Tomb Raider: Legend Review (Xbox 360)
The reboot that succesfully reinvigorated the most famous adventuress in the history of video games, I take a look at Legend 16 years later.
Developer: Crystal Dynamics
Publisher: Eidos
Release Date: 7th April 2006 (EU), 11th April 2006 (NA)
Platforms: Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PC, PSP, GameBoy Advance, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, GameCube.
Lara Croft had a bit of a rough time in the early 2000’s. From being a revolutionary video game character and cultural icon in the late 90’s with fantastic games that changed the action adventure genre and getting a hit film with Angelina Jolie in 2001, to falling disgracefully to certain death after a clunky first outing on the PS2 and a so-so film sequel. Having a new game released every year eventually saw quality decline with not much further innovation being impleneted into the series leading to creative stagnation and a waning interest in everyone’s favourite adventuress, especially with the failure of Angel of Darkness in 2003 which was also accused for the box office failure of Cradle of Life released the same year. The release of Angel of Darkness was so bad that it resulted in Core Design closing up shop. So by the end of 2003 Lara’s adventures seemed finished. No studio to make anymore Tomb Raider games and the film series cancelled.
Until 2004 when the series publisher Eidos put Crystal Dynamics in charge, known for creating Gex and The Legacy of Kain series, and tasked them with rebooting the Tomb Raider franchise. Toby Gard, creator of Lara and lead designer of the first Tomb Raider game, was brought back on as writer, character designer, senior designer, and creative consultant on the rebooted series, so assuredly the new series was in good hands. By E3 2005 we got out first look at Lara’s new adventure; Tomb Raider: Legend and a release date of April 2006. The excitement and adoration for Ms. Croft was back! And people couldn’t wait to get to play as her on a whole new adventure once again.
Legend sees Lara heading down to Tiwanaku, Bolivia following a tip from Anaya about a stone dais believing it ties to her mother’s disappearance in Nepal when she was a child. Upon investigating the location she encounters James Rutland, a spoiled rich kid with more money than sense, hunting down fragments of a sword that would activate the dais. He also teases that an old friend of Lara’s, Amanda Evert, who she believed had drowned in an earlier expedition in Peru, is still alive and helping him. Racing against Rutland to find all of the pieces of the sword, Lara’s adventure sees her travelling to Japan, Ghana, Kazakhstan, and even old Cornwall! Eventually she learns that the sword she is finding is Excalibur itself, sword of King Arthur. With the legendary Excalibur reassembled, Lara heads back to Bolivia for one last confrontation with Amanda, who had survived Peru by use of a wraith stone controlling an unknown entity that had attacked Lara’s Peru expedition. A brief brawl later, Lara activates the dais with Excalibur opening up a portal through dimensions. Here she learns the voices she heard through the portal she opened up as a child and resulting in her mother’s disappearance in Nepal was actually her own and Amanda’s in the future. Lara tries to warn her mother to not remove the sword but through Amanda’s interferences causes her mother’s disappearance to occur. Lara demands answers from Amanda where her mother disappeared to revealing she was alive and in Avalon. Sparing Amanda’s life, Lara vows to find Avalon and rescue her mother.
It’s a pretty entertaining and simple story, just what it needs and ends on an enticing cliffhanger leading to Underworld. Its twists and surprises have good reveals, such as the Arthurian legends coming to reality. If I have to compare it to another copycat series, Legend is a much more romanticised story of adventure and discovery, one that’s more elegant with a femine touch despite having its own grand action movie levels and set pieces along with it, while comparing it to Uncharted that one is much more aggresive and explosive, more testosterone fuelled. It’s as though Tomb Raider Legend was directed by Patty Jenkins or Peter Jackson while Uncharted is directed by Michael Bay. Because you have to blow up a few trains and bridges at least 5 times in the first half hour. But that’s the kind of feel that Tomb Raider Legend has. It shows the beauty of adventure, of these locations Lara explores and herself. There’s more elegance to it and it fits perfectly for what Tomb Raider is. And it is exemplified due to the soundtrack, the art design of the locations and Lara herself.
