Tomb Raider: Anniversary

Retr0gamer

Got this today but haven't played it, the football is on. Can't wait to give it a go. Legend was alright but needed better level design.com I'm hoping the marrage of fhe classic level design of TR with the gameplay of legend makes this a great game. Got 9/10 on eurogamer.

BTW, I think gamestop santry mispriced it at 40 stingers

abelard

'Twas 40 in HMV Grafton too, so probably no mistake.

Retr0gamer

Really enjoying this music and background atmosphere needs a special mention. Loads of familiar locations although levels are no where near as big as the old ones so some areas are cut.com Can't wait to get to the cistern level. I remember it blowing me away on my P100 with a power VR 3D card Miles better than legend since it has the atmosphere and sense of adventure down perfectly.

MooseJam

40 is a bit steep for a remake, 20 would be a bit more like it I think

Retr0gamer

Trust me it's worth it. It's a remake in the same way resident evil on the gamecube is a remake. It's improved so much it's basically a whole new gaming experience.com locations are familiar but are completely different and it also controls an awful lot better.

johnny_ultimate

Keep us updated Retro.
I really liked Legend and if this is better can only be a good thing.
No shiny 360 version though

Retr0gamer

I'm off to greece tomorrow (in game) so hopefully the cistern will impress me. My only small concern is the smaller environments of the levels. You are never looking around the environment wondering how you can use it best like in the original. Still it's a lot less linear than the most games these days. Looks gorgeous for a PS2 game. Excellent game. Just finished Croft Manor as well and it's a great little distraction. Highly recommended and it's heading for a 9/10 from me. One small problem is that the T-rex isn't a standout moment anymore just a dodgy boss battle. Hope the boss battles get better, didn't like the ones in legend.

There probably will be a 360 version. There are lots of hidden stuff and unlockables that seem to be tailor made for achievements.

Edit: ****ing Wii predictive text dot ****ing com

DarthWraak

Yeh, I was wondering why the hell you were saying .com lols

The bit that blew me away in the first one was when you get into the collesium sort of place, and watch the draw distance go as far as it could. It was a huge open space, and was a joy to watch on the old (very very old) rig. I might get this actually, looking better every time I hear about it.

jesus_thats_gre

Rofl at the .coms

johnny_ultimate

Heh I was wondering what kind of weird personal joke you were getting up to with the .coms for the last few days

Retr0gamer

St. Francis' Folly is a piece of level design beauty.

Just got to the cistern, although it's not as impressive as the old level since it's been rolled into another level. Stopping now don't want to burn this game out.

AnCapaillMor

Cracking game, in close towards the end of egypt now. really brings back meories of the original. hope they remake II, best of the lot.

awhir

ok guys the speed time roll thing wont work for me.

when i am fighting the t rex i enrage him he runs for me and i press **** and w or a or d or s and nothing happens any ideas ?

Retr0gamer

You need to be moving left or right when you press the dodge button.

Just at egypt myself.

AnCapaillMor wrote:

Cracking game, in close towards the end of egypt now. really brings back meories of the original. hope they remake II, best of the lot.

Thought Tomb Raider 2 was woeful. It had no soul, boring locations and stupid human enemies.

Call Me Jimmy

Retr0gamer wrote:

Thought Tomb Raider 2 was woeful. It had no soul, boring locations and stupid human enemies.

Aye, I only noticed how bad the second one was when I was older.
Tomb Raider 1 > Tomb Raider 3 > Tomb Raider 2. I never bothered with the rest.

AnCapaillMor

Just in the great pyramid after Natlas mines, some really nasty puzzles\obstacles in the game. I find theres alot of repeating, particularly with the balance on the top of poles bits.

TR2 might'nt have had soul but it was a huge game. took ages to complete.

awhir

cant get it workin anyone wana give me a detailed how to

monkeyfudge

I got it for the PC today... The 360 controller works just fine, which is a good thing seeing as the keyboard mouse controls seemed a bit ropey.

Haven't gone to far in it yet, but it is fun playing through all the old levels again... and I love how the originals music is back too.

Swimming is still a bit of a pain in the ass though.

Retr0gamer

Press a or then hold it down then press shift.

Fnz

Call Me Jimmy wrote:

Aye, I only noticed how bad the second one was when I was older.
Tomb Raider 1 > Tomb Raider 3 > Tomb Raider 2. I never bothered with the rest.

I gave up after the second one... too much emphasis on action in that one. It just wasn't fun. Found it difficult to motivate myself to play it... finished it over a period of 4 or 5 years! :eek: It was the only game I played through using an infinite ammo cheat.

