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DVDfever.co.uk – Tomb Raider: Double Bill: Legend & Anniversary PSP reviewDom Robinson reviews
Eidos
Legend: 
Anniversary:
- Price: £24.99
- Players: 1
- Widescreen: Yes
- Vote and comment on this game:View Comments
This Tomb Raider Double Billbrings together two recent-ish Lara Croft outings in one package, although at the time of writing this review, I can’tfind one specific page for this on Amazon, hence the two links above.
Firstly, Tomb Raider: Legend burst forth onto the scene on PC and almost every console attempting to put right what 2003’sTomb Raider: Angel of Darkness made very wrong indeed. Has it succeeded? In many respects, yes.
Lara’s plan this time is to travel across the globe to retrive the history’s greatest weapon, an ancient English artifact that could destroy humanity, etc. Yes, you get the idea – if Lara doesn’t do her stuff and get to the end then the world is doomed. Again. To make things more personal, a cut-scene showing her as a young girl, Lara’s mother disappears when our heroine pokes around an old ruin.
The twist this time round, is that the person in charge of the evil deeds is someone from her past who was long thought dead. However, when I found out who it was I certainly couldn’t remember them so, unless they came from the only title in the series I hadn’t played, the fifth one – Tomb Raider Chronicles, or if my memory can’t sustain every last detail from the last ten years of Tomb Raider games then it must be a plot device.
Either way, I wouldn’t worry about that too much, because after the last outing for Lara the main question everyone wants to know is whether this game is any good.
There are eight locations to travel through as you go on your quest, starting with Bolivia, then on to Peru, followed by Japan, Ghana, Kazakhastan, England, Nepal and finally back to Bolivia. That said, once you’ve completed the first level you’ll be able to access all of the rooms back in England in Lara’s home, Croft Manor. These include a bedroom and special training rooms, which give useful practice to test a combination of jumping from one type of platform to another then swinging off something else, etc.
Along the way, finishing a level will also unlock hidden outfits and cinematics, to name but two special things as you progress.
Tomb Raider: Anniversary was been released to mark ten years since the original Tomb Raider. Back in the timeof when we first met Lara Croft, she takes you back through the wondrous forests of Peru, the outstanding architecture of Greece and having the sword of Damocles fall on your head when you got a task wrong, the incredible structures in Egypt such as the ability to jump around the Sphinx – as well as going inside – and the Lost Island, which you begin, yet again, by having no weapons and your first task is to find them, not least the Dual Pistols so you’re at least able to defend yourself!
As in the original game, you’re looking for the four parts of the Scion and the first thing you’re able to do before heading off is to check out Croft Manor which has some basic tasks for you to perform and is worth a look if you’re totally new to this series. As you run about you’ll see there’s a number of different small pieces of text to read but the concept does get old quickly and you will end up skipping them. That said, hopefully you got chance to check out last year’s Tomb Raider: Legend, on which this game uses the same graphics engine, and totally gave a wide berth to 2004’s Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, which totally denigrated the franchise. As they tried to revitalise the series, they almost ended up in destroying it.
As with Legend, there’s also the odd cut-scene that requies intervention by pressing certain buttons when it tells you, similar to the old Dragon’s Lair arcade game or Shenmue, which makes for something a bit different as it’s a feature rarely used. That said, it’s sometimes used in conjunction with a new feature called the ‘Adrenaline Dodge’, which is where constant shooting at an enemy will increase their rage as they take a lot of hits in a short space of time, such that a red circle will briefly appear on the their head and a shot fired at that moment will usually kill them instantly (- unless it’s a boss where it’ll just help in your battle to sort them out).
Something else new is that a Lara almost falls when making a jump and you need to press ‘triangle’ to maintain your grip, otherwise you drop down to your probable death – or at least get a big hurt, this addition to the combination of buttons when jumping really doesn’t help gameplay and can just end up being confusing. And ammo feels more scarce than it used to. However, if you die in a scene as a result of not being able to kill something, when you come back you’ll have a full quota of your current weapon.
When the Tomb Raider franchise first began, the brief words – sometimes just “No” as the latest key you found didn’t fitthe lock in front of you – were spoken by Shelley Blond, once seen on TV in the an episode of Channel 4’s Peep Show, being dumped by Jeremy until she gave in to accepting a threesome. For these two games, Lara hasa lot more to say and is voiced by Keeley Hawes (bottom-right) (aka Zoe in Spooks and DI Alex Drake in Ashes To Ashes).
Okay, description stuff out of the way, looking at Legend first, I previously played this on the original Xbox.I went into this one in greater detail inthe original review so any of the basics not discussed herewill be mentioned there.
As you haven’t got two thumbsticks, while normally the PSP one will be used for movement, holding ‘square’ while usingthe thumbstick will give you the ‘free look mode’. In addition to the game itself are “Tomb Trials”, available assingle player or head-to-head modes. Examples of these include racing through undiscovered tombs, either to better yourown time, or against an opponent, find the shortest path past the zipline dive, or locate as many artifacts as possiblewithin the short time given. You can also cut across the columns by climbing and navigating your way round. There’s somegreat fluid dynamics here.
It’s a shame that when you cock these up there’s no ‘retry’ option from the menu without having to complete it, eventhough you know you’ve failed. You can quit and go back in but that takes forever.
One stupid thing during the game itself: At one point, a jaguar was at the bottom of some stairs. I locked my gunsonto it, went back up the stairs a bit and unloaded bullets into it. It couldn’t climb the stairs(!) And it died.
For Anniversary, I first played this on the Xbox 360(see original review here).The PSP controls are a bit different to ‘Legend’,so you both jump with X, and then hold it down again if you want to swing from a grapple hook, for example. Why notjust use the same ones? Using the shoulder buttons is different, too. On this one, individually, they turn you round asyou walk and you need both to lock on while shooting, whereas on ‘Legend’ it’s just one of them. Confusing!
One thing I did like about this game, though, is that when it comes to saving your progress at the end of a level,you can do it from within the game itself and don’t have to get through into the usual PSP game-save menu. In 3½ yearsI think that’s the first game to have done that.
The bad news about releasing these games now is that they’re quite old, now. Perhaps a new adventure should’ve beencreated for the PSP. Also, why is it when you die it takes ages to load back in the last checkpoint? I didn’t go far!
Other problems include that you also have to use the headlight far too often. It’s only a small screen – and even on fullbrightness the areas are far too dark. The graphics also lag a bit while running on this particular title out of the two.However, there are some nice directional sound effects.
Overall, this is a reasonable attempt to convert the two titles across to a smaller console, but Tomb Raider isall about spectacle and you don’t get that on such a small screen, so often you’re left looking around wondering whereto go next. Also, it can be difficult to control Lara in precision-movement situations so it just frustrates you whenyou fall down from a high spot that’s taken ages to climb up to 🙁
The regular console versions will be available very cheaply now, so those are more recommended than this version.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.