Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - Legend

The Good
I don't want to speak much about gaming history, but allow me to sum up shortly the impact that Lara Croft's first public appearance had. In 1996, the very first "Tomb Raider" was an awesome achievement. It pioneered, along with "Super Mario 64", the use of three-dimensional environments in the Jump'n'Run genre. It also had an engrossing atmosphere, state-of-the-art graphics and fascinating gameplay. It made Lara Croft a star, a brand name, that was used for advertising and appeared in nearly all kinds of media. That her fame is originally based on a really good and innovative game, is often forgotten. The reason partly is, that the sequels, that Eidos and Core Design pushed out in very short intervals, could simply not hold that quality. While Lara became a cultural icon, her games became more and more boring.

After the sixth major release, the critically panned "Angel of Darkness", Eidos realized that the next "Tomb Raider" had to make real advancements and took the series away from its original creators at Core Design. The result is "Tomb Raider: Legend", developed by Crystal Dynamics, who were among other things responsible for the "Legacy of Cain" franchise beforehand. The product, they finally delivered, goes after years of stagnancy suddenly even a bit far in expanding the old formula. It eagerly tries out new gameplay ideas – not always to good effects. But on the other hand this also means a fresh breeze, for that Lara's old tombs surely have begged.

Presentation:

Probably the first thing you will notice about the seventh "Tomb Raider" game are the truly gorgeous visuals. The engine behind all that is a completely new and absolutely good one. Firstly, Lara herself profits from the improved visuals of "Legend". The amount of polygons, that form her body, has increased noticeably. I'm also quite sure, that they scaled down her chest a bit and I must say, that the now more realistic proportions suit her well. Animations are also of the quality, we came to expect from the series: Lara's athletic exercises appear fluid and life-like. The facial design and expressions are also much more detailed. Personally I would say: this is the first time, Lara can really be called pretty. It is quite amazing by the way, how she is always perfectly styled, now matter whether she is visiting a party or a deserted dig site in Peru – it almost seems as if she were well aware of us gamers...

But what's really wonderful to behold are the panoramic landscapes, this game features. When you travel to Ghana and witness a natural spectacle in form of a valley with waterfalls gushing into a sea, you will certainly be impressed. Believe me, when I say: jumping headfirst from a cliff into that sea provides an amazing feeling. Ghana surely is a highlight, but there are other beautiful landscapes as well: for example the mountain regions of Bolivia and especially the snow-covered ones of Nepal. The more urban settings are no less stylish: the city of Tokyo, that you once can oversee from a skyscraper, makes a breathtaking sight. Kazakhstan remained the only place, that felt a little uninspired in my eyes. Otherwise, the detailed environments are of high artistic value.

The engine also is strong at bringing those places to life, which the series is named after. Lara again ventures into several old tombs, temples and ruins of ancient cultures – be prepared for some stunning architecture. Once Lara is inside those ruins, the atmosphere often gets quite intense. Those buildings show their age: the places are run-down and dark. In fact, the lighting is sometimes done superb and significantly fuels the unfriendliness, those ancient ruins emanate. You can notice about "Legend" that the designers previously worked on the "Legacy of Cain" series: the atmosphere is sometimes really dark and creepy.

One sequence, that is to be remembered, is Lara's discovery of legendary King Arthur's tomb. Here the game lets you descend to some catacombs, that are hidden underneath the British Cornwall and filled with deadly traps and the like. Deeper and deeper the game sends you underground. It confronts you with many dangers and a whole lot of coffins from less important knights, before you finally arrive in a huge cavern. There, placed near the rear-wall, stands an impressive gothic cathedral, wherein Arthur and his whole crew, the Knights of the Round Table, have their final rest. The dramaturgy of those moments is exciting. The dangerous descent and the slowly rising tension, that finally pass into a fascinating discovery.

When it comes to mythological charged places like King Arthur's grave, to exploring terrain that is unknown to modern mankind, "Tomb Raider: Legend" shines. The magic of the series, the sweet sense of being the one and only discoverer of ancient cultures most secret and holy treasures, is finally strong again. Also very important for the atmosphere of the game is the beautiful soundtrack, written by Troels B. Foelman, of whom I never heard previously. Nevertheless the music is a key factor to the tension, the game sometimes manages to build up. More important than the beautiful main theme and other quite magnificent interludes, is the dynamic drive of the score: how the music oscillates between bombastic and quiet, how it changes with the mood of the game, how it underlines your seeings, your discoveries. There is no doubt, that this is by far the best soundtrack ever heard in any "Tomb Raider" game or movie, which is just another part of the all in all awesome artistic presentation of this title.

