Tomb Raider AE is predictable yet fun

A review of Tomb Raider Anniversary Edition for the Wii

I don't even remember playing any of the old Tomb Raider games. Either I was busy playing others or the series never appealed to me so what made me want to pick up Tomb Raider Anniversary I'm not sure. Either it was a special/interview that I saw on TV, whether there was just nothing else at the store or just genuine curiousity, I picked it up and while I wouldn't say I became a fan of the series as a whole, I kind of liked the game even though there's certain aspects to it I'm not as enthused about.

Story: Artifact seeker Lara Croft is called upon by Natla Technologies to get an ancient artifact in the mountains of Peru. From there she visits ancient cities and uncovers a mystery surrounding the places, the artifacts as well as an ancient legend that gets more real by the minute. Like a lot of games, Tomb Raider's strength/weakness is the straightforwardness of the story. Plot twists can be seen a mile away but its the presentation and the feel of the game that bring you in.

Graphics: The Wii Edition of Tomb Raider looks more sharper when progressive scan is on but it doesn't really look next-gen, but rather a really pretty last gen. Lara is nicely animated and the cinematics have gotten a good touch-up but the levels themselves look fine and lighting works quite well but you're not going "holy crap, this game looks amazing!" the whole time.

Sound/Music: Whenever the music is actually on, it's quite nice and well-suited for the game but for the most part, it's just Lara and the elements and aside from small flourishes like entering a new area, solving a puzzle or battle time, most of the gameplay is somewhat quiet. The voice acting is quite good since it's usable and doesn't detract though it's not Metal Gear quality.

Gameplay: A strange thing happened: even though Lara's 3D outing, came out before it, I kept getting reminded that she seems like a female Prince of Persia. From ledge jumping to twirling on poles, balancing on columns, people who've played the Prince's stuff will familiar this quite familiar but there's just one problem: Lara doesn't seem as intuitive. On rare occasions I miss a jump but with Lara I kept getting the feeling I wasn't getting the hang of her moves. But Lara has more abilities such as guns, grappling hooks, column balancing and leaping from slanted ledges, there's more variety to what she does.

Your enjoyment of the game is how much you love platforming and puzzles. A good chunk of the gameplay is devoted in figuring out how to get from A to B while leaping to C so you can get what's at D and it's here that the game shines since solutions are not vague or difficult to pull off (which God of War was victim of, personally) though it's easy to miss stuff and exploration everywhere is recommended. But it's combat that just never really takes off since it's kind of boring and it's actually distracting since the platforming is kind of fun then it's like "ugh, dogs" then you have to fight them off. Doesn't help Lara feels sluggish and camera control takes awhile to figure out so while Lara's always been a "girl with guns" genre, the puzzles kind of overshadow it.

One of the things I quite like about the Wii is that a game with little hype or mass appeal (any Wii owners NOT thinking of Brawl?), it's nice to all of a sudden discover a game and Tomb Raider Anniversary may not be stellar the entire way through, it's still a worthy playthrough.
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Source / Author / Credit: Anonymous