompasses eight games for multiple platforms (not counting various Gold editions) and two big-budget feature films. To celebrate the inimitable Miss Croft’s long career, Eidos and Crystal Dynamics return her to her roots in Tomb Raider: Anniversary, a high-tech remake of her original adventure, 1996’s Tomb Raider.
A bit of background for those taking their first trip in Lara’s signature short shorts and skin-tight shirts: Lara Croft is the daughter of British archaeologist Richard Croft, Earl of Abbingdon. At age 9, she survived a plane crash that claimed the life of her mother, then inherited her father’s fortune following his death nine years later. Since that time, Lara has been traveling the world carrying on her father’s work while searching for clues about his mysterious demise.
 As the game begins, a massive explosion at Los Alamos, N.M. in 1945 uncovers a long-buried crystal structure and releases a flying demon from millennia of underground captivity. Later, at the Croft estate in Kathmandu, Lara is visited by a representative of wealthy industrialist Jacqueline Natla, who wants to hire Lara to locate the Scion of Atlantis, an ancient artifact of tremendous power. Her search starts in the Peruvian mountains, where Lara discovers that the Scion has been divided into three pieces and scattered around the globe. She also realizes there’s more to Natla than meets the eye as she continues her quest in an abandoned Greek monastery, an Egyptian canyon and an uncharted island, home to the fabled Pyramid of Atlantis.
Installing TR:A can be an adventure all its own, depending on your rig. I dropped the DVD into my drive, clicked the install button on the autorun screen and waited, but the button failed to access the disc’s contents. I’m not sure if this was a problem with my computer or a glitch somehow associated with Windows Vista, but I had to search the disc’s directories for the setup file to begin the 10-minute installation.
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good
i would like that these reviews evaluate the longevity of the game aswell, because i don’t want to play a game with only 5 or 6 hours long.
If you must waste money buy the original Tomb Raider or Tomb Raider Last Revelation.
Tomb Raider Anniversary is the among the worst games in this series.
Especially if you are going to play it on the PC. This game reeks of console behavior with no thought given to how it plays on the PC. The level design sucks. The boss battles sucks. The puzzles suck. In fact, take away the modern graphics and it makes you wonder why they even bothered with all this.
Glad to see that this site gets filled up with reviews again – like in the “golden Avault era”…
However, this review is only fair if you add the label “personal flavour” as it avoids objective facts and points that could bring it up to the level of Avault’s earlier publications.
You can like or hate TRA as you wish, but I think you can’t deny that it is an outstanding game. Solid concept, nice execution and quality entertainment throughout. A very nice effort in general.
saan I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU!
i was absolutely stoked to play this, relive my days.
the energy about lara sucks. she’s dead inside.
the controls are absolutely umbearable.
no drop roll turn around? no high jump?
camera sucks so bad i wanna die and the whole game i’ve got to keep my guns held out
because i want to see where i’m going.
blech!
Tomb Raider Anniversary. Although a warm memory of the days of the first Tomb Raider. There was those control differences. No camera control to look around 180. No side/back flips, no one step strafe to the side, no backward roll that reverses your position. but truthfully I would have dealt with all of the above. However the game designers commit homicide to this game with their invention of the ” Adrenaline Dodge”. To the point where I can envision an evil nerd game designer laughing and saying “They’ll never be able to do this. It has to be absolutely perfect timing. Ha ha ha ha ha ! ” Without that move I give Tomb Raider Anniversary a 6.5 out of 10. With that move barely 1 out of 10. It basically sucked the life out of the entire game, and I will never trust them again. How they could not foresee a global reaction to this overly annoying move has proved that it obviously was not tested much before it’s release. Too bad for them, and all the poor souls that purchased this game.
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