Which, Legend has possibly the best interpretation of Lara as a character. Not only does she look as good as she ever has with a whole new outfit and modern graphics to do her visual splendor justice, it’s how she’s portrayed that shines the most. She has always been fearless, clever, witty, highly capable and loves doing what she does and that is highlighted in spades here. She is completely enamoured with her adventuring and archeology and mystery solving here that she simply swoons when she arrives at the temple in Tiwanaku. This makes her so likeable and such a joy to be around. Playing as someone so confident and fun and fangirls over ruins makes this game so much more enjoyable than it already is. And, yeah, visually her beauty matches her personality just as strongly so you thirsty bastards can gawk all you like. There has been tremendous effort put in by the developers and especially by Lara’s actress Keeley Hawes to add so much depth to Lara making her even more optimistic, sympathetic, compassionate, and even at times brutal. She can go from fawning over the tomb of King Arthur to doubtful on her father’s belief’s that her mother was still alive to bantering jokes with Zip and Toru Nishimura to dearly missing her mum. She’s got dimensions and is a fully fleshed out character in this. I mean she can be wholly brutal at times, like at the end when she interrogates Amanda demanding to know where her mother is she shoots either side of her head and barks at her “WHERE. IS. MY. MOTHER?!” She’s well and truly fucked off there, I mean the utter fury in Keeley’s delivery. A lifelong buildup to think she was at fault only to learn it was because of Amanda that her mother disappeared. That’s the good stuff. And honestly it was this game, Anniversary and Underworld that fully got me to love Lara. I had played Lara’s PS1 adventures on demo discs as a kid but it was this and its sequels that properly got me into Tomb Raider.
As fantastic and perfect as Lara’s character is she wouldn’t get far without as strong a supporting cast. She has Zip her tech specialist, Winston the ever faithful butler, Alister her research assistant and Anaya her old archeologist friend. The boys essentially serve as her Alfred to her Batman, they’re wonderfully helpful and greatly support Lara’s adventure and her progress. To add more to her background of what adventures she’s partaken there’s Toru Nishimura who you meet up with in Japan to find the next piece of Excalibur. Lara had once saved him in his investigative journalism days and since formed a strong friendship.
Story and characters aside, more importantly how does it play? A hell of a lot better than her previous adventures. She had tank controls during her PS1 days and while that worked then it quickly became antiquated. Especially by Angel of Darkness when most adventure games were already roaming around freely without restrictive controls. I mean, couldn’t they have copied Soul Reaver’s controls slightly? Both Eidos properties. But thankfully Crystal Dynamics and Toby Gard learned from past mistakes and completely overhauled her control scheme. Taking inspiration from Prince of Persia The Sands of Time with how the Prince moved, jumped, climbed and solved puzzles they finally created a way for Lara to be completley movable in a 3D space. And she controls wonderfully. You can even do all the fun acrobatics you could do before! Pressing B repeatedly while moving you can do some gracful flourishing somersaults, you can swan dive off high ledges into water below with Y after a jump with A, and when climbing up a ledge holding Y you can do her classic majestic flip. Its the little things that help, flavour. So you can wiggle all around the level with ease, jump over chasms, climb ledges and ladders, run away from rolling boulders, swing on ropes and poles, swim, and push around blocks. There’s a lot that is clearly taken from Sands of Time and a wise choice that was. She even gets a handy dandy magnetic grappling hook this time around pressing X (or A when prompted in a jump) to latch onto shining objects, very useful for puzzle solving and traversing large gaps. She gets a few other pieces of new equipment too. You can manually turn on a light pressing left on the d-pad to help navigate through darker areas easier replacing the flares of old (although in the flashback Peru level you use flares) and down for binoculars. Back will open up a PDA menu for a map and other level details to help guide you where you’re going and item collectibles. During some action scenes you also get quicktime events, a first for the Tomb Raider series here. Someone must’ve been a fan of Shenmue.
Combat isn’t anything overly complicated but it doesn’t really need to be here and they never have been before. You get your infinite ammo dual pistols and a selection of shotguns, machine guns and rifles you can snatch up from fallen enemies. Handily whatever you have after completing a level it carries over to the next. You can lock on with LT and dodge around with B while shooting around with RT. You get up to 4 first aid kits to restore health. Enemies can give you a little challenge but moving around and shooting enough and hitting Y for context shots destroying barrels and pillars can make for easy battles. It’s fun action pew-pews overall and Lara’s fanstastic control scheme makes them fun to do. Clicking R3 will also put you into precision mode helpful for shooting metal latches to solve puzzles hindering your path.
You also get some fun vehicle segments now. Racing down through the canyons of Peru to catch a convoy or through snowy Kazahkstan to catch a train on a Ducati bike all the while shooting goons on bikes, barrels and Jeeps. Yeah, they had a product placement brand deal for vehicles in this game. But driving the bike isn’t so bad. Some parts are a little janky, like trying to jump on the back of the train in Kazahkstan you can either be too slow, too quick or a little too far off one way or another and completely miss your jump. Shooting goons and avoiding rocks is easy but this part always caught me. But they’re segments that don’t overstay their welcome and while they’re here they’re fun to do.
