The Tomb Raider Trilogy Review

What could be better than a hot chick running and gunning, mowing down anyone standing in her way? Lara Croft took the audience by surprise back when she appeared on the PlayStation back in the 90s when she was pixelated and blocky. Her animations would change as time progressed, and would also get a movie deal with Angelina Jolie starring as our gun-toting babe.

With the releases of other previous game collections, Crystal Dynamics decided it would be a great idea to give us the remastered versions of previously released titles, so Lara can share her skills with the PlayStation 3 owners.

The three titles you can select include Tomb Raider: Legend, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, and Tomb Raider: Underworld. I haven’t touched a Tomb Raider games since Tomb Raider 2, so jumping into this feels like a big leap.

Legend, Anniversary and Underworld are direct sequels for each other. Legend is a prequel for the original Tomb Raider series, which leads into Anniversary, which fuses the first two Tomb Raider games that were remade for PS2, now placed on PS3. Finally Underworld finishes the trilogy of the ported series, answering many questions about Lara. But how are these ports for those who may have never played the game?

All 3 games have you roughly playing the same game, over and over again with some fun time, killing enemies including bosses that requires you to figure out their pattern to defeat them. 60% of the game is solving the puzzles and 30% is roughly fighting and 10% is climbing and jumping, which at times leaves you wanting more. The story gives Lara a lot of background spanning the 3 stories, which usually is about Lara trying to uncover things about her past, or leaving off her father’s explorations.

Legend is easily more of my favorite game in the series especially with the motorcycle missions. Anniversary in my opinion had tedious puzzles, which took away from my need to shoot, and Underworld gave me more of what I liked from Legend. If you have never played any of the Tomb Raider titles, this would be a fun play through once, but after that It would be no more than just redoing puzzles.

The collection created a whole new style of gameplay for the Eidos sex symbol, fusing gun-toting sexy action with puzzle heavy stages that challenges players. Sometimes the puzzles can be difficult, which can lead to some anger and frustration, but it gives you that feeling of self-satisfaction if you complete the puzzle yourself. I won’t lie, I used YouTube a few times in Anniversary just because I was so lost a couple of times, but the action is always fun.

Tomb Raider Collection is nothing special, but it has a hand in creating the free running, exploration games, climbing and swinging that so in many titles nowadays incorporate.

Grade: C+