Tomb Raider: Anniversary

Tomb Raider: Anniversary

Category: PlayStation 2 Game

Console: PlayStation 2 (Download Emulator)

Region: NTSC

Views: 1,638,213

Downloads: 1,135,465

Released: 5 June 2007

File Size: 2.2 GB

Rating: ★★★★☆ 4.8/5 (548 votes)

Tomb Raider: Anniversary is a 2007 action-adventure video game developed by Crystal Dynamics and Buzz Monkey Software and published by Eidos Interactive in 2007 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, PlayStation Portable, Wii and mobile phones.

The eighth overall entry in the Tomb Raider series and second in the Legend trilogy, Anniversary is a remake of the first Tomb Raider game, originally released in 1996.

Taking place before the events of 2006's Tomb Raider: Legend, Anniversary follows series protagonist Lara Croft's quest for the Scion of Atlantis. Gameplay features Lara navigating linear levels, fighting enemies and solving puzzles to progress.

Following the completion of Legend, Crystal Dynamics began developing Anniversary. Using the Legend engine, the team rebuilt the gameplay and levels, and series cocreator Toby Gard expanded the narrative. Composer Troels Brun Folmann remade and added to the music using an orchestral style.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary is a single-player action-adventure game where the player controls the protagonist, Lara Croft, from a third-person perspective, through fourteen levels set across four locations around the world.

Lara can jump, climb and shimmy along ledges and vertical poles or ladders, crawl through small spaces, and swing on ropes and horizontal poles. Other abilities include interacting with objects and switches, using a grappling hook to latch onto special rings for both puzzle solving and environmental traversal, and swim and dive underwater for a limited time. Different button combinations can create more moves such as a roll and swan dive.

During combat, Lara automatically locks on to enemies and fires with her equipped gun, with the player able to switch to another target within range and move freely to avoid enemy attacks. Animal enemies can grab and knock Lara down, leaving her vulnerable to damage until she breaks free or rights herself from a fall. Tougher enemies become enraged and charge at Lara after being shot a number of times.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary received positive reviews following its initial release on PC and PS2, with many calling it a worthy remake of the original game. 1UP.com's Joe Rybicki called the game a homage in its own right. Eurogamer's Kristan Reed said that Anniversary merited a higher score than Legend due to its less linear structure and lower frequency of tutorials. GameSpy's Patrick Joynt praised the recreation and expansion of the original game's locations and gameplay, but faulted the camera control and some "unforgiving" puzzles.

Greg Miller, writing for IGN, praised the updated environments and controls, and despite problems with the graphics, found that it managed to capture the original game's spirit. Reviewers generally recommended the PC version over the PS2 due to lower quality graphics.

Upon its release, both the PC and PS2 versions topped their respective charts in the United Kingdom. In North America, the PS2 version was among the top five most rented console games for June 2007. The game remained in the top five best-selling games in Europe during June 2007.

The PS2 and Wii versions received a "Silver" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom. As of 2009, the game has sold 1.3 million copies worldwide. This makes Anniversary the worst-selling Tomb Raider game to date.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary was nominated at the 2007 National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers awards under the "Art Direction in a Game Engine" category. The mobile version won the award for "Best Mobile Game" at the 2007 The Independent Game Developers' Association ceremony.