Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Ron Burke

You may not realize it, but Tomb Raider: Legend is the seventh Tomb Raider title.  We have the original Tomb Raider, Tomb Raider 2 and 3, Tomb Raider: Last Revelation, Tomb Raider Chronicles, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, and finally Tomb Raider: Legend.  Drop in there a few Gold versions, two movies, and a few different Croft models, and it is easy to see that Tomb Raider is very well rooted in the origins of modern video gaming. 

The Tomb Raider series has gone through some dizzying highs and abysmal lows.  The first game was heralded as one of the best 3D adventure titles to date.  In the days of Voodoo video cards, 3Dfx, and Glide, Tomb Raider delivered fantastic spacial graphics with gameplay that matched the cutting edge effects.  The first title featured a powerful heroine named Lara Croft who has been hired to venture into dangerous tombs and caves to recover an ancient artifact called the Scion.  Up to this point, most adventure titles were point and click adventures with very little in the way of combat.  Tomb Raider meshed acrobatics, jumping, swimming, and gunplay with puzzles and platforming and it took the gaming world by storm. 

Following up the smash hit Tomb Raider, Lara seeks out The Dagger of Xian in ancient China, taking Lara outside of the confines of the tomb setting of the first title.  Tomb Raider III further diverged from the roots of the original title by adding new weapons, vehicles, and and trips into areas such as Area 51 and London in her quest to recover the heart of a mysterious meteor rock. 

In an attempt to reinvent the series, the next title, Last Revelation, moved back into tombs and tried to focus more on the intrigue and adventure – this title was rumored to be the end of the series, and the end of Lara Croft.  This dovetailed into the next title in the series, Tomb Raider Chronicles, where many of Lara's friends gathered at the Croft Manor to honor their lost companion.  Afterwards, they sit down and recall the exploits of their departed friend, culminating in her triumphant return. 

The title just prior to Legends was called Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness.  It added an all new playable character named Kurtis Trent.  This new character was an experiment to see whether Core could spin off a new series with Kurtis at the helm.  In the end, the title proved to be a disaster, plagued with control issues, graphic glitches, divergent gameplay, sloppy gunplay mechanics, braindead AI, and a framerate that rollercoasters constantly.  The spin off series was killed and the series was put on ice for three years. 

Eidos decided to take an incredible risk to attempt to revitalize the series by taking the series away from Core Design and handing it to Soul Reaver developer, Crystal Dynamics.  Crystal Dynamics tore the series down to the bare skin and rebuilt the very concept of Tomb Raider in its original image.  To ensure success, they hired the original creator of Lara Croft, Toby Gard to help bring her look up to date with the new Next Gen platforms.  Could Toby Gard and Riley Cooper of Legacy of Kain: Defiance, Soul Reaver, Soul Reaver 2, Blood Omen, and Gex fame bring this title out of the Darkness and restore its original Legend status?  Coming back from E3 last year, I staked my reputation on it.  Let's see if I need to leave the country or not...

Tomb Raider: Legend uses a modified and very enhanced engine that is built on the foundations used in Legacy of Kain: Defiance and Project Snowblind.  While the game was originally designed for the PS2 and Xbox, the Xbox 360 version features some incredible lighting, shading, bump mapping, and just about every other chunk of eye candy that you can stuff into a graphic engine.  This makes the game look absolutely stunning, but it also occasionally causes the framerate to bobble a bit.  It never dips into gameplay-damaging levels, but it just feels that the game could have benefited from a little bit more time and tuning.  Unfortunately, this would have caused the game to miss the simultaneous multi-platform launch date. 

Don't let the slight framerate bobble worry you, the game does look fantastic in widescreen 720p or 1080i.  I have a few comparison shots that show the difference between the current-gen settings and the next-gen settings of the Xbox 360. While the gameplay remains the same in all versions, there is no doubting that both versions look fantastic.   You just have to justify whether the graphic upgrade is worth the extra money.

If there is one area that truly shines in all six of the previous games, it is the sound.  The music in all of the games stood out as cinematic and served to heighten the immersion levels.  Tomb Raider: Legend's score is certainly well done and does a good job of residing in the background enough to move the scene without interrupting it.

The sound effects are similarly well done.  Gunshots and large-scale stone puzzle pieces rumble the 5.1 surround sound.  Lara is voiced by Keeley Hawes, who has done some extensive TV and Movie work, turns in a great performance.  Lara delivers some great English-wit one-liners, all while telling the story of how she became the globetrotting artifact collector after a horrible childhood accident in the Himalayas.  Her two companions, Zip and Allister help her via camera and voice link.  Lara and her companions are given full voiceovers, and while Lara is the standout of the bunch, the other performances are certainly decent.

There are a couple of niceties in the control system for Tomb Raider: Legend.  The first is that you can invert the X and Y axis.  You can also separately invert the X and Y axis for using your binoculars and aiming, should you feel the need.  There are subtitles if you wish to enable them, as well as sound/music/voice adjustments.  You can also adjust the brightness and contrast – something important  for a game that takes place in dark tombs.  There are three difficulty levels to select from to round out the options list.

Here is the controller layout:

• Left Analog – movement, sneaking, walking, swimming, steering, and running
• Right analog – rotate camera
• B – Crouch, Roll, and Dive
• Y – Interact with object, pick up weapon, or safety grab (one handed 'last ditch' grab that you have to recover from to stay on the ledge)  Also allows you to move more quickly on ledges and in water
• A – Jump, Swim to Surface, Accelerate on vehicles
• X – Throw Grapple, Brakes on vehicles
• LB – Reset camera angle
• RB – Throw grenade or flare
• LT – Lock onto target
• RT – Fire weapon
• D-Pad – controls health pack usage, toggles lights, and Binoculars
• Back – Use PDA to check time, objects gathered, objectives, and gear

The controller layout won't tell you that you can also pull off mid-air slow-mo shots, slide attacks, kicks, and grapple strikes.  It is surprisingly simple in its execution.

