Tomb Raider Anniversary review

You had to see this one coming. Despite all the hooplah about Lara returning to the console that made her famous (well, its successor, anyhow), you had to know that the PlayStation 2 would not be the only place you could get your Tomb Raider Anniversary fix. Now, the game that looked uncannily good on PS2 looks even better on 360 and hasn't lost a beat.

With last year’s Tomb Raider Legend, new developer Crystal Dynamics tore down the decadent remains of what Tomb Raider had turned into and laid a fresh, firm foundation for what it might become. Unwieldy complications were removed, and the game returned to the "high camp and grand ruins" formula of those early successes.



The result was impressive, and the response seems to have convinced Crystal Dynamics that what people want is Lara back the way she used to be, only better, faster and prettier. And that’s what they’re giving us with Anniversary, a remake of the very first Tomb Raider, which makes full use of all the advantages of the 360 - well, most of them. No online multiplay here, but Lara does look every bit as attractive as the impossible pin-up girl she is, and her moves have evolved for the better since her early days in the mid 1990s.