Tomb Raider - Anniversary: Egypt

Temple of Khamoon...well, I thought it was nice-looking until I saw the poles. Most of them are just randomly placed, its kind of breaking the game's one advantage over the original. Anyway, use the grappling hook on the obvious grappling hook grab areas, then pull out a block in a way resembling the original, but not quite, and do the usual series of cool jumps and flips across the obvious ledges. I realize that the original, in a sense was obvious to, but you could jump everywhere. When you can only jump on certain objects, its off-putting.

Hmm, this is new. Scenery? No, it slowly goes down while Lara is on it. This one probably doesn't activate anything, but a later one will.

Yes, the panthers are still lame reskins of the lions. I spot a secret above the area this guy's in, only a large medikit. Not even worth the effort. Right, moving onto bloom valley.

I don't remember if all games from this era were as bad with bloom as this, but this is seriously making me wish I was looking at a ZX Spectrum game. Yeugh. Wait, why is it a cutscene...? Lara looks around, oh, its the first fight with an Atlantian. Can't have a player just stumble into a fight with a nasty enemy, give him an epic cutscene in which our fearless heroine is soiling herself in terror over it.

There are two of them. As with the original enemies, a step above the past riff-raff, but that's just because they shoot fireballs. I died once, but I forgot about dodging. They're not even harder to kill than the panthers. I didn't care for how many fights in the original felt like shooting bullet sponges, but there's a happy medium.

This is the area from the original in which had the obelisk, that Lara found four items for to open a path to the final piece. You go to all the trouble of modeling all this stuff, and there's only one path forward. Yeah, the original was like that too at this point, but by that point, it didn't really matter and it made up for it later. One section here is really annoying about the checkpoints, you shoot a target which briefly puts out a pole, if you're on it too long, Lara drops down and dies. There's a checkpoint right before this. What's the point? Another artifact.

A lever behind a sphinx opens a hallway, thankfully just a hallway, to this room. I know this. Looks more impressive, but will I be able to climb on top this time? I get distracted by some panthers, but yes. A lever causes the statues to move, and while I figure out how that works two more panthers pop out. The idea is, you can climb up to the statues on one side, and you need the lever pulled down so the statues are in such a position that Lara can jump across.

Another hallway, the gimmick is that the pole goes in and out on a timer, then this. I think this is supposed to correspond to the nice room with the crocodiles from the original. Crocodiles pop up, so yeah. The cave part of the room is so high up I couldn't detect it. This is just making me wish I splurged on the remastered trilogy right about now. The only way forward is through a timed, underwater gate.

I remember this. Mind you, originally there was a lot more than one medikit in the water. Even secrets feel underwhelming here. Jump climb up this one switch and then onto the bridge. Hey, why is the wall getting closer? The bridge is going into the wall. I was not expecting that. This leads to a room with some items and a lever. It drops a crate from a higher ledge to the one I was just on, also preventing the one I was on from moving. Lame.

It even tries to keep this theme going with a section where you have to jump from a platform receding into the wall to one of the ledges that slide down. Except it doesn't properly connect half the time. This close to actually doing something cool. This close. Here's another activate something so you can reach it in time puzzle, pull down the gate with the grappling hook, then grapple across. There's a lever there, which opens a gate above, which is then climbed in thanks to the doors that opened. I see they've combined more than one room, if my memory hasn't failed me.

A lever up here opens the trap door next to the cat statue. Swing across the area above the cat statue, get another artifact, shoot the crocodiles from the safety of the roof, then jump into the next area. This area, seems like it was a lot later in the original. We got the cats, and the same old secret, which is now unimpressive. Another hallway.

Hang on, this room is important, they showed a cutscene. I don't know why, but its important. I guess its the room you fill with sand? Left is a ladder up.

I'm starting to dislike climbing up to find enemies, this tends to be the one time I end up dead. Its not difficult, its just time-consuming. There's a weight that's broken off that scarab, clearly the goal is to reach there. There's a ladder up.

Hey, guess who finally captured Lara falling through the floor after successfully doing something! This one I can even do on command. If I look too far in one direction, Lara clips through. I must admit, I don't know how that could possibly cause this or why you wouldn't fix it, but I think pretty solidly that this is not working as well as the original did. This leads to the top of the moving statues, across that is a lever which puts the statues firmly into the place that allows Lara to cross them, and allows the scarab to be used. Assuming I can figure out how to reach it.

Turns out there's just a well-hidden ring on one wall. I get an answer as to why I'm having these issues with collision and Lara clipping through things, they just did not care at all. Because this area is very, very janky. That ring is constantly giving me grief, I managed to backflip off it one out of maybe five times, which, considering that before the game loved making me backflip out of wall runs, is amusing in a sad way. Obelisks here are intended to be gabbed onto, but if you go around them wrong, Lara is all of a sudden switches to her hanging over a non-solid wall pose. It, unlike the dozens of other times the game randomly screws up on me, can be fixed, but man. Finally, I grab the pole that holds the scarab in place and the sand falls.

