Tomb Raider: Legend

"Lara is finally back where she belongs"

After her first ho-hum effort on the Playstation 2, Lara Croft is back and she's gotten back into shape and returned to her roots. While some fans may be disappointed that the Angel of Darkness storyline most likely won't be finished (I do wish it was finished up), Lara is back in a next quest and all fans will love this new entry. However, the game is far from perfect.

Lara is back to raiding tombs. She runs across a man who mentions an old friend's name, an artifact is found and now Lara sets out to finish the mystery behind this item she found. Her journey will take her to Africa, Japan and even England. Is the plot deep? Well, not really but it feeds you enough stuff that it feels like a mystery. While the game did a climatic ending, it just felt like only half of the story was told, can we smell a sequel coming out next year? I sure hope so because I want to know what Lara is up to next.

Graphic wise Tomb Raider Legend is beautiful to look at. The first level is just a hint of what's in store for you. Lush waterfalls, mountain sides, gloomy tombs. The lighting effects of the little light that Lara has is nice but I never used it, which may explain why I missed so many things. Enemies look all alike I'm sure but I never noticed because I was blowing them away. The CGI is mind blowing but it does its job.

I personally don't remember the voice of Lara from the old games because it's been that long since I've played one. Rachel Weiss (that girl from The Mummy and The Mummy Returns) does the voice of Lara and at first I didn't like it but by the end it grew on me. Rest of the voice acting is good. Music wise the game delivers. The music during the seventh level was fantastic and fit the level perfectly. Most of the songs do that. Sound effects are good. Splashes from water, gunshots, hum of a motor on a bike, glass breaking ect. All nice.

The original Tomb Raider games didn't have the best control. It was rather clunky and hard to do stuff in a timely manner. This time around Lara moves like she should have always moved. If you've played the Prince of Persia series on Playstation 2 then you know how she moves, it's all very fluid. I had no problems with the control. Sometimes the camera gave me problems but it was human error because I didn't move it over enough to judge my up coming jump. Jumping, climbing and even swimming is done with ease. Menus are easy to get through.

Tomb Raider started off as the series that brought about some of the hardest puzzles and traps, many pitfalls and deaths. Well, this new and improved Tomb Raider finally brings the game back to where it belongs. The game has 7 levels, a final boss level, and Lara's manor has returned! The length of a level depends on the gamer. I breezed through the 7th level in 23 minutes, others took me an hour. Oh and the game features auto check points at the best spots so you never have to worry about dying and having to do a huge section over again.

The level design alone is fantastic. Let's take the first two levels as an example. Level one starts on a mountain cliff as you work your way into an ancient building. You dodge some easy traps and get to the end. The second level is a village; halfway through you must leave on a motorcycle. This part is mildly fun but not too difficult and it runs kind of long. From there you enter a tomb, deal with the first water puzzle in the game. Not all of the stages have a tomb but most do and each feels like their own.

Lara has a wide range of moves. She can swan dive into a pool of water, swing on a rope, grapple a metal object and use it to hold down a switch and many others. Not only does she have the moves but she also has her duel pistols and she can pick up any weapon the enemy drops. I found myself always using the pistols but that's just me I guess.

As for game play I'm not sure what else to say. I covered the levels, moves, weapons and all of that. The traps don't really kick in until level 5 or so and I found some of them really fun. Perhaps that's the best way to describe the game play, its fun.

Replay Value is actually really high for this game. Every level has 3 types of medals hidden in them. 1 gold per level, X amount of Silver and X amount of bronze. Collecting these unlocks many different things. New costumes, concept art, ect. The game has a fair amount of things to unlock. Also, once you beat the game you can do time trials for the levels. Getting a low enough time will unlock more stuff for you. I never tried this as I'm not good at that kind of thing but as an example, and the times are correct here, level 7 takes 13 minutes to beat in time trial. So, it took me double the time on my first time. I'm sure I could do it but it's not my kind of thing.

So, is Tomb Raider worth buying? Well, I paid $40 for it and I don't regret it at all. It only lasted me 6 hours but I'd say that if I wanted 100% it would take me another 4 at least. It's not the longest game but it's a blast to play. It's a good rental choice but it is a top notch title. I will go back and finish getting the medals I missed and I can't wait for the next one.

Story - 8/10
Graphics - 9/10
Sound - 9/10
Control - 9/10
Game Play - 9/10
Replay Value - 7/10

Final Score - 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/24/06