Tomb Raider Anniversary demo News

Lock up your wolves, bears and dinosaurs, Peruvians! Lara's on the loose again, and this time she's using the Tomb Raider: Legend engine so she doesn't fall off ledges all the time. You can see how things are shaping up in the newly released Tomb Raider Anniversary demo.

Don't worry about it being one of those ropey PC ports of a PS2 game, either - our full version was very accommodating, immediately spotting our Xbox 360 USB controller and mapping all the buttons correctly, offering widescreen resolutions, and loading faster than it usually takes PCs to "thumbnail" our obliquely-named Desktop folders full of movie files.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary - originally conceived as the 10th anniversary edition - is a remake of the original game that uses an updated Tomb Raider: Legend engine. As well as all the ledge-hanging, rope-swinging and block-pushing of Legend, remade Lara can also shimmy up pillars, Prince of Persia-style, and perch on top of them, er, Sly Raccoon-style.

Sadly Legend's back-up team - Zip and Alister - won't be around to provide headset banter as Lara crawls through abandoned temples looking for cogs and fighting raptors, but you can expect to make contact with a few of her old friends like Jacqueline Natla and Larson as she tries to lay hands on the ancient Atlantean Scion, piece by piece.

And if you're curious to see what we make of it, why not read through our recent first impressions while the demo downloads? You can look out for our review of Anniversary later this week, with the full game due on PC and PS2 on 1st June. Do you feel stronger now? We hope so.