Tomb Raider: Anniversary

Aug 16, 2007

It's inevitable. Sooner or later, everything will end up on the Wii. The system is just too big a cash cow for publishers to pass up, regardless of how little sense their games would make with a motion-sensitive control scheme. So when we learned that PS2's Tomb Raider: Anniversary was being adapted for Wii, we feared that the recently resurrected and revitalized Lara Croft would be the next victim of this craze.

After seeing the port in action, however, we can admit its potential. The player navigates Lara through abandoned tombs and temples with the Nunchuk's analog stick while handling guns and acrobatics with the remote. It's a control scheme that worked well enough for Prince of Persia: Rival Swords, a Wii game with a very similar style of gameplay. Also, because Anniversary is a return to Tomb Raider's origins - paced exploration, adventuring and puzzling - the setup doesn't need to feel completely natural for you to succeed.

But the Wii is supposed to be all about innovation and there's no point in bringing your game to the console if you aren't going to get a little experimental. In Madden, you hike and pass the remote as if it were a football; in Trauma Center, the remote becomes a scalpel. Tomb Raider: Anniversary, meanwhile, turns Nintendo's wand into an archeological tool.

Come across a crumbled rock wall and you can chisel away at it with the remote, uncovering hidden symbols. When the puzzle in the next room requires you to reproduce those symbols to pass through a door, you'll actually use the remote to draw them in the sand. And if you're having trouble remembering the symbols between sections, record them with a chalk rubbing. The paper and chalk are virtual, of course, but it'll be up to you to wave the remote over the engraving to create an impression.