This is the move block to reach new areas room. Its a lot smaller, instead of new areas, each block hides a small room. Four of which are connected to obelisks. You pull the blocks, which pull up the obelisks, and then rotate the bottom so they match the hieroglyphics in each room. Nothing happens. Good, good. Maybe I need to allow them to fall back into place? That doesn't work either. Answer, I wasn't locking them properly, there's some locking mechanism as you turn it, and they need to be up. Also, there's a relic on a path you can only reach when they're up. And that's the level. Missed one artifact.

The Obelisk of Khamoon, well, let's see if everything else is as good as this. Judging by the layout on this side, four levers, four bridges, four (in the real sense, not in-game) artifacts. One lever straight off, and with no other way forward, its in the pool below. Some stuff, ammo, medikits, the game isn't giving me many shells, mostly magnum mags.

A side path leads here. I'm glad they tried to keep in these death traps even if they're usually crap even in the good Tomb Raider games. Checkpoint just as soon as I approach. I know you could always do that in the original yourself, but it was yourself, not the game deciding you're too much of a loser to get past this without that sort of aid.

This is a curious room. For once there isn't an obvious choice forward. More shotgun shells, guess the game thought it was being too strict. I guess in a sense its right. There's one of the weighted ledges that slide down, this time bringing down a pillar, which leads up. Ledges, then a disappearing platform I didn't expect and...

Huh. This is unexpected. I genuinely have no idea how I'm going to get through here. There's nothing behind Lara or to her right, I made a jump to the left, but out of her range. It turns out that I'm not exploiting the maximum length of Lara's jumps. Its smooth sailing from there, even though its a long way up. A switch pulls out a pole at the top, but there's another one I missed somewhere. Or perhaps I can go back.

Ah, Atlantian. Oh, I accidentally used the pistols...TWENTY THREE BULLETS!? I know it got tedious at times in the original, but not even a full reload, without using the fancy bullet time dodge? After this there's now some poles which slide down as Lara is on them. Nothing tricky, but the ladder back glitched out quite a bit on me.

The top of the obelisk is nicer than in the original, although without the cleverness of finding some secrets there's not much point to it. Not that I need ammo for my weapons considering I can take out anything with the regular pistols. Seemingly multiple paths to me, until I discover the far gate has nothing and I have to go through the left gate. Spinning blades pop up there, cool enough for now.

I recognize this room. If I'm not careful, I'll get killed at the bottom of here. Actually, you went up from the bottom. Its a short slide down, with one Atlantian. A switch opens a gate and turns the slide into a staircase. This is combining multiple rooms...poorly. What it is good at doing is wall running across a blade that pops out of the wall. At least it would be good if wall running wasn't incredibly annoying to control. When I reach the top there's two wall runs where you have to jump backwards from, an artifact placed in the most annoying way, and the realization that I could have come from the area Lara originally came from and done 90% of this without the annoyance. So, that gate on the bottom.

Oh, good, crushing walls and a spinning blade over an endless pit. Right, get the rhythm down. go immediately after the first crush wall, wait for the blade to retract, then jump when the final wall is just about to disappear. Which would be just fine, if the third pillar registered properly. You can still go through it, its just annoying.

On the way back, I realize that the switch in the room that confused me is timed, and probably leads to an artifact. Just gotta speedrun through here with these controls. Thoughts occur to me as Lara plummets to her death for the tenth time thanks to the wall run not properly working. Is it actually possible to make a Tomb Raider with controls like this that isn't crap? This isn't even worse than my usual run through, even cautiously tends to be this crappy. Eventually I get the artifact hidden up there.

Finally, as I return to the area with the slide, I try to reach the second artifact. Wall run once, then just let Lara jump down. Lara can't jump down, she jumps off. I don't know why I expected intelligent game design from this game at this point, but I'm still disappointed. And if I stop Lara, then have her slowly slide down the grappling hook, she just falls because the hook is slightly off the space she needs to be on to reach the artifact. It turns out you're supposed to jump from the ledge Lara reaches from the wall run. The path past here is a simple hallway with another lever. Only one left.

New hallway, this one has spinning blades and a singular pedestal with a crushing wall. Then, I guess this is the room with the mummies that appear when you drop down? I can't really tell what they're doing at this point. A choice, down or up. Oh, there's a switch ledge...and blades pop out. I'm smart. Reload, and I'll go down. Seems like there wasn't a choice after all.

Down is something of a one-way trip, as multiple parts down here seem to only lead down. Though there's probably a way out sooner or later. Three Atlantians, which I take out from a perch. No way back up without activating the switch ledge, curiously enough, on the way down. So a hallway out is my only option, though first I snag another artifact in a little niche that requires some long ledge jumping to reach.