I considered getting Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation but by then my interest in games was waining (against my will!) and I had a number of games I hadn't touched so I decided not to bother.

Anniversary is on my 'to play' list along with a bunch of other games I own but haven't even started. One step at a time though....

1. Finish Okami.
2. Do same with God Hand.

AnCapaillMor

Finished it just under 17 hours play. Cracking game, pissed that i played it so much and finished it this weekend.

monkeyfudge

Yep.. I didn't get into the third one at all really... despite the fact that it had monkeys in it... it just didn't play very well.

The one the Dreamcast wasn't too bad though.

Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness was horrible though... "My arms feel stronger"... WTF?

I did the dinosaur bit in Anniversary today... the lost valley certainly seems a lot smaller than in the original... How was that T-rex surviving in such a small stretch of land?

Oh.. and I love this pic:

AnCapaillMor

Same as myself, played 3, got as far as london and just went 'bleh'. AOD was horrible almost killed the series, finished it anyway. Legend revived it and anniversaries just brilliant.

yeah felt it was a bit smaller alrite but then again it was years ago when most of us played the original.

monkeyfudge

AnCapaillMor wrote:

yeah felt it was a bit smaller alrite but then again it was years ago when most of us played the original.

Yep.. I was probably a bit shorter 10 years ago so everything seemed bigger.

Retr0gamer

Finished it today, cracking game all round. It does wane a bit in the last two atlantis levels but so did the original.

Replayed a few levels for the commentaries which are fantastic especially Toby Gards comments. Pity I don't have time to go through them again.

monkeyfudge wrote:

I did the dinosaur bit in Anniversary today... the lost valley certainly seems a lot smaller than in the original... How was that T-rex surviving in such a small stretch of land?

You should listen to the commentaries, they show the true effect of nostalgia. Many of the levels I thought were too small, such as the waterfall and lost valley were made to scale first but then doubled in size when playtesters thought they were too small. The T-rex is also a hell of a lot bigger even though I thought he was bigger in the original.

He also explains the cuts from the game and I agree with him since the smaller areas flow a lot better in the new game.

I really like lack off combat in the game and believe it would have worked just as well with none.

Might have to play last revelation since it's meant to be excellent and arcade loved it.

AnCapaillMor

Nostalgia always distorts memory. was playing it with the sister tonight, who plays the originals regularly and she said it was arond the same. Hell of alot more difficult than the original, its gets insanely hard in the middle of egypt.

Revalations good but dissapointingly short.

monkeyfudge

Do you still have to shoot that French bloke in the face about a 100 times in order to beat him? That always seemed a bit silly to me.

I never got around to completely Last Revelation actually... The main problem with it was the lack of variety in how all the levels looked.

Great tutorial level though... you play as Lara as a young girl.

Retr0gamer

I found the original a lot tougher. Even with unlimited saves on PC I found the platformer a lot tougher and the level layouts bigger and more complex. I remember finishing TR1 with 1000+ saves

Would have liked to finish TR3 but my memory card corrupted on the second last level. Most of it was enjoyable other than london and area 51 and when it got silly in india. It's a shame that TR2 started so good but just got boring quickly. Boring oil tankers and such couldn't beat and atmospheric tomb. The emphasis on combat sucked since it never worked in TR.

monkeyfudge

Were there unlimited saves in Tomb Raider on the PC?

I'm sure I remember having to put up with the annoying crystal save points...

There was a bit in Midas Palace I think with a bunch of flames that you had to run through before they came back on that drove me nuts for ages as I had to keep going back to the save point.

Retr0gamer

For monkeyfudge:

nope, would liked to have shot him. And that nasty flame puzzle is back but reworked and a lot easier

Actual have another small annoyance, the rake of boss battles in the mines have been reduced to two QTC cutscenes that aren't exactly up there with the knife fight with Krauser. Shame because the bosses other than the T-rex were decent if nothing special. Better than the rubbish ones in legend.

AnCapaillMor

no way the oringinal did'nt have balance poles and running slong the wall. The balance poles and crushers in egypt drive me mad.

Retr0gamer

AnCapaillMor wrote:

no way the oringinal did'nt have balance poles and running slong the wall. The balance poles and crushers in egypt drive me mad.

They were particularly annoying alright. But there's always a save point nearby. The original was much meaner when it came to instant death jumps.

Speaking of which, ragdoll physics suck. I much prefer the old crumpling up animation that left lara twisted and broken and hearing every bone in lara's body breaking in a sickening crunch. They got rid of that soundeffect.

