Reviews// Tomb Raider: Anniversary (Wii)

Camera control works by turning the screen into an analogue stick - i.e. the closer you point to the edge of the screen, the faster the camera turns. This isn't too bad once you get used to it but is a bit counter-intuitive to start with. In my case, I wanted the camera to point directly at my focus point, which is represented on screen by a small blue dot.

Gun aiming is performed using the direct-pointing method, but there are issues here too. When you hold down [Z] to "lock on" to a target all that happens is it is highlighted with a targeting ring; you still need to point Lara's guns at it. Given that every other 3D Tomb Raider game has employed some sort of lock-on scheme, this control change (even if it is meant to make things more interactive) failed to work for me.

What actually happens is that you will have previously relaxed your arm at some point and the focus point will have slipped off the screen so, when you pull your guns out, Lara points them nowhere near the attacking targets. You then have to endure a frantic period of waving the remote around trying to target and fire before you get nibbled to death by rats.

This leads to frustration, especially when the Wii remote is so difficult to keep steady, and the circle of wavering is larger than a rat at Lara's feet. You have to wonder how the fine lady has any lower legs left if this is the way she handles her guns.

However, none of this frustration even compares to the big issue: the navigation controls. Tomb Raider and games like it live and die on their navigation controls. You are jumping, climbing and swinging for most of the game, often above deadly traps or bottomless pits, so you need to feel that you are in control of the main character.

For most of Lara's life she was controlled using the system where pushing forward caused her to move forward no matter which way she or the camera were pointing. Recent games have used the method where forward makes Lara move in the direction the camera is pointing. When you combine this control method with the way you move the camera, the inaccuracy inherent in the Wii remote as a pointer (and the difficulty in hitting forward first time with a stick on a one-handed controller) leads to more deaths than are strictly necessary.

I could go on complaining about the control method, mentioning the torch and the grab recovery button, the grappling device controls and the repetitive tacked-on lever interaction, but I won't. I'm going to round off this review by wondering if third-party games on the Wii are actually going in the right direction in the first place.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary is yet another game where Wii-specific features and controls have been bolted on to a port from another platform without thinking too much about how the basic game is affected by being on the Wii. It's a "toe in the water" approach to Wii gaming that produces average games at best, annoys and frustrates gamers and leads to lower profits for publishers. All this means that fewer chances are taken on the next game - and this is all so that a game can be moved onto another platform with as little work as possible. This approach will only result in large numbers of missed opportunities. This, in turn, will steadily leave the Wii market being propped up mainly by Nintendo - at which point we will get back to the GameCube situation with little to no third-party support.

All this will mean that the Wii will slowly die...

SPOnG Score: 67%

CONCLUSION
Tomb Raider: Anniversary on Wii is a solid game marred by a frustrating combination of the problems from the PS2 version and all new problems due to the Wii control method. The added functionality that actually works can't make up for the fact that most of it doesn't. One for Tomb Raider completists only.