More crushing walls over points, along with a rather pointless spinning blade. Simple enough to get past, though I realize there's another spinning blade on the other side, so its tricky getting up. A lever in a sealed off side alcove, and the final bridge falls...I have to go back through the hallway now. That's not good.

Exploring the room with the trap switch ledge further, I find two things, I can in fact, go back the way I came. (And more of the game breaking in ways it shouldn't) There's also another artifact at the very top. Which is very difficult to reach because it requires Lara to jump back from a wall run. Many, many deaths later, I get it, also another Atlantian spawns because...uh...why not?

Now I take the remaining items I need to put on the other obelisk, which opens a gate down below. A short swim later and I find myself under the sliding statue room.

Oh, wow, its a centaur. No blaster. Anyway, I put the items in the obelisk, a door opens and the level ends. Sanctuary of the Scion. Two more Atlantians on a staircase, very familiar, but still not interesting. Another "match rotating pillar with symbols on wall" puzzle, only pillars rotate the ones next to them. Great, busywork. Another hallway with crusher walls.

The sphinx. Nice, I guess. Should have been an Atlantian here. Two paths, how generous. Is one a trick? No, by the looks of things. How odd, I don't remember multiple paths in the original. Each leads to a gate on either side with its own hallway and clockwise room.

Glad to see the winged Atlantians are back even if these guys are annoying to deal with in quarters like these. Guess that's the only option they know of to make combat harder. They spam their fireballs too, so they're actually difficult to deal with. Though they're very much glass cannons like every other enemy, under a mag of .50 cal ammo kills them. I deal with them twice, once for each side. The uzis are on top of the pyramid, rather than in their neat little floating platform. Lame.

Another hallway, this time with a timed pole, and then this. This is new. That switch brings down a downward facing obelisk, it emits light then after I regain control it slowly returns. Okay, guess I have to go down. The now usual poles which shift down, but then there's something weird.

There are four pillars down here, they rise when Lara is on four of these things. There's not an easy name for them, they're basically giant ladders where if Lara is on them, they gradually go down until they lock into place. Then a ledge pops out of one wall, with all four it extends to a door, which is then opened by the switch up top. This is actually a very clever puzzle, one I wish the game wouldn't have waited until nearly the end of the game to start with. Its quite tricky figuring out the right order to do these in, but eventually I get it. Also, an artifact is somewhat cleverly hidden here.

The room I reached has a key. The door closes behind me, and an Atlantian pops out. Hidden by the camera, but as per usual they die in three shells. A gate in the previous room opens and I'm back in the sphinx. Oh, a centaur popped up. Two shells. Which I guess means everything can die in two shells, I've been wasting ammo. The horror.

Another hallway, this time the gimmick is you crouch in a gap between the crusher walls. And then...another of these rooms. This one's easier, it was probably intended to be done first, as you don't need to do the pillars in any order. Another Atlantian next to the key, which I spot before the cutscene this time. Two more centaurs and into the sphinx.

Some rats and a random, seemingly useless globe, and then these two guys. This worked in the original because the Lara had a much larger breath meter, here, exploring is slow and tedious. Lara has just enough breath to reach a lever at the bottom, draining the water. Which makes it having water somewhat pointless. Until I realize this is another water level puzzle. Why is it that so many people who suck at designing water puzzles continue to design water puzzles?

The gist is, there are three switches that control the water along with one switch ledge near the top. In front of both statues are niches which have these rotating targets you need to match to nearby floor markings. Inside each niche is one of the switches that control the water. One statue is blocked off by a gate linked to a timed switch ledge. Further, there's a, I guess timed, switch ledge which opens a gate leading to the relic.

This leads into the toughest battle yet. Two Atlantians and two centaurs. Takes me a few tries and I actually used a medikit. Right, so the problem here is that you need to jump across ledges made in the pillars to two "Scion holes" for lack of a better term, you use the scion there. Its a bit annoyingly laid out, I actually found an artifact off in one corner to be easier to reach.

Cutscene, Lara gets the final piece and the ruin starts to shake. She leaves through a convenient door and puts together the final two pieces of the Scion. We get the reveal that Natla is one of the Triumvirat, the one who disfigured her brother. The other banish her to the crystal we saw in the intro. When we return to Lara, Natla and her henchmen, the big black guy, the skateboarder and Larson instead of the cowboy are there.

QTEs to escape, Lara gets out. Natla and co go off to their boat and Lara follows on her bike. Still looks like the bike is floating. Lara gets on the same way, albeit with the grappling hook, and nobody even notices she came on it. She enters some cubby hole and comes out when they arrive at the lost island. Next time, the end of the game.

This Session: 4 hours 30 minutes

Total Time: 15 hours 30 minutes