AnCapaillMor

I missed the bit wit the boss monster on the great pramid where fell and it was so far down she screamed 3 times.

Retr0gamer

There was also a great animation were he picked you up like a ragdoll and smased you off the ground a few times before dangling you in front of him to take a look and tossing you away.

The save crystals were in TR1 and 3 on the PS1. Not sure about 2 because I only ever played that on PC. TR1 and 2 had unlimited saves on PC not sure about TR3 since I played that on PS1.

Holsten

What would people recommend, Pc or Ps2?

WellyJ

Holsten wrote:

What would people recommend, Pc or Ps2?

PC by far,

Will look way nicer,

Havent tried the ps2 one but it looks great on the PC

0ubliette

I have the ps2 version and its great, it looks lovely even on ps2. I coudve gone for PC but i just didnt fancy sitting at my desk playing it with a keyboard (dont have a pc joypad). Playing it on my PS3 on a 23" hdtv, looks very nice indeed, tho im sure nowhere near as good as the pc.
But looks aside, the game is just fantastic. I was a bit late to the tomb raider party, and only bought TR1 around 98 or 99 (i was out of work and couldnt afford full price games, so bought second hand ones!). It was great even then.
The only others i played were Tomb raider: TLR on the DC which i found pretty dull to be honest, never bothered completing it. And had AOD on the ps2 which was an absolute joke of a game.
Legend on the 360 was a solid game, a nice return to form but i still didnt like the urban levels, for me its all about the raiding tombs, which is why id definitely mark TR:A as the best TR game yet.

EDIT
also i think this thread warrants a



Discuss.

Retr0gamer

*drool*

Did anyone read the IGN review. I know that IGN isn't what it used to be but the TR:A review is absolutely atrocious, I've seen better written reviews on gamefaqs.

awhir

Retr0gamer wrote:

Press a or then hold it down then press shift.

okk im gona shoot my self or my game is glitched?

i hold down a or d and then press shift and all she does is roll ?

AnCapaillMor

Dunno how you play with a keyboard.

monkeyfudge

Yeah... it works perfect with a 360 controller, it will even give you vibrations.

It's the X button and a movement direction to dodge on the controller anyway.

I finished St. Francis's Folly this morning... ha.. I completely forgot that you could use your rope to pull out platforms... I still managed to get one of the keys by pulling off a big jump that put a huge dent in my health.

Fnz

monkeyfudge wrote:

Were there unlimited saves in Tomb Raider on the PC?

I'm sure I remember having to put up with the annoying crystal save points...

There was a bit in Midas Palace I think with a bunch of flames that you had to run through before they came back on that drove me nuts for ages as I had to keep going back to the save point.

IMHO having (intelligently placed) save crystals is the best way of keeping the game challenging... otherwise I find myself saving constantly.

Which method does Anniversary use?

monkeyfudge

Fnz wrote:

IMHO having (intelligently placed) save crystals is the best way of keeping the game challenging... otherwise I find myself saving constantly.

Which method does Anniversary use?

It uses the same checkpoint system that was in Tomb Raider Legend.

The check points are all intelligently positioned so you never really need to worry about anything.

By the way... I like how they are retconing some story elements in this game to fit in with the storyline of Tomb Raider Legend.

Sierra Oscar

Im going to have to buy this game over the weekend. Too bad it got pulled from steam for Irish customers.:mad:

god's toy

I like how you can plug in your 360 controller while the game is running and it just works, no restarting the game, also you can pop back to keyboard and mouse at any time during play.

monkeyfudge

Yep... words can not describe how well the 360 controller works with this... I keep forgetting I'm playing it on my PC.

god's toy

For anyone looking, (PC/CDROM) found it on CDWOW for €23.99! with free delivery too.

http://www.cdwow.ie/detail_results_3.php?product_code=1894979&subcat=pc


forgive me if this is old news.

Call Me Jimmy

Got this game today for pc and am trying to use the ps2 usb controller but I can't control the camera without using the mouse. Was anyone able to control the camera using a gamepad?

god's toy

Yep it's the right stick on the Xbox 360 controller.

johnny_ultimate

Rumour on the street is the games going to be released on Xbox Live in level from. Download is not the ideal way to get games, but will wait and see if this comes to fruition.

monkeyfudge

I'm playing through it pretty slowly as I haven't a huge amount of time to dedicate to gaming at the moment...

They completely shrunk the colosseum level... and I've just started the Midas palace and it seems a lot smaller too seeing as how you encounter the Midas statue first thing...

Downloading level by level would not be good value