Any gamer who hasn't been living under a rock for the last ten years, knows exactly who Lara Croft is. In fact, even people who don't play games probably know the character from the crappy movies based on the games. The games themselves have been pretty lousy for awhile now and this franchise was looked upon as being dead by many people. The good news is that with 'Tomb Raider: Legend', Crystal Dynamics (the new developer) has made a game that is fun to play and really brings Lara Croft back to her roots. The bad news is that it's pretty short and if you didn't like the good Tomb Raider games before, you probably aren't going to like this now.
I have never been a big fan of this series in game or movie form. I really liked the original on the Playstation, but didn't like the sequals very much. Pushing around hundreds of boxes in a game never excited me. As the series went on, the sloppy controls and terrible camera really killed the franchise. Crystal Dynamics does a good job at taking care of most of these problems. How did they do this? Well by stealing most of what has made the newer 'Prince Of Persia' (POP) games so good. In fact, I find it ironic that POP stole a lot of what the original Tomb Raider did right, way back on the Playstation. And now, all these years later, Tomb Raider is mimicing what POP has done on the PS2 and Xbox.
When you first start the game, you will get a nice little scene that tries to introduce (what will end up being) a pretty lame storyline. But I will give Crystal Dynamics credit for trying, as the Tomb Raider games have never been known for their story telling. As you move on in the game, however, the storyline becomes just stupid and takes a backseat to the puzzle-oriented gameplay.
When I started playing the first level, I literally felt like I was playing POP with Lara Croft instead of 'The Prince'. You can do all sorts of nice acrobatic moves, jump to different platforms, swing from various poles, etc. It's very fun at first and was refreshing to see the Tomb Raider series was actually not a pain in the @ss to play. Controlling Lara Croft is a breeze. All of the buttons are mapped out pretty well and I really had no problem picking up the controls very quickly. The game also does a nice job of holding your hand through some parts of the first level to show you what your character is capable of.
Like I have said, if you have played the POP games you will know what to expect here. You walk into a large room and the game goes into a little scene showing you a path to get out of that room. You then have to use a combination of your acrobatics, items in the enviroment, & your equipment to find a way to the next area. It can be fun to do this and most of the puzzles are fun to do, for awhile. After a few levels or so, the irritation of instant deaths or having to do a large, time consuming puzzle all over again because of one little slip off a ledge is annoying. The puzzles are fun enough to make you want to do them again, but the game is very unforgiving in some spots. There were many times where I was hoping I had the 'Sands Of Time' to reverse time and go back to that jump I just missed. This style of gameplay certainly doesn't revolutionize the genre in any way, and feels like a blatent rip-off of POP, but it's still fun.
The combat in the game is another story, though. While it's not terrible, there is really no challenge to it. You basically just hold down the left trigger to auto-aim and push the right trigger to fire. As long as you move around while doing it, you shouldn't take too much damage and will breeze through most of the firefights. The real challenge here comes from the puzzles, not from the boring combat. Another area that could have used some work were the motorcycle sections. The controls aren't very good and the whole concept of this gameplay style feels very tacked on and makes no sense in the storyline. And I didn't really care for the quick-button pressing sections that just start with little or no warning and if you miss one button, it's instant death. Thankfully, the game has an excellent checkpoint system. So even if you do die, you will never have to go back too far to retry the area. I must say that this was a HUGE deal to me. There are many moments where you have instant deaths in this game and without a adequate checkpoint or save system, that would have killed the game for me. So I applaud the developers for doing that part right.
I have played several games for the 360 that have been ports of current-gen titles already. While some have obviously made a vaild attempt at making the game look better (Burnout Revenge), there have been some pretty lazy and insulting games to come out (Far Cry Instincts Predator) that are obviously there to just make a quick-buck. Tomb Raider looks very good for a current-gen port and looks outstanding in some areas. I don't think I have ever played a game that has had me 'wowed' at one moment and disappointed the very next moment. It's very strange actually. Lara Croft herself looks very impressive and so does most of the game. Then you get the moments where you see another character up close and wonder if this is the same game. I will give Crystal Dynamics credit for the effort and at the reduced price, I can live with these visuals.
The voice acting is all very good and I really liked some of the music. There isn't anything here that is going to blow you away, but it's all pretty good. I like how the game uses the achievements, as it can get addicting trying to find all of the hidden items. I really like how you can run around in your own mansion for hours and looks for items, as well. It's literally like having another game along with the main quest. And there are some nice extras to find and collect as well.
Overall, I would say that I am happy with how Tomb Raider: Legend turned out. To be honest, I thought this game was going to be terrible and I was just hoping they would finally put this fledgling franchise to sleep. And while Crystal Dynamics didn't create a masterpiece here, they did show us that this series is capable of better things. I am not a big fan of these puzzle-adventure style games, but if you are into them and if you liked the Prince Of Persia titles, I would highly recommend checking this out. Lara Croft is back & I can't believe I am actually saying that in a positive way.
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