Pros: Control improved, amazing artwork, good voice acting, well-designed levels, fun gameplay
Cons: Combat is weak, interactive custscenes problematic, not as challenging as other TR games
The Bottom Line: Tomb Raider goes back to its roots with solid gameplay, stunning graphics, and 8 well-designed levels. Although short, the game is still a lot of fun.
kyuushu's Full Review: Tomb Raider: Legend for Xbox 360
Tomb Raider: Legend is surprisingly fun and well designed. Fans of the series will find it a refreshing throw back to the core mechanics of the series, but with fresh new visuals and improved gameplay. Though it is not as challenging as other games in the Tomb Raider series, it still is a lot of fun.
The first thing to know about Legend is that it will not win over people who have never really liked the Tomb Raider series in the first place. So if you absolutely hated the first Tomb Raider in any way, shape, or form, this new game will not change your mind about the franchise. Unlike the last Tomb Raider game (Angel of Darkness), Legend doesn't try to re-invent the wheel too much. It sticks to the core gameplay of what made the first Tomb Raider games so popular. Legend is a throwback to what made the first Tomb Raider great: puzzles, well designed levels, acrobatic-action, and exploration.
The main character of course is Lara Croft, an adventurous archaeologist whose specialty is finding lost artifacts. What makes Lara special is her ability to overcome any obstacle that gets in her way - whether it be man-eating leopards, deadly traps, treacherous terrain, roaring rivers, or machinegun-wielding mercenaries. You'll guide Lara through 8 treacherous levels that test both your hand-eye coordination, and your puzzle-solving abilities.
Of course, as a next-gen title, Tomb Raider: Legend boasts some nice graphics - especially on the Xbox 360 and any capable PC. The polygon counts, the hi-resolution textures, and the advanced shaders make everything look realistic. The game's levels range from ancient mystical temples, the neon-lit cityscape of Japan, to the icey mountains of Nepal. Everyone of these levels looks amazing. There is even dynamic lighting that reacts to Lara's movement. Some of the best visuals in the game happen when Lara is walking through a strong light, in which her moving shadow casts realistically on the floor behind her. What's more, the developers have added in a realistic physics system. Many of the moveable objects in the game will fall and move in a realistic way. They even affect each other: if a boulder rolls against other rocks, those rocks will also move. Compared to other Tomb Raider games, Legend is by far the prettiest. Best of all, the frame rate stays smooth and consistent.
In the early Tomb Raider games, movement was grid-based, and the terrain was modeled so that it was in a cube-like structure. This allowed you to consistently jump unfamiliar terrain so as long as it was within Lara's fixed jump distance. Movement was predictable - in an almost board-game fashion. The downside was that everything felt slow and unresponsive. Legend however, does away with this grid-system and implements a more organic approach to movement. Jumping, running, walking, climbing, and swimming feel more natural now. There is virtually no delay when you execute jumps, runs, and changes of direction. Controlling Lara Croft has never felt so easy.
The core of Legend's gameplay is simple enough: examine your surroundings, and find the best way to the next area in order to progress. Since the game's levels are usually divided into small linear areas such as a gully, a valley, or a long chamber; it's generally easy to see where you are supposed to go next. The catch is, there are obstacles that must be overcome in order to proceed. You'll have to jump over pits filled with razor-sharp spikes, swing onto vines hanging over deep chasms, and shimmy across precarious rock faces in order to get to the door that you may see off in the distance. Thankfully, the game's pacing is such that you are rarely "hurried" to the next area. In most cases, you can freely examine obstacles as long as you want before attempting to overcome them.
As the game progresses, Lara is presented with more and more obstacles that require a bit of puzzle-solving. For instance, in one area you'll have to figure out how to manipulate an ancient mechanical contraption in order for a door to be raised. Most of these puzzle-type obstacles usually involve moving large objects such as blocks, statues, and stones over various buttons, weights, and devices. Often times, the arrangement of these objects in a puzzle is highly important, as is the order in which you place them. The types of puzzles that are presented in the game begin simple, but gradually get more elaborate as the game progresses. Many of these obstacles will force Lara to use every ability at her disposal - even those that aren't immediately apparent. Still, even the hardest of puzzles in Legend aren't as difficult as in previous Tomb Raider games. Fans of the series should have no real problems figuring out the puzzles in this game.