Gameplay I:

As long as it sticks to the classic strengths of the series, first of all the jumping and climbing, I don't hesitate to call the gameplay truly great. A minor problem is, that the level design is more or less in a conflict between offering challenging gameplay and realistic environments. It is sometimes irritating, how conveniently for example ropes and metal bars are placed through the course of the game – often in very unlikely places. This could easily destroy the illusion of the game, if one would care to think about it. But at least I was hardly ever bothered by that as the gameplay proved to be captivating enough to make me get rid of those logical objections. It really is a fascinating thing, how suspenseful virtual climbing can be – this was one of the characteristics, that made the very first "Tomb Raider" such an amazing experience in its day.

"Legend" sure is less complex than the first "Tomb Raider" sprout. In principle the levels are fairly linear, but this is hard to notice, since the climbing action is so damn cool. You can jump acrobatically through the air, swing on ropes, grab hold of small ledges, poles and ladders and you will be swimming and diving through deep waters. Some new opportunities are included as well. The most important one is without any doubt the use of Lara's newest achievement: the grappling hook. Mrs. Croft can throw this magnetically loaded, handy little gadget at any metallic surface. Then, for example, she can swing on the attached rope beyond a deep abyss to a distant platform. But the hook often serves other purposes as well. Often you can pull metallic objects towards Lara, that she otherwise just couldn't reach. That still is not everything you can do in this game. It may be all about climbing and finding your way through a course of different obstacles, but nevertheless there is a lot of variety in the gameplay of "Legend".

The game features clever puzzles as well. Again, Ghana comes to my mind, where you have to activate a water wheel by opening a gate and thus directing the water down to it. This is not as easy as it sounds, as the procedure to open the gate is quite a complicated one. It is a good example for a huge puzzle, where several little puzzles are seamlessly integrated. You have to pull several levers, move heavy objects onto panels and solve some other simple tasks to get the water flowing. The problem is again to reach those mechanical devices. This involves not only the notorious dangerous climbing, but for example also navigating a primitive raft through the water on the other side of the gate. Here you have to use your grappling hook to overcome the stream of water by pulling yourself and the raft towards some objects. The game makes also use of physics: in this section you jump over boulders, that are balanced against each other in scales-like constructions. When you jump on the first one, it goes down, while the other one rises. You then have to catch the right moment for jumping on the second boulder. Bit by bit, with actions like that, you slowly make your way through the room and finally manage to get the water wheel working.

It may be hard for a reader, who isn't familiar to "Tomb Raider", to conceive that kind of gameplay as the fascinating thing that it is. But you have to believe me, that it is highly entertaining. It are those quiet moments, that mark the highlights of this game. Moments, where there isn't any gunfire, where nature is your worst enemy, where you have to be utterly concentrated to avoid deadly mistakes. The experience gets really immersive here and lets you forget about the outside world. Really, if Crystal Dynamics would have focused on this kind of gameplay, there would have been nothing wrong with "Legend". It could have been a glorious return for Lara Croft. But unfortunately other things get in the way...

The Bad
Plot:

Adding a narrative to a game can never be a bad idea, when you have good writers. However when you have bad writers, that furthermore make the mistake of taking themselves too serious, it can be all but enriching. When playing "Tomb Raider: Legend", you basically can notice, that a lot of energy went into creating the background story. There are quite numerous movie sequences, that some Hollywood directors couldn't have staged better (they are for example superior to Jan de Bont's second "Tomb Raider" movie, but I won't call this an achievement). The problem only starts, when you look behind the cool staging – and discover only bullshit.

"Legend" throws a couple of different story pieces at you. There are flashbacks, that show how Lara lost her mother, when she was a little child. There is her former friend Amanda Evert, whom she considered dead, but who is actually alive and now possessed by some weird demon-thing. And there is – a typical and uninspired excuse for globetrotting in a video game – Lara's search for the broken pieces of Excalibur. A good thing is, that the well-known legendary sword has a short but cool cameo as a usable weapon towards the end of the game. A bad thing is, that none of the mentioned story-ideas is elaborated in a convincing way throughout the narrative. The whole thing is nothing but a confused mess of different plot fragments, poorly told and garnished with some pseudo-intellectual history lessons, that would make any historian weep. But actually all of this isn't very annoying, compared to the heroine of this game.

When you examine people in real life a little closer, you may discover, that no one is as uncool, as someone who desperately tries to be cool. In real life those people are typically male. They often do stupid things like wearing sunglasses inside of buildings and eagerly try to dress and act in clichés created by the media, because they don't have any personality of their own. It's funny, how Lara Croft resembles those poor male idiots, that have no idea, how ridiculous they are. Lara's two most obvious influences are James Bond and Indiana Jones. With her dumb and worn-out phrases she seeks to imitate them in almost every line of dialogue. And she fails so miserably that you can really pity her – pretty, but stupid. You will miss those times, when she remained silent during gameplay and kept her dignity at least a little bit.

