Tomb Raider: Anniversary (PC)

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Tomb Raider: Anniversary (PC)
Also On:  PS2  |  PSP 

Release Date:04/01/2007
ESRB Rating: Rating Pending
Genre: Adventure
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Developer: Crystal Dynamics
 
It's just as well Tomb Raider fans are a patient bunch. For the large part of the past decade it seemed like the interminable wait for some kind of return to 'form' was never going to happen. But last year's polished but undemanding Legends was certainly a promising step in the right direction. All it needed, you felt, was to get back to basics - back to the sort of fiendish design vision that made the series such a phenomenon when it burst onto the scene in 1996.

And so it has proved. By re-energising and revitalising what people loved about Tomb Raider in the first place, Anniversary is, in all respects, the best Lara Croft adventure to date. It's back to palm sweating platform puzzling on an extraordinary scale, with feisty combat elements put well and truly into the background to add tension and drama only when required. It feels like its own game again despite 'only' being a remake of the celebrated 1996 original. But it's also a 'celebratory remake', and one that manages to improve on almost every aspect of the original by rebuilding the game from the ground up without taking anything away from what made it so special in the beginning.