Tomb Raider Legend – PS2

BEWARE – SMALL SPOILERS – skip the italicised text if you don’t want to know!

Age rating: 12+

What is it?

Adventure, action, but not really enough puzzles.

Is it fun?

Yes, for the most part.

Is it worth the money? £29.99 (from Play.com)

Yes, but the game is a little short (…I am seeing a theme recurring here)

Why?

Now Tomb Raider Legend has been released, the first Tomb Raider game in a long time. I heard Angel of Darkness (the most recent TR title before this) was utter pants, and was even blamed for the poor box office showing of the second film (which was a tad harsh, I wasn’t keen on either of the films) – I never played it though, having mostly given up on the franchise after playing TR3 (too much mucking about with flares for my liking).

I was really keen to see the new game regain the franchise’s former glory, and have just played through the PS2 version. How does it fare then?

My first Tomb Raider experience was playing TR2 on my old Playstation1 – it was the first PS1 game I bought (released a month after I bought the console – so I had to endure the games on the demo disk in the mean time). When it finally arrived I thought it was faaaan- flippin – tastic! A real 3D game that made you look in all directions, back in the days when many games were still only 2 dimensional in actual gameplay (although the art was 3D).

At the time of its release some would fault its choice to allow you to save at any place and reliance on urban locations, but I really didn’t understand until I played the original TR game. In that you had to find and stand in save crystals located within the levels, they asked you to take more of a risk – “Do I save now, or leave the crystal for later in case I cross back this way?”, much more fun than just saving anywhere at anytime. Also as I remember the locations were mostly outdoors, raiding tombs (as a tomb raider should do) which is something the sequels forgot as time went on. Shooting angry killer animals and mummies is always more fun than facing up against faceless swat teams – it’s part of what helps to make the game stand out from the competition. Half-Life 2 went down that same path to some degree. I found taking on the Combine (in their various iterations) far less fun than the huge range of unique enemies that the original delivered. Anyway, on to the review!

The controls are very good once you get used to them (I kept wanting to press R1 to look about), you now have a commando-style grapple wire to help you swing about and some binoculars with a built-in hint mode (for dummies only really). You also get a torch, but it’s rarely used.

PRETTY
On the art front the game delivers 100% – This is a very pretty PS2 game. Lara’s climbing and acrobatic animations are far more organic than ever before (with great tiny details like the falling dust and rock fragments coming from your hands as you shimmy along a rock crevice). Everything is generally very polished and detailed. The enemy agents you tackle look a bit bland, sadly, like nondescript James Bond baddies – and there are only two real animals in the game, leopards. They look wimpy and unthreatening, I even ran past the first one hoping for some sort of bonus for not hurting endangered animals. More animals in the next games please – piranhas/dinosaurs etc – bring it on!

EAR PIECE
You have a 2-man support team now back at base – always chatting into your ear, giving hints and encouragement. I wasn’t too keen at first, being a purest who enjoyed all the lone trekking about of the first two games – but I see how they help let things tick along, and stop less hard-core gamers getting stuck.

BANG BANG FIZZLE
The combat is a real let down. Very boring, and never feels that threatening (apart from when they start flinging grenades at you). Enemies in this sort game work best when they chuck visible projectiles at you that are then dodgeable, or need to get close to take a bite out of you – that way you have a real challenge of trying to tackle the enemy whilst dodging. Enemies with guns are no fun as their bullets can’t be dodged in the same manner, so when you beat them you don’t feel as rewarded.

HOME SWEET HOME
The old Croft manor is one of the best bits of the game. With no help from people chatting into your earpiece you need to work out the puzzles on your own – it feels most like the original games and is a real challenge. The manor space isn’t that large overall, probably so they can scale it up in games to come (there is no outdoor assault course and no hedge maze – but the new indoor gym is fantastic).

MAKE ME THINK!
The game is not as long as the old ones – levels feel very short, but they are solidly constructed. There just aren’t enough puzzles for my liking, and most that are there are just far too easy. On the penultimate level things just start to get more interesting from a puzzley point of view, but it’s a bit too late. This game is very much aimed as modern day mass market entertainment, not terribly taxing or long, something you can switch on and off quite easily. This isn’t a terrible thing but had they kept things a bit more puzzley then I think it would have been a better-rounded product.

DRAGON’S LAIR?
There are reaction-based sections of the game that I really didn’t like one bit. Resident Evil 4 did them well; they always felt relevant and never too annoying.

Here’s and example of one in TR Legend – you walk into a large room. In front of you the floor is made of large tiles. Some have fallen away leaving gaping holes – I thought “This will be fun – I’ll have to traverse the floor and it’ll be like a puzzle where certain tiles will fall away” – but just as I get near a cutscene takes over and Lara navigates the floor space by herself – only requesting the odd button press at specific moments. Very dull. At least Resi Evil changed the button sequences on each attempt, but here they ask you to press the same ones for each replay of these reaction-based events.

I think the big problem they made is that in most of these sequences Lara creates her own peril, so you feel less concerned for her safety (making it a chore instead, having to save her dumb neck rather than feeling like you are along on the ride). Only two really work well as they are direct consequences of the players actions – the one with the water creature and the other when you are in the crashed plane. If they use these reaction-based sections in future they really need to put more work into them.

HOLLYWOOD INFLUENCES
It feels like they wanted to make it play out more like a short TV movie. After completing the game it does all feel a bit like absorbing a 1 hour TV special. By that I don’t mean it had cheap production values, rather that the gaming sections were a bit like interludes to the story – which is in contrast to TR1 and 2 where back then the FMV sections were the interludes to the game. They probably wanted this game to re-ignite interest in the film franchise too, which no doubt affected how it has turned out (the inclusion of the support team chatting into your ear from back at base and so on).

GET BONUS!
By collecting items hidden throughout the levels you can unlock bonus concept art, 3D models to view (no zoom function sadly) as well as new outfits for Lara. Apparently by collecting everything you get to unlock a swimsuit outfit (woopidoo) but that will take you some time, as finding them all can be quite tricky. There is also a time attack mode to try out on each level, which is pretty tough and adds value to the product (as long as you want to go replay the game again that is).

IN CONCLUSION
Very nicely made relaunch to the game franchise, if a little short. Hopefully to be expanded in future sequels with more puzzles and improved combat.

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