Lara is of course not the only one: "Tomb Raider: Legend" features a cast of other boring characters as well. Especially Lara's two colleagues, the black-and-white duo of high-tech-hobbyist Zip and snobby British academic Alister, are a consistent pain in the neck. Both are permanently in contact with Lara and babble stupid comments through her headphone. The dialogues in this game are sometimes really hard to bear. That frequent babbling is rather a disturbance than an achievement. Once a hallmark of raiding tombs, the sense of loneliness and isolation is now killed by meaningless conversations of meaningless characters. "Legend" demonstrates, how much atmosphere a silly story can destroy.

Gameplay II:

As already mentioned, gameplay is fine, as long as the developers stuck to the strengths of the series. But there are also several attempts of integrating new gameplay elements and many of them are implemented badly. Moreover Crystal Dynamics made the mistake of emphasizing too heavily on shooting.

As Lara's former friend and present enemy Amanda is not only possessed by a weird demon-thing, but also has a super-rich lover, who can afford whole armies of mercenaries, you really have to shoot a lot in this game. Maybe I could have lived with some shooting elements as little distractions from the main gameplay, as it was also the case in earlier "Tomb Raider" games. Maybe I would have even appreciated it, then. But "Legend" simply goes too far. The frequent shooting does the rest in making the atmosphere, the feeling of isolation vanish. Those mercenaries just don't fit in those deserted tombs.

Furthermore, the dramatic staging of the shoot-outs can not – or at least not very long – hide the fact that they are oversimplified. The shooting has never belonged to the strong sides of any "Tomb Raider" game and "Legend" can't change this. While companies like Rockstar Games showed cool ways of integrating gunfire into a third-person 3D-game, Crystal Dynamics must have slept. Basically, "Legend" offers the same shooting as always. Lara automatically locks a target (now visually indicated by a red frame around the enemy) and you only have to press the appropriate button to let your bullets hit. While doing so, you run aimlessly back and forth to avoid the bullets and grenades of your not so intelligent foes. Apart from the simplicity, that makes the whole thing boring very fast, another problem is that you often don't see the direction you're heading, as the camera prefers to show your current target.

All of those problems plague the franchise since its first installment, where it was even less bad, as shooting played only a minor role back then. The little improvements, that "Legend" has to offer, count almost nothing. The throwing of grenades goes utterly inaccurate and kicking at enemies is more or less ineffective. Of no use at all is the manual aiming. When you do so you are not able to move, which is always crucial if you want to survive. The summary: there are no real advancements to be found when it comes to fighting. Especially the boss fights I found annoying. They are everything but easy and last far too long.

There are some other new elements in the gameplay as well. And they are not always absolutely bad. The game has some simple reaction tests, similar to those seen in "Indigo Prophecy", but fortunately not that difficult. It certainly is nothing outstanding, but you can call it a nice addition. I think, the general idea behind "Legend" was, to offer a more diversified style of gameplay. And that idea is certainly not a wrong one. But the influences from other genres are mostly not beneficial. The performance, the game makes in some areas, is just not worthy of a top product. Take the racing sequences, where Lara rides a motorbike once through Peru and once through Kazakhstan. The handling of the vehicle is everything but accurate and the sequences as a whole are just primitive.

The Bottom Line
"Tomb Raider: Legend" once again shows the amazing potential of the series. But while the technical improvements are praiseworthy, the innovations in gameplay are often not. And the story, particularly the protagonist, gets on the nerves. I fear, there is no chance for Lara Croft to evolve into a brighter character, as her traits seem already determined. Maybe going to Hollywood was a mistake. An alliance between the anti-actress Angelina Jolie and the script writers of Paramount can do nothing good to the shaping of a character. The funny (or maybe not so funny) thing is, that it reflects in the games as well. "Tomb Raider: Legend" is somehow like a gaming equivalent to a Hollywood Blockbuster: highly polished visuals, an impressive musical background, frequent exchanges of fire, stereotypical characters and a silly story. It is entertaining while it lasts, but afterwards you will forget about it very soon. The only things that stand out, are those moments where the guns remain silent, as it is primarily the case in England, Nepal and Ghana. In those places the designers focused on the best elements of the series: the slow exploration, the delicious jumping and climbing, the clever puzzles, the intense atmosphere of isolation, the overwhelming might of nature. If they had concentrated more on these elements, they could have easily made a modern recreation of the truly "legendary" first "Tomb Raider" game, that made Lara Croft so famous in the first place. As it is, "Legend" is far away from achieving that goal, but is entertaining nevertheless.