Puzzles are mostly physics based be it rolling a giant sphere to avoid lasers and a deadly turret ahead, Looney-Tunes-ing boxes by flinging them on a see-saw up to a ledge by jumping on the other end, using your grapple hook to pull switches. Using your binoculars can help with puzzles too. There’s a visor that can detail what specific items are and how they could be used for puzzle pieces. At first some of these you might spend a little time trying to figure out but they’re not overly complex. By later replays you’ll end up solving these puzzles through muscle memory and whiz through it, which also plays in handy with time trials on the levels.
And of course what good is a Tomb Raider game without exploration? There’s all sorts of nooks and crannies for you to look into and explore through each level finding bronze, silver and gold relics which collecting all will unlock new outfits for Lara as well as increasing pistol damage. So your efforts for nosing around elsewhere will pay off. As earlier mentioned, there are time trials for the levels too! Complete them quick enough under a set time and you will unlock even more outfits for Lara. And what good are they if you can’t replay a level with them? So you can go through the bitter cold of Nepal in a red party dress or the deserts of Ghana in winter gear. It’s silly but there’s a lot of variety in the outfits you unlock with a little over 30 in total, it’s great. So there is plenty to bring you back to play through the levels multiple times.
For completionists, if you want the achievement for completing it on hard you have to start a new game. You can’t go through a previously complete game on a harder difficulty and expect it to count because it doesn’t. Which is fine though because if you’ve gone through the game multiple times already, completed the time trials and gotten all relics then completing it on hard will not be hard at all because really… it isn’t that hard at all for a hard difficulty. I couldn’t really discern any differences in difficulty other than maybe tougher enemies, definitely with the final boss. Which, of the bosses, they’re pretty simple and easy and few and far between. You have Shogo Takamoto to beat in Japan for a sword piece, James Rutland in Ghana for his sword piece, a hydra monster in Cornwall, and the unknown entity at the end. Takamoto you jump up to a higher level in the room, dodge his attacks and shoot incessantly. Rutland you run around and avoid his grenades and attacks, destroy the platforms he hangs out on and shoot incessantly. The hydra you avoid its attacks and lure it by shooting bells and lowering cages from above in four different parts of a cave. The unknown entity you get to use excalibur and all you do is run around and avoid its attacks, swing your sword with whimsy and press Y up close when prompted. And that’s it. The final boss can be a bit of a challenge on hard and it’s the only challenge you’ll get. Well, perhaps next to the hydra at first. While they might be a little lacking they’re still satisfying to beat and the unknown entity looks cool.
Speaking of looks, this is remarkably beautiful to look at. The open environments of Bolivia and Ghana are gorgeous with its waterfalls, the ruins intricate and fun to explore around, and character designs fantastic. Weirdly some of the character designs reminds me of Hitman Blood Money, feels like maybe they were sharing a look at Eidos at the time. But it works. The game is a visual treat for your eyeballs. Lara’s new design being one obvious talking point with a great update to her look and glorious new outfit. Don’t worry, one of the unlockable outfits is her classic costume. But the level designs with their layouts and art designs are fantastically done. You don’t get too lost through them and there’s not really one piece around that’s ugly to look at. The snowy environments of Nepal and Kazahkstan invoke a chill wading through them, the ruins of King Arthur fantastical, and the rundown Tesla labs in Kazahkstan curious. It’s wonderful.
The soundtrack is even more wonderful too! Composed by Troels Brun Folmann, known mostly for trailer work, he has created a fantastical and majestic score befitting for Lara and her adventure ahead. She gets a new triumphant theme with an operatic choir and dramatic percussions, mystical drumming and woodwinds for Peru, and a snazzy and classy James Bond-like groove in Japan. There’s all sorts going on for each level and plenty ambience too. It is a wonderfully beautiful and dramatic score and a rather large soundtrack as well with 90 tracks on the deluxe edition. Rightfully deserved, the game won the BAFTA for Best Original Score in 2006.
Oh, and then there’s Croft Manor. Of course there is! You can wander around Croft Manor again as your own little playground. Solve more mysteries around the place, take a splash in your pool, practice your moves in the gym and play dress up trying out all of your new clothes all with a relaxing and somewhat sensual soundtrack behind it. It’s lovely and very