In 2007, Tomb Raider celebrated its 10th anniversary. Before the impending release of Tomb Raider: Underworld (which Eidos rushed Crystal Dynamics as quickly as possible), Crystal Dynamics decided to make not just a remake of the original Tomb Raider, but a re-imaging taking the best of the old while combining the new engine of Tomb Raider: Legend. Other changes besides gameplay included removing boss fights against humans and turning them into cut-scenes, changing various puzzles to make Tomb Raider: Anniversary for challenging even for those who had completed the original game multiple times, and retconning the story to fit in line with Tomb Raider: Legend and its retcon of Lara's background.
The Wii version of Tomb Raider: Anniversary features (for the first time) a free aim system utilizing the Wii remote's pointer and replacing the target lock-on with a camera lock-on, allowing the ability to lock-on to one enemy while shooting the other, similar to Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Another feature is new secrets involving making rubbings of Incan hieroglyphs as well as puzzle solutions involving rubbings. The game suffers a bit from gimmicky controls here and there, requiring you to raise and lower your hands to pull switches, shaking the nunchuk back and forth to move across cliffs faster, and throwing the nunchuk down to fire your grappling hook (which can be aimed for the first time). There are some double inputs as well, such as being able to press Down or B to drop down cliffs and either shaking the nunchuk or pressing Down to roll. What made me upset is that Tomb Raider: Anniversary does not feature more than one control scheme (at least for the Wii version), something that Tomb Raider: Legend featured.
Story: 10/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Presentation: 9/10
Replay Value: 9/10
Average Score: 8.8/10
Tomb Raider: Anniversary succeeds in taking the best of the early Tomb Raider games and combining with Crystal Dynamics' new direction for Lara Croft. The story has better pacing and makes far more sense with the retcons and sets up the events of Tomb Raider: Underworld incredibly well. Audiovisually, the game is fantastic. Although I would have preferred to play this game on a console that supports 5.1 surround sound, it doesn't really matter since the original game was designed for plain old stereo sound. There is some incentive to play again after beating the game as there are various pieces of artwork and audio commentaries that go deep into the process of re-imagining Tomb Raider, as well as collecting costumes from each Tomb Raider game up to Legend and even the ability to play as PS1 Lara. The controls have a bit of a steep learning curve. The camera is controlled by holding the C button and moving the pointer to the edge of the screen. It's possible to move the camera, camera lock-on to a target, and fire away, but it can be incredibly difficult. The amount of gimmicky controls for the Wii version is disappointing, especially with how frequently they come up.
Nevertheless, Tomb Raider Anniversary carries forward and Crystal Dynamics again did a fantastic job with their trilogy of games. It's going to be very hard waiting for their next Tomb Raider game, the reboot, in November 2011.
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