The Tomb Raider Trilogy – Review – PS3

It seems the growing trend these days is to take a classic trilogy or series of games from the PS2 and re-release them as an HD collection for the PS3. Being a Nintendo and eventually Xbox fan growing up, I never had the chance or opportunity to play any of the Playstation exclusives.  Now that I’ve finally added a PS3 to the mix as of couple of years ago, I’ve been looking at the classic games and picked out some to play. One of these games, or series of games, I didn’t get a chance to play was the Tomb Raider Trilogy. I’ve had friends who had copies on the Xbox and Xbox 360, but for some reason I never really found any interest in them overall due to some glaring issues.

Story: Much like Indiana Jones or Uncharted, each game in the trilogy features an experienced treasure hunter; her name – Lara Croft. Also, much like the aforementioned titles, Lara isn’t the only one in search of treasure. Throughout each game Lara tends to find an artifact only to have it stolen from her. Lara’s enemies either steal the artifact so they can sell it or gain a power that the artifact holds; while Lara, on the other hand, finds the artifacts in order to protect the world from the powers being used by the wrong people or to ensure the mythological creatures don’t escape.

Gameplay: The only game I’ve played previously from beginning to end was Tomb Raider Legends on the Xbox. Tomb Raider Anniversary and Underworld was only played in demo form upon release and didn’t do a good job at gaining my interest in the series. For me, the somewhat stale story and glaring gameplay issues such as well hidden ledges, and poor jump alignment was too underwhelming for me to care. However, with this release of the Tomb Raider Trilogy for the PS3, I decided to give the trilogy another chance and see if anything has been improved, not only for an HD re-release but as a full game which is said to be more polished than a demo.

For those who have not played Tomb Raider, Lara travels to various parts of the world in search of an artifact. To retrieve the artifact, Lara comes across many puzzles which require quite a bit of thinking when completing. As well, the artifact is usually stolen from Lara so she has to fight to retrieve it again; there is a balanced mixed between puzzle, adventure, and third person gunplay.

For the most part, each game is the same as it was on the PS2 and Xbox based on what I previously played and had heard about from the original games. However, some annoyances still remain. The first thing I wanted to do was to see if any of the problems I previously encountered were less of a hassle. To my surprise, yes, many of the jumps actually were improved and instead of missing a pole or ledge, Lara would actually grab onto it the first time. There were some areas where jumping and grabbing a rope or ledge would be a problem, but for the most part, it seemed fixed. However, one issue I still had was with finding the ledges. It can still be difficult to find a ledge as most blend into the environment way too much. I understand that it adds a sense of realism and exploration to the game because I’m sure in the real world, a ledge wouldn’t just conveniently be visible, but you can spend way too much time looking at a seemingly flat wall only to eventually realize there are actually small ledges protruding from the wall. So what I’m trying to say is there is a lot of unnecessary trial and error involved.

Graphics/Audio: The thing people will notice the most about the collection is the updated graphics. Compared to the original games, yes, the graphics have vastly been improved. At times, the characters look too shiny, which is odd because I didn’t know skin could be so shiny, however, the models appear to be more refined around the edges and polished – rounded corners and very little pixelation. Another thing I noticed was the draw distance. Occasionally, there are some noticeable pop in issues with close objects or characters will briefly intersect with an object in cutscenes.

The audio is as good as it always was; the music is brilliant, the ambient nature sounds are top notch and really make you feel like you are exploring an unknown and lively environment with water trickling, birds chirping, wind blowing the leaves of trees and so on. At times, however, I did notice poorly cut audio or places where subtitles were displayed, but no voice was heard.

Overall: If you’re like me and didn’t get a chance to play the original Tomb Raider games, the HD collection is great. It not only gives you the same game that you’ve heard people talk about, but it also provides updated graphics, exclusive content and small, potential gameplay changes that can improve the overall experience. I look forward to the next HD collection in order to catch up with and experience even more of what Playstation and Square Enix had to offer in the past such as the Kingdom Hearts series.

Pros:
-Updated graphics
-Some improvements to the gameplay elements (jumps, ledges)
-Great music and ambient noise
-Three games for one low price

Cons:
-Some gameplay annoyances remain
-Even with updated graphics, the trilogy can look dated

Overall score: 8.5/10

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