Tomb Raider: Legend - Impressions
I have never been an avid Tomb Raider fan. I tried parts of the first two games just to see what everyone was talking about, and although I had fun, I wasn’t super impressed. While it was fun to explore tombs filled with traps and whatnot ala Indiana Jones, the rest of the game play was fairly average. After that, I didn’t pay much attention to the franchise, and from what I’ve read it wasn’t really worthy of attention any way. After the debacle of the last game, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, it seemed the series was destined to disappear forever. What a difference a developer can make. Crystal Dynamics was given the reigns of the series in a last ditch attempt to revive the much derided franchise, and they’ve done a pretty good job. Looks like Lara Croft will be around for the next generation after all.
After playing the first three and half levels of Tomb Raider: Legend, I can tell you this much; the game is actually pretty fun, and as we all know that’s the most important thing to get right for any game. Crystal Dynamics has done an excellent job of recapturing what made Tomb Raider a cool game to play; exploration of vast, ancient ruins filled with traps and puzzles. Sprinkle in a little combat here and there and you’ve got a pretty decent game. Best of all, Lara isn’t restricted to that ancient grid system from all the other games. She moves fluidly and freely about the environments. It’s not exactly Prince of Tomb Raider, but it’s close and it feels right for this game. I will say however that I thought the physics were a little off. Everything feels a bit lighter than it should, especially during the motorcycle sequence. The bike just didn’t feel like it had any weight at all. When Lara does her leaps and jumps about the various cliffs and ledges, she seems to float a bit, which takes a little getting used to but by no means ruins the games. Once you get used to the fact that everything has a bit less weight than it should, you probably won’t even notice.
On the X-box, Tomb Raider looks pretty good. It’s not the prettiest game on the system, but it’s no slouch either. Lara is rendered in a decent amount of detail, although the enemies look a bit blah. The environments may not wow anyone graphically, but they still look good and have some nice lighting and bloom effects. There’s a decent amount of draw distance, and thus far I haven’t encountered any lag in the frame rate, although I’ve read that can be a minor problem. On the X-box 360, this game really shines. Everything is rendered beautifully and smoothly. If you really want to see the Tomb Raider: Legend in all its pristine, high definition glory, 360 is definitely the way to go.
The sound for the game is decent, although it seemed a bit muted on my admittedly un-state-of-the-art surround sound system. Most times I could barely hear what my colleagues were saying over Lara’s headset. Again, it was a bit distracting but once you get used to it you won’t really notice. The voice acting is solid, and the music blends in well to the background and does a decent job of adding to the intensity or drama of whatever is taking place on screen.
All in all I was fairly impressed with my first couple hours of the latest Tomb Raider game. The story, while a bit out there, seems fairly intriguing. It has something to do with the Arthur legend somehow, and I got the merest taste of some of the spiritual/magical aspects of the game towards the end of my first run, so I can’t really comment more on those elements until I play further. Of course most Tomb Raider games, like the Indiana Jones movies, have some sort of occultic/spiritual/magical elements to them, so I was taken by surprise when I came across them in this game. I think Tomb Raider fans will be very pleased with what Crystal Dynamics has done with this addition to the franchise, and gamers who enjoy a good adventure game like the Price of Persia series will also find a lot to enjoy here. Although the game doesn’t break any new ground, it fixes what was broken and improves on what worked to create a solid game that’s fun to play.
After playing the first three and half levels of Tomb Raider: Legend, I can tell you this much; the game is actually pretty fun, and as we all know that’s the most important thing to get right for any game. Crystal Dynamics has done an excellent job of recapturing what made Tomb Raider a cool game to play; exploration of vast, ancient ruins filled with traps and puzzles. Sprinkle in a little combat here and there and you’ve got a pretty decent game. Best of all, Lara isn’t restricted to that ancient grid system from all the other games. She moves fluidly and freely about the environments. It’s not exactly Prince of Tomb Raider, but it’s close and it feels right for this game. I will say however that I thought the physics were a little off. Everything feels a bit lighter than it should, especially during the motorcycle sequence. The bike just didn’t feel like it had any weight at all. When Lara does her leaps and jumps about the various cliffs and ledges, she seems to float a bit, which takes a little getting used to but by no means ruins the games. Once you get used to the fact that everything has a bit less weight than it should, you probably won’t even notice.
On the X-box, Tomb Raider looks pretty good. It’s not the prettiest game on the system, but it’s no slouch either. Lara is rendered in a decent amount of detail, although the enemies look a bit blah. The environments may not wow anyone graphically, but they still look good and have some nice lighting and bloom effects. There’s a decent amount of draw distance, and thus far I haven’t encountered any lag in the frame rate, although I’ve read that can be a minor problem. On the X-box 360, this game really shines. Everything is rendered beautifully and smoothly. If you really want to see the Tomb Raider: Legend in all its pristine, high definition glory, 360 is definitely the way to go.
The sound for the game is decent, although it seemed a bit muted on my admittedly un-state-of-the-art surround sound system. Most times I could barely hear what my colleagues were saying over Lara’s headset. Again, it was a bit distracting but once you get used to it you won’t really notice. The voice acting is solid, and the music blends in well to the background and does a decent job of adding to the intensity or drama of whatever is taking place on screen.
All in all I was fairly impressed with my first couple hours of the latest Tomb Raider game. The story, while a bit out there, seems fairly intriguing. It has something to do with the Arthur legend somehow, and I got the merest taste of some of the spiritual/magical aspects of the game towards the end of my first run, so I can’t really comment more on those elements until I play further. Of course most Tomb Raider games, like the Indiana Jones movies, have some sort of occultic/spiritual/magical elements to them, so I was taken by surprise when I came across them in this game. I think Tomb Raider fans will be very pleased with what Crystal Dynamics has done with this addition to the franchise, and gamers who enjoy a good adventure game like the Price of Persia series will also find a lot to enjoy here. Although the game doesn’t break any new ground, it fixes what was broken and improves on what worked to create a solid game that’s fun to play.
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