Tomb Raider: Legend – small spoilers

I just finished Tomb Raider: Legend. It was a surprisingly good game. The last TR game I played was TR2, which was stupidly difficult. I got stuck just before the boat bit, trying to jump from balchony to balchony in Venice, so really I never made it past the second level. TR:L is definitely better in that regard, I only got stuck once, and had to use a walkthrough to figure out how to get past that big crushing wall trap in Tiwanaku, Bolivia. Once I realized what the trick was, the rest of the game was decently balanced; it never took me more than a couple tries to get past a jumping puzzle, but I would occasionally have to make a few attempts before I managed it, which is just the way I like it.

Annoyances
There were a few things that bothered me about the game. First was that it would often crash when Next Generation Content was on, which was a bother. It looks fine without next-gen on, but since you can toggle it in-game and actually compare the two modes fairly easily, the difference is striking, and it looks a HELL of a lot nicer in next-gen mode. However, it crashed on me three times in Kazakhstan (which was otherwise a pretty great level, btw) until I realized I could fix it by toggling next-gen off, then I optimistically turned it on, only to have it crash half-way through Nepal. Again I turned it on during the England mission, but then it crashed on me as soon as I tried opening the game at the end in Bolivia, so I had to play the neat boss fight at the end without next-gen on. Great pity.

The second annoyance was that the motorcycle sequences seemed sort of pointless and were ridiculously easy. And I generally suck at games (with the possible exception of stealth games), so if I say something is too easy, it really is too easy. The only challenging part of either of the motorcycle missions was having to jump onto the train at the end of the second one; I had to try that a couple of times before I managed not to crash and burn.

The final thing that actually annoyed me to a surprising degree was the lack of lipsynch of Lara during gameplay. I suppose they reckoned everybody would be watching her from behind, eyes firmly fixed on the person talking to her (or her bottom, I guess), but being an RPG player by heart, I kept rotating the camera so I could see her face when she spoke over her comm link thingy, and it annoyed me muchly that her lips did not move! A nit, I know, but you may hereby consider it picked.

Good times
In spite of these quirks, it was a very enjoyable game though. The two-weapon system worked well, although it could’ve done with more interesting weaponry (one very interesting weapon was indeed given at the end, but I won’t spoil that for you), the combat system was uninspired and consolish but very fast-paced and generally effective, and one thing I particularly liked was the toned-down Fahrenheit-style interactive cutscenes they used.

For example, right after the screenshot included above, you have to make a really nasty jump across a bridge connecting two skyscrapers in Tokyo. At the other end of the bridge is a wall, so Lara needs to grab onto the suspension above the bridge with her magnetic grappler and swing to the other side while the bike crashes into the wall, then jump off the bridge away from some chemical barrels set ablaze by the crash. It all happens way too fast for you to have any chance of doing it yourself, but instead the game shows you a cutscene, and you then need to press 3 specific directional keys at different times so Lara avoids the unpleasantries. Since it’s only 3 buttons, it works a lot better than in Fahrenheit, because you actually have time to look at the action here, but it still requires pretty quick reactions, so it works quite well.

Many of the puzzles also made good use of the physics system, and while it wasn’t as obvious or original as in Half-Life 2, it did make the puzzles a lot more logical than I remember the old TR2 puzzles.

I think what impressed me the most about TR:L was actually the amount of detail put into Lara Croft. I know you should probably expect nothing less from the game whose main selling point by far is the lovely curvature of its protagonist, but I was pretty fond of how her compulsory torch was a high-powered LED strapped to her shoulder, which would move as she did when walking or running, and how you could see the line for the magnetic grappling hook curled up in a little round box on her belt. And how her grenades showed up on the back of her belt. And last but not least: How water would actually drip from her and her clothes would be slightly wrinkled whenever she emerged from water! I think more games could do with such details, even games without eye-pleasing female avatars.

Replayability
While I doubt I’ll ever play TR:L again, Crystal Dynamics (which may have the most pleasing company name in the world) really went out of their way to imbue their game with replayability. Throughout the levels are hidden many little bronce, silver, or gold tokens that will unlock things for you as you find enough of them. The bronze ones are all pretty easy to find, the silver ones can be more challenging, and I only managed to find 2 of the gold ones in the entire game – one in Croft Manor and one in Japan. By finding these tokens, you can unlock bonus material (which I have yet to watch, but definitely will), weapon upgrades, and new outfits for Lara. The utility of the latter can be discussed, but judging from the fact that TR:L allows you to mod Lara’s weapons and outfits, but there no weapon mods among the sea of outfit mods, I definitely think the fanbase appreciates that particular feature.

Speaking of Croft Manor, that was without question my favourite level. No real danger there, just one big puzzle to find the hidden tokens in as much time as you please. Especially the gym was pretty neat, with the way you had to use the grappling hook to readjust certain instruments so you could reach the most difficult-to-get tokens. I also appreciated the little treasure hunt for the gold token, that was a nice touch.

All in all, definitely worth the $20 I paid for it via Steam.

And now an arbitrary rating! Why, you ask? Because I spent the time making these awesome paw icons, and I’ll be damned if they’re not put to use once in a while!

Tomb Raider: Legend