As Lara proceeds through the game, she is helped along by her team of two experts - Zip and Alister. Both of them reside back at Lara's residence, the Croft Manor. Linked by satellite to Lara's communication gear (earpiece and camera), they will regularly give her audio messages about her current situation. For example, if Lara comes across a new area to explore, they will often chime in with their comments and immediate observations. Zip is a sarcastic tech expert who helps Lara with tech-related issues, while Alister is a conservative scientist/historian who can shed light on relics and items Lara finds. What is surprising is that they rarely say the same thing twice, and much of what is said between Lara and her "team" is well done - often with some smart or darkly humorous tones. Not only do the conversations provide you with important information about solving puzzles, or dangers to look out for; but they also help develop Lara's character throughout the game. The voice-acting is surprisingly well done - some of the best I've heard in any game to date.
One of the new features of the game are Lara's special binoculars. Activating them brings the game into a first-person perspective. By panning around, objects and obstacles of particular interest are highlighted. This can be extemely valueable since many subtle things can be brought to your attention: walkways that can crumble if stepped on, objects that can be moved, and contraptions that can be operated. It is never required that you use the binoculars, but it's a nice feature to have if you are unsure of the terrain ahead.
Another new feature are interactive cutscenes. Periodically, the game goes into a cutscene mode where Lara is shown in an action sequence. During this time, the game will present icons of various buttons to perform or actions to take. These are signified by icons that appear for a split second on-screen. For instance, the floor beneath Lara will suddenly drop, and the icon of the A button (the jump button) will appear for a moment. To keep Lara from falling to her death, you'll have to press the A button quickly. Unfortunately, you will probably die several times before figuring out what action to take on some of these cutscenes. That's because some of the icons that tell you what to do are very vague. (The icon for left analog stick looks like an icon for the left trigger; and the run icon looks like the shoot icon.) As a result, Lara will die many times as you try to figure out what to do. It would have been better to have a sort of "training" mode for the cutscenes so that players knew what each icon meant. There's nothing more frustrating than to get to an exciting interactive cutscene, only to fail it because you didn't understand what action to take. Thankfully, if you fail an interactive cutscene, you will restart right before it so you won't have to backtrack at all.
Lara Croft has an excellent list of moves which you must master in order to play the game to its end. Lara has a fixed jumping range, but most jumps can be done easily as long as you maximize your jump. Occasionally, you'll have to make an extra long jump and for this, Lara will automatically reach forward to grab that far-away ledge - no need to press any additional buttons. For the most part, jumps will be pretty obvious, so you can examine the distance before going for it. Lara can also swing on ropes where you must manually control her swing. Pushing forward while hanging from a rope or vine will make Lara begin to swing. The idea is to keep doing this until Lara has gained enough momentum to jump the distance to the next platform. Another move she can do is to swing on horizontal bars or branches. Again, the idea is to build momentum, but this time you'll have to make Lara swing on the bar in 360 degree rotations before attempting to swing off from it. Since much of the terrain in the game is vertical, Lara can also climb and shimmy, and from these positions she can also jump. And of course, Lara can swim - diving deep or swimming on the surface. When underwater, she has a breath meter which must be monitored closely. When it gets low she must surface for air, or take damage to her health. Lastly, Lara will automatically grab any ledge that she happens to fall from. You will notice this if you accidently push her too far along the edge of a platform. It's a nice feature that definitely saves a lot of frustration by avoiding unwanted falls. All in all, Lara's moves are polished with excellent animations. Moving her around the levels is intuitive and easy.
The game's main focus is more on puzzle-solving, jumping obstacles, and avoiding traps so don't expect a very deep combat system here. Although Lara does have some nice melee-attacks (one of which puts her into a slow-motion mode where you can pick off enemies a la Max Payne), they are never really essential to use against enemies. All you really have to do is jump around a bit to avoid fire and keep firing Lara's equipped weapon -whichever it maybe. Indeed, even the weakest weapons in the game (Lara's default pistols) are enough to overcome most enemies. But you can always equip more powerful weapons that you find (off of enemies) such as a submachine gun, assault rifle, shotgun, or the handy grenade launcher (though Lara can also throw grenades herself). Since you can lock-on to a foe, all you really have to do is stay alive long enough for your bullets to widdle the enemy's health to zero. The game does provide a few interesting boss fights, but even those aren't very difficult to figure out. In short, Legend's combat is easy as pie, but at least the few boss fights that are provided are challenging enough to keep things interesting.