The camera in Tomb Raider: Legend does a great job, most of the time.  It will try to anticipate what move you are about to make and position itself accordingly.  If you are jumping between one ledge and another, it might try to give you a wide angle so that you can see both ledges simultaneously.  If you are pushing a box it will give you a behind-the-back shot so you can see where you are going.  This has been tuned and tuned again, and it shows.  That isn't to say that it is completely well-behaved, but it does better than most 3rd person titles.  You won't feel like you are fighting the camera very often.

The first thing that you will notice when you play Tomb Raider: Legend is that they have eliminated the grid-based movement system.  In the previous titles, you had to take multiple steps to make a forward leap.  Now, Lara is able to run, leap, slide, climb, and clutch ledges without any setup steps to make it happen.  This change eliminates the issue that hurt the previous title most.   In previous titles, if you were not lined up correctly, Lara would simply fall to her death.  In Tomb Raider: Legend, Lara will make an attempt to clutch on to the ledge or wall, and will correct her grip so you can scramble up.  This makes the game a pleasure to play instead of a linear reload-fest. 

The previous games also featured an incredible amount of box pushing puzzles.  While you will be moving some boxes around for some puzzles, the physics engine used in the game make the movement system absolutely fluid.  You'll move boxes around, but they can slide in any direction instead of just the primary four directions.  You won't be just moving boxes to solve puzzles.  You'll be using levers to launch boxes, surfing on coffins, swinging on vines, swing-kicking pillars, rolling boulders, flipping switches, and so much more.  The puzzles progress from the simple to the complex, and while none of them are overly difficult, they will present enough of a brain teaser to make it challenging.   To help you in your puzzle solving, you can use binoculars with RAD – a sort of scanning system that allows you to identify the mechanisms of the puzzle, such as objects you can push or rotate.

This brings me to one of the few things that seemed out of place with Tomb Raider: Legend – the motorcycle missions.  As you progress through the game, you'll occasionally have to use a vehicle to get from place to place.  Eventually you'll end up on a Ducati motorcycle ripping through the jungles, deserts, and snow-covered mountains.  These levels serve only to extend the somewhat short total gameplay length and are very much trial and error with reloading in between.  You end up riding through a linear area and shooting bad guys.  The levels aren't particularly difficult, but they are long.

Aside from the vehicle and rock climbing portions, there is also plenty of gunplay to keep Lara busy.  In fact, the game splits out to a roughly 80/20 split between adventuring and run-and-gun action.  You will use Lara's trademark dual pistols, but you can also pick up M-16s and MP-5 machineguns off your slain enemies.  Additionally, you can use grenades against the bad guys and pick theirs up when they 'drop' them.  There is also a new shoulder-mount light that allows you to see in the dark (using some great lighting effects!), and the all new magnetic grapple.  The new grapple allows you to lock onto certain objects to swing from them, as well as grabbing an enemy and pulling them.  You can use this to pull enemies off of ledges and grab weapons out of enemy hands.  There are also environmental objects that you can shoot, such as explosive barrels and pillars, to help you gain the combat advantage.

There is one other major gameplay change that absolutely bears mentioning.  For those of us who have played the old-school Don Bluth titles, Dragon's Lair or Space Ace, you'll feel right at home.  There are portions of levels where you are given a minigame where Lara runs and dodges on her own, as if in a cinematic, but every so often you are given a button press to hit.  Just as in Dragon's Lair, you hit the button or direction at just the right time, get a 'ding' to signify that you did it correctly, and Lara continues on her way.  Botch the job and Lara will probably be eviscerated, pummeled, crushed, or fall to her death. It breaks up the constant action nicely, and is a welcome throwback to an old-school age.

The funny thing about Tomb Raider: Legend is that there is so much in common with the original title.  By moving back to the roots of the original title, the game is reborn and moved forward with the original concepts intact.  It is good to see this series back in action, I look forward to the next game in the series.

There is one major detractor to Tomb Raider: Legend – the length. You can easily beat the game in roughly 7 to 8 hours.  The first run through you'll probably hit a 90-95% completion rate if you are observant.  There are artifacts hidden throughout every level.  There are roughly a dozen bronze, a half dozen silver, and one to two gold, and they will really make you work for those golds.  You can also play the levels in time-attack modes to unlock other costumes and pick up those additional artifacts.  Finally, the Croft Manor makes a return, but instead of being just a training area, it is a whole new level to explore and has a collection of artifacts to find just like any other level.

The game still only takes a weekend to finish, but everything but the motorcycle level is worth playing again.  I highly recommend that you pick up this title.  Even if you don't think the graphical differences are worth the extra money, it shouldn't stop you from picking up one of the current-gen console or PC versions. 

It is good to see the rebuilding of this series. Developer Crystal Dynamics has done a fantastic job with a very damaged property. The game, while somewhat short, is a pleasure to play, and should be a part of any adventure-gamer's library, regardless of which platform you own. A solid effort that promises so much more in the future. Welcome back Lara.

Gaming Trend Score

83

1. Graphics: 85
2. Audio: 85
3. Controls: 85
4. Gameplay: 85
5. Value/Replay: 75
6. OVERALL:83