Tomb Raider Anniversary Demo

Lara Croft has been raiding tombs for a few decades now and she has remained just as resourceful and unstoppable as ever in her race to find and recover the most precious artifacts around the world. In this tribute, you can take another look at her roots and go through many of her first adventures, as well as enjoy the newest graphic and physics engines technology could muster.

Tomb Raider Anniversary is but an attempt to bring Lara's charm and spirit back, by depicting the classical gameplay mechanics that made the series so revered amongst its fans. Thus, the main plot concerns itself with an artifact known as Scion, which must be recovered at the orders of a powerful syndicate, who hired Lara to undertake the task.

Naturally, the job is merely a con to take advantage of the experienced archaeologist and use Lara to achieve a much grander scheme. Hence, she decides to get some vengeance and get back at the people who did this, by going after the powerful artifact herself. During the journey, she stumbles across great mysteries and even greater dangers, all of which are handled with wits or daring acrobatics.

Although the game can be classified as pure adventure, it also features heavy platformer elements, since Lara must climb and jump from ledge to ledge almost all the time, in order to advance through the trap-infested levels. There are also a few puzzles that must be solved before moving on, some of which actually require quite a bit of thinking.

The new graphic engine really works wonders when it comes to character animation, since you can admire Lara perform some of the most daring acrobatics yet, while still managing to make her moves appear natural and fluid. Moreover, the multitude of effects that enhance the picture quality also improve the end result, with good-looking motion blur and high quality bloom.

In the end, the game manages to bring back good memories from way early in the franchise, thanks to the heavily improved platformer mechanics and the familiar plot. The new age graphics bring Lara into the twenty first century, along with her more than impressive history.