There are two stages in the game where Lara will ride a motorcyle at high speed. During these stages, you must navigate rugged terrain avoiding rocks and trees while enemies in other vehicles (motorcycles, trucks) try to shoot at Lara. The actual gameplay here is relatively easy, but again since the game provides no tutorial mode certain parts of these stages will be frustrating at times - particularly when you have to make long jumps over a crevasse or onto a moving train. The motorcycle stages are passable at best. Controlling the bike feels floaty, and the stages are generally repetitive (you'll see the same layouts linked together to make the entire level).
If Lara's health starts to drop too low, she can use a health pack to restore her vitality to nearly full. These are found throughout the game's levels as drops from enemies that you kill, or from just searching the surroundings. So they are never that scarce. What's more, you can carry up to 3 health packs at any given time for use as you need them.
Lara also has a magnetic grappling hook. The grapple attaches to various metallic objects allowing Lara to swing over chasms, or pull herself up to another platform. The grapple is also one of her main tools when it comes to puzzle-solving. With it, Lara can pull out-of-reach items to herself quickly. You can even use the grapple in combat - grabbing an enemy, and then pulling him towards you for some up-close punishment. The catch is, the grapple can only attach to pre-designated items which are indicated to you by a special "shine." This may sound a bit vague, but in the game it works well and the fact that the shine is a bit subtle makes you examine the surroundings more.
Whenever you get to a new area, there is usually a checkpoint. Checkpoints are where Lara will respawn if she happens to die. What is nice is that every new area has a checkpoint. So if Lara falls to her death, chances are the checkpoint is only a room away. In fact, the boss-fights in this game all have checkpoints immediately outside of the room. No more back-tracking if you fail to kill the boss!
Saving can be done at any time. But loading the save from a fresh restart of the game will put you at the beginning of the last level you unlocked. (Checkpoints are ignored when starting the game fresh.) This means, if you are near the end of a level, it is best to finish it completely before you turn off your console. Otherwise, when you start the game again the next day, it will put you back at the beginning of that level because you haven't finished it.
The main storyline focuses on Lara's past more than any other game to date. As such, there are some pivotal moments in this game that explain her unrelenting drive for finding lost artifacts all over the world. I found it to be interesting enough to keep playing, but it will certainly not win any awards. Still, it was well written with a nice ending that people won't expect. Unfortunately, the main story-mode is only 8 levels long - which means you can probably finish this entire game in a single day if you wanted to. Chances are though, you won't find everything by running through the whole game only once. Each level is filled with bonus objectives in the form of "rewards." These range from Gold, Silver, and Bronze rewards. Collect enough of a certain type, and you will unlock additional costume options, concept art, character backgrounds, and more. These rewards are often placed in areas that are not obvious - so you'll literally have to comb the entire level to find each one. Another feature is the time-trail mode which is unlocked when a level is finished in the standard story mode. In time-trial mode, a level must be finished before a timer runs out (shown at the bottom of the screen). Finishing a time-trail will unlock cheats that can be used as well as costumes, object models, and more. Lastly, there is Croft Manor, a level that showcases Lara's home. This level is completely unrelated to the main story mode so you can access it at anytime. It serves as a bonus stage of sorts - hidden items are placed all over Croft Manor waiting for you to discover them.
Fans of the series will find the game is lot easier than other games in the series. With the forgiving checkpoint system and the fact that the levels are generally designed in an easy-to-understand fashion; veterans of the series will find this game as one of the easier Tomb Raiders of all time. Perhaps the developers were trying for a broader appeal? This is not a bad thing really, because the game has some replay value to satisfy hardcore fans who will most certainly finish the main story mode quickly. While it may not be as challenging as other games in the series, Legend is still a great game in its own right. The level of polish, the breathtaking artwork, and the excellent gameplay should appeal to anyone who can appreciate a well-done action game.
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