Video game review: Lara Croft - Tomb Raider Anniversary (Wii)

For some reason, lately I've been feeling the itch to play an action-adventure game that's not painted in primary colors. So despite the mixed reviews (and armed with a $10 off coupon ), I picked up Lara Croft: Tomb Raider Anniversary for the Nintendo Wii.

For those new to the party, Tomb Raider Anniversary is an enhanced remake of the original Lara Croft: Tomb Raider video game. You control an archeological adventurer named Lara as she explores various ruins and fights enemies in search of the Scion of Atlantis™. It's essentially an Indiana Jones video game but with a gender-changed protagonist; the title was so successful it propelled Lara into the pantheon of modern-day cultural icons and spawned a half-dozen sequels and two movies in the process.

As mentioned earlier, Tomb Raider Anniversary is an updated version of the original game, with new maneuvers, updated levels, and enhanced graphics and sound. Underneath the changes, though, it's still an adventuring game periodically interrupted by bouts of gunplay. I finished the first two Tomb Raider games on the Sony PlayStation, so I was pretty familiar with the series. Too familiar, as a matter of fact -- I spent the first half-hour in "Lara's Mansion", expecting it to be a training level (as in the original) but ended up getting lost and frustrated instead. Don't make my mistake; if you want to learn the controls, simply start the game and let it guide you along the way.

The Wii version of Tomb Raider Anniversary is an updated version of the updated game, adding pointer-based shooting and motion gestures to the mix (is there, like, a law or something?). The gun controls are similar to those used by Metroid Prime 3; you can lock on to an enemy and keep it on-screen while pointing (and shooting) at something else. This is another area where I got tripped up by my prior Tomb Raider experience -- my first gunfights were embarrassing affairs where I was shooting blindly into the sky, as I was expecting the auto-targeting from the other games to do the aiming I was supposed to do (oops). After a few encounters, I finally changed my habits and was ably dodging wolves and shooting bears.

Motion controls are used sparingly for the most part, with a shake of the nunchuk used to make Lara throw her grappling hook or shimmy across ledges faster. Also, some of the switches and puzzles in the non-Wii versions of Tomb Raider Anniversary have been replaced with remote-waving actions, such as spinning tumblers to open a lock or yanking a lever with both hands. These don't affect the game much, but they occur intermittently enough to make for nice diversions from the usual "push a button, go to the next area" nature of the game.

In terms of graphics and sound, Tomb Raider Anniversary on the Wii is a slightly-enhanced port of the PlayStation 2 version of the game. While "hardcore" gamers may scoff at the "last-gen" graphics, they look perfectly fine to me, and I didn't have a problem losing myself in the game's caverns and jungles. The sounds are appropriately quiet and atmospheric for the most part, punctuated periodically by brief musical riffs and the cacophony of gunfire.

Bottom line? If you've haven't played Lara Croft: Tomb Raider Anniversary already, the Wii version is a perfectly fine game to add to your library. It may not be an audio-visual showcase for the Wii, but the solid exploratory gameplay of the original Tomb Raider holds up well after all these years, especially with a lower-than-usual MSRP of $40.

(Of course, getting it for less is even better ).

P.S. I'm glad to see that Lara has ditched her oversized mammaries from the earlier games for a more realistic pair, but the puffy bee-sting lips are still too distracting...