Graphics: TR:A is a significant visual upgrade from the original game. The backgrounds are rich and colorful, with a surprising lack of artifacts, even at high resolution and with most of the settings maxed out. The attention to detail is also impressive; when Lara climbs out of water, it drips from her limbs and hair and her clothing darkens, only to return to normal later on as it dries. She also leaves wet footprints that gradually disappear.

Interface: Game menus are fairly standard, with a full selection of adjustable items available. But potential trouble lies in the Save/Load category. Clicking on the “Load Game” option displays only the games you have manually saved, not the autosaves completed at each checkpoint. To start from an autosave, you must go back and choose “Resume Game,” which could be confusing until you get used to it.

Gameplay: Here is where TR:A falters. No matter how great the graphics and production values are, at a certain point, we stop noticing how good a game looks and start noticing how well it plays. This point is reached after the first few levels, when we discover that each one plays just about the same as the others: climb, jump, throw a switch, climb some more, swim, throw another switch, repeat until objective is achieved. After awhile, the game starts to feel like Myst with guns. None of puzzles has the hair-pulling intricacies of that seminal adventure game, but the similarity is there. In the end, all the pretty graphics in the world can’t compensate for a lack of gameplay variety. Camera movement can also be an issue for some; the constant zooming in and out as Lara moves through the scenes might be artistic, but its use in the hedge maze in the mansion level made me queasy, a reaction no other game has produced in me before.

Sound FX: Ambient sounds are rendered very well in TR:A, especially when activating the built-in EAX support. Everything from the screaming of attacking bats to environmental sounds such as wind and waterfalls helps to bring a sense of realism to the story, and there are times when sound effects will warn you of an approaching enemy if you listen closely. Firearm reports are all effective, but hearing Lara grunt every time she jumps starts to get tiresome after awhile.

Music: Clearly a great deal of effort was made to create an effective music score for TR:A, and the introduction of a new theme usually heralds the beginning of a significant event in the game. But as well written and performed as the score is, there could be more variety. Hearing the same phrase of music repeating over and over during a boss battle makes you want to turn the music off, no matter how well it’s performed.

Intelligence: Artificial intelligence has very little bearing in this game, since most of the action is confined to Lara finding items and solving puzzles on her own. But there are a few odd glitches. Some animal enemies refuse to climb stairs, so all you have to do is climb four or five stairs and blast away at the creatures until they die. And in one boss battle, hiding behind a structure gives you enough cover to safely attack the enemy, which dutifully stands there and lets you blaze away at it without attacking.

Difficulty: There are three difficulty levels (Easy, Normal and Hard), and once you select one, it can’t be changed, although you can replay a level at another difficulty after you complete it. I played at the Normal level and found the game to be moderately challenging. But there is a combat move called an Adrenaline Dodge, providing you with a moment of Max Payne-style bullet time to line up a head shot, that must be mastered to complete the game; the Level 8 boss battle cannot be passed without using the move effectively. This is a potential deal-breaker for those who lack the skill with mouse and keyboard.

Overall: For the first few levels of TR:A, I found myself having a great time. The eye candy is all there, the puzzles are not so hard that a walkthrough is required to solve them, and there are little touches that take me back to my misspent youth in video arcades. And allowances have to be made because this is a remake of a game that’s more than a decade old. But as I approached yet another mind-bending navigation puzzle, I began to realize that’s all TR:A has to offer, and it made me sad, because it could’ve been so much more.