Almost, but not quite, exactly the same.

In November of 1996 a legend was born: Lara Croft, international adventurer and wealthy heiress was cast as the main character of the game Tomb Raider, which first appeared on the Sega Saturn, but found most recognition after appearing on the Sony Playstation. Since then Lara has gone on to star in 11 other games, some of which were special editions of existing games. She has also been the subject of two films as well as numerous comics, fan stories, novels and magazine articles. Lara became the face of British gaming and was adopted as a digital proponent of the short-lived, Spice Girls-led phenomenon of "Girl Power". She even went on tour with legendary (Def: pompous. Dictionary of SPOnG. 2007) pop band U2, appearing on screen during their Popmart tour. Now, ten and a bit years later, Lara is revisiting her first adventure and is taking us along for the ride.

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary is a remake of the original Tomb Raider, built with the game engine developed by Crystal Dynamics for Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend. Due to the capabilities of the newer game engine, and the skills and abilities it grants to Lara, some of the game has been reworked, extending it in places and opening up new ways to navigate the levels.

The first time you notice this is in a small introductory sequence set before you enter the caves in Peru. Your guide climbs a ladder toward the entrance of the caves, but the ladder breaks as he reaches the top. Of course, he has not brought enough rope to let you climb up easily, so you have to make the ascent by a more circuitous route. Then, as happened last time, your guide is killed by wolves when he opens the entrance to the caves. A fitting punishment for making a lady climb, I say.

There are similar, small changes throughout the game, most often these are to allow for Lara's new abilities to come through. As in Legend, Lara has a grappling device, this time it's a mechanical one, not the high-tech magnetic one she had last time. This is meant to be 1996 after all! However, Lara can now use her grappling hook to perform wall runs, which are great fun and a nice change to the normal jump-based navigation that we are all used to. Lara's acrobatic skills are as developed as they were in Legend, with pole swinging, column shimmying and ledge scrambling all working in much the same way as in the earlier game.

Some of the changes that have been made to the game are in order to firm up the mythology on which it is based. For example in the very vertical section of Saint Francis Folly, the Thor room from the original game has been renamed to Hephaestus. Obviously someone at Crystal Dynamics thought that a Nordic god in a Grecian setting was a little out of place, but didn't want to get rid of the hammer. Unfortunately, the hammer in the Hephaestus room is a small toffee-hammer type affair compared to the mighty warhammer found in the Thor room. Worry not though, the nail-biting Damocles room is still in place and is just as nerve wracking as it was in 1996.