Tomb Raider: Anniversary

Tomb Raider: Anniversary - (Wii)
Developer: Crystal Dynamics
Format: Wii
Genre: Action

Birthday cake surprises all round for the original gaming Queen

It had to happen. The franchise is too huge to ignore the opportunity to use the Wii's Nunchuk as a grappling hook. A throw forward to cast it, a pull back to hook it move that simply shines.Put this into a fleshed out version of the 1997 original Tomb Raider adventure and you have the foundation for a winner. Lara's out on her gun-totting, platform-leaping, puzzle-solving mission to recover the Scion of Atlantis.

Yep, you've been here before (sometimes in the exact same pixellated tight spot) in others it's a much more fleshed-out environment as you guide the first lady of cool through locations in Peru, Greece and Egypt as she kicks butt and gets the gold.

Armed, literally, with the remote and the Nunchuk, Lara will have to grapple leap and shoot in new ways as you wrestle with the controls in your living room. Everything works extremely well apart from the weapon targeting system. It's just not the aim and fire set-up it should be with a quirky lock-on function that dissolves into farce at times when you're facing multiple enemies. Often it's downright screen-destroying frustrating.

Wii-only controls though, work well and absolutely dazzle. The Nunchuk will have you carefully sweeping away dust on artifacts, indulging in some good old school-day brass rubbing or a spot of precision excavation work to reveal and solve the puzzles.

But you'll come back to that tricky targeting system. Tomb Raider relies so heavily on gun-work that this is just a stupid oversight. There's only so much fun and so much you can achieve with a nifty grapple-hook throw - TR Anniversary proves it.

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