The demo was released on May 25th and it took me two days to get my hands on it. I’ll say its well worth the time and effort.
It’s no surprise that Lara received yet another minor make over, and she looks a lot better than she did in Tomb Raider Legend, in my opinion.
Speaking about the game, the 270MB demo features the Lost Valley level, any of you who have played the first game (released in 1996) would be familiar with this level. The scenery is recreated beautifully. The game uses a tweaked version of the engine that was used for Tomb Raider Legend. The shadow and lighting effects are extremely well done. There were a few problems with shadows in Legend, and but none of that here. The water effects such as reflections and the way Lara’s body is glistening as she steps out of the water are also well done.
I played the game at high settings (2x FSAA, 1280x1024 resolution with everything else set on high) and I had absolutely no problems on my 7600GS. That’s good news because even older cards can handle the game without compromising on the visuals.
I am extremely impressed with the graphics, the way Lost Valley is designed and the solid frame rates of the game even on high settings. The outdoor setting, even though you don’t get to see a whole lot of it in the demo, is also very good. The misty cave overlooking the lush green valley is a fantastic sight. Any player who liked the first game is going to enjoy playing Anniversary it appears.
But the game is not without its problems. There are some sound issues just as they were in Tomb Raider Legend, so let’s hope the full version doesn’t have any of those. I had to disable hardware acceleration in Windows to get rid of the crackling noise in the game.
Also, I am not very pleased with the combat system. It takes about 10 hits to kill a wolf, which is pretty absurd to me. I remember saying the same thing about the Egyptian dogs on Tomb Raider 4. It takes a lot of shots to kill those using normal pistols. That’s pretty much the same here.
But that’s only a minor problem; it really doesn’t affect the gameplay. I don’t think a lot of people would even find that as a problem. I just don’t enjoy emptying 20 rounds to kill a wolf, so that’s strictly personal.
I am not going to give away too many details about the demo; I don’t want this to be a spoiler. But I’ll conclude by saying that Tomb Raider Anniversary is a very promising title, and I think it has succeeded in bringing Tomb Raider into the next generation. If any game deserved a remake, this is it!
You can download the theme music from the demo HERE. Thanks Mike!
First published on GameSpot