20 Years Celebration Spotlight: Tomb Raider: Anniversary

As announced a while ago, ROTTR Web will celebrate the 20th anniversary of Lara Croft and Tomb Raider by (among other things) walking down the Tomb Raider memory lane with you! In the spotlight today: Tomb Raider: Anniversary!

Introduction:
Tomb Raider: Anniversary is the eighth game in the Tomb Raider series and functions as a celebration of 10 years of Tomb Raider. It was released in 2007 and is a remake of the original 1996 Tomb Raider. Anniversary was developed by Crystal Dynamics and Buzz Monkey Software and published by Eidos Interactive. Furthermore, Crystal managed to fit Core Design’s pre-existing story into its own modern trilogy, pitching it as a prequel to Legend while setting up story elements for Underworld. The game included all of the original, familiar environments and locations from Tomb Raider (1996) – filtered through 2007’s tech.

Music:
The score for TR: Anniversary was composed by Troels Brun Folmann. The game included a 13-track promotional soundtrack in the Collector’s Edition of the game. The majority of the album contains Folmann’s original scores and themes. However, recognisable themes from the first game (composed by Nathan McCree) such as “Time to Run”, “Puzzle Theme”, and “Puzzle Theme II” have been recreated. It took Folmann five months to compose the score which is in the style of electronic orchestra.

Did you know..? Trivia Facts:
– Core Design worked on its own 10-year anniversary remaster for PSP, but the project never saw the light of day beyong a leaked trailer.
– Lara names Larson, indicating they met before, whereas in the original this is not indicated. This change may be due to the events in the first section of Tomb Raider: Chronicles.
– The levels are much smaller but more detailed than they were in the original, for example players can discover more than just one path for Lara to take.
– Pierre is no longer a handsome Frenchman with a full head of hair like the original. He is now a bald middle-aged man.
– Saving is done with a series of checkpoints, even though there is a save function, no matter where the player saves, loading or resuming the save always default the player to the last check point Lara reached prior to manual saving.
– Unlike the original Tomb Raider version, Croft Manor isn’t just a practice area, now it’s a level in itself where you have to collect artifacts, items and solve puzzles as you would in any other level in the game. It also gained an outdoor area, a vast hedge maze, as a nod to Tomb Raider II.
– In the original, the magazine that Larson showed to Lara in the game’s intro is called “Adventurer!” and the description on the bottom says “Lara stamps out Big Foot!!!” While in this game, the magazine was simply called “Tomb Raider” and the description on the bottom says “Croft bags… Big Foot?”.
– Natla’s line in the opening movie “…this is a game you’ve played before…” is a reference to the fact that this game is a remake of the original Tomb Raider game.
– The Lara model has been upgraded with over 7,000 polygons and has inherited a few new moves: a pole-hopping move where Lara can balance on narrow surfaces; she can “perch” or balance on small platforms and not lose her balance; she can run across walls while swinging from her hook grapple; with the grapple she can now go up on the walls.
– A total of 10 costumes are unlock-able by collecting all 10 relics.
– First Tomb Raider game in which Richard Croft has a speaking role.
– If you collect all the relics, you unlock a special stage called “Style Units.” Which shows all four areas of the game all in one level (Peru, Greece, Egypt, and Lost City). They created this level to get into practice before going into full production. It starts off with a commentator who is the art director of the game and he explains the whole idea of creating a “fake” level. This level is playable. There are no weapons or items to collect, there are no enemies to kill, and this level is impossible to beat, because the level goes around in circles exploring the four different worlds. It is possible to die, but only from a high ledge, or drowning.
– The regions around the world Lara explores are: Peru, Greece, Egypt, Lost Island (Atlantis) and Croft Manor in England.
– Most of Lara’s Legend animations have been revamped to make everything more realistic.
– Dual Uzis (which are now called Dual Mini SMGs) and the shotgun made a return. The magnums, present in the original Tomb Raider, also returned in the form of .50 caliber pistols.
– Interactive cut scenes make a return in this game.

HD Conceptual Artworks: