Tomb Raider: Anniversary

This game looks so much better than Legend. And it looks there's a much heavier emphasis on the platforming. There's even a manual grab option. I love it.

I didn't realise it was going to be such a straight remake either. I didn't play the first on much but I recognise the first level well enough. That bear pit was instantly familiar.

Later parts undergo some more drastic surgery. Anniversary is the pick of the three though, no doubt.

That was a really long detour, including a T-rex battle, just for a cog.

Still can't get over how good this game looks. There's no way they just ported the PS2 version and upped the textures/resolution. Lara's model looks way to good for the PS2. The touch up job on Anniversary looks much better than than Legend.

Spoiler:

From what I've seen of the Steam version it looks like they've ported it to PS3 for the Trilogy, I'll take some screenshots later.

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

That was a really long detour, including a T-rex battle, just for a cog.

Still can't get over how good this game looks. There's no way they just ported the PS2 version and upped the textures/resolution. Lara's model looks way to good for the PS2. The touch up job on Anniversary looks much better than than Legend.

Spoiler:

They obviously updated the character model of lara moose. That doesn't take a genius to figure out. Everything else is just upped textures and resolutions, its not really rocket science. That is pretty much everything you can update on a game. That said the PS2 graphics on anniversary look insanely good.

That's what I said.

While it was a cool idea to work a remake of the original Tomb Raider into the middle of a new trilogy, I think they could have done a better job of making it fit in. The story isn't connected at all so far, and they even went old school with the inventory system.

Overall i think this is done really well. But I agree trying to make out this is connected to legend is a bit dubious. Its a shame really the way they finished up legend was great but i can only see the story turning to absolute shit. Seeing as there's complaints about underworld as there is and this seems to just be plonoked into the series. That said platforming wise this kicks any game i played this gen. I dislike the combat in this game. I hate the enemies to. That giant lizard was pretty funny though didn't expect that.

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

That's what I said.

You said there's no way a ps2 game looked that good. If you do all that make up work its not the same game is it.

if i temember right, there is really only one thing that connects this and underworld, and it reall had nothing to do with the story

Anniversary is slowly reminding me of why i never piked up the Tomb raider series in the first place. Levels are big and interesting so you can get lost in them. But the colour scheme is dull, greys and browns (kinda like modern gaming funnily enough). There's also no life in the levels. Its a shame because the platforming is seriously a cut above the rest. There's almost no games where you literally have to work out where you climb. Also no music or sound aside from wind a lot of the time.

Just play some dubstep in the background to make it feel even more modern, two birds with one stone.

Superbuu3 wrote:

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

That's what I said.

You said there's no way a ps2 game looked that good. If you do all that make up work its not the same game is it.

All the other HD remakes I've played are still clearly PS2 games, is what I meant. Even Legend. Anniversary looks like an early current gen game.

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

Superbuu3 wrote:

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

That's what I said.

You said there's no way a ps2 game looked that good. If you do all that make up work its not the same game is it.

All the other HD remakes I've played are still clearly PS2 games, is what I meant. Even Legend. Anniversary looks like an early current gen game.

Most people say Sly trilogy is better then this don't you have that.

The cartoon style helps Sly a lot. Anniversary is the best looking HD upgrade so far.

Well i hope that the work done on the MGS collection is somewhere near this but from what i seen it doesn't look like they updated textures just that they HDed it. I guess i can confirm when i actually get it.

Moose when you get to the bit with Midas room, make sure you step on the statue hand otherwise sometimes the puzzle glitches.

Funny how this is apparently classic tomb raider as i'm really starting to bore of this game. The time trials are stupidly hard i failed one by literally a second

One thing that annoys me about all 3 games is that we don't get any history on all the crazy shit that Lara finds. There's a passing mention of a "them" in Legend, but that's it. One of the characters even asks "Who's 'them'?", but no one answers.

The Greece boss battle was fun.

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

The Greece boss battle was fun.

I think that might be my favourite boss battle i've played in any of the games up to this point. It took me a while of mindless shooting to worrk out what to do but when i had it figured it was awesome.

I really miss the radio chatter from legend. The games very silent.

I don't miss the chatter, but some more cutscenes would be appreciated. I mean, there's no scene explaining how Lara knows the last piece of the scion is in Egpyt. She just turns up there.

Also, I get the feeling that you're going to be really disappointed with Underworld. The version that comes with the trilogy is apparently a lot less stable than the standalone version too (although the DL version that I played is apparently the same as the trilogy version, and it wasn't that bad).

I'm genuinely suprised that Anniversary is considered the best of the trilogy. Legend is pretty much tomb raiding perfection in my mind. The only issue being the game was short.

I really liked the gunplay in legend, adrenaline jumps were by far the most fun way to do combat. The levels were fun to speedrun with no tedious backtracking, you could literally fly through the levels without worrying about glitchy jumps. Then there's the relics the silver and gold ones were hidden geniusly. There's at least one i was genuinely shocked at how well it was hidden (I think its the peru one).

I would like to rise to the challenge of time trials on anniversary but levels are complex in a annoying way. The egyptian death traps are blatently going to scupper time trials and not in a challenging way but a downright frustrating way.

To answer your question moose i think she sees something in that vision to know that egypt is the natural choice to goto.

Well i finished it, i fail to see how there's even the slightest connection between this game adn legend in terms of story. I thought i was playing on hard but for some reason that didn't register on my game completion which is annoying, i did however manage to find every secret in the game. I dunno if i'll replay on hard or do the time trials ever. I'll probably do the croft manor one as that was pretty damn fun and i enjoyed croft manor again more then most of the game (still better in legend though). Guess i'll play underworld starting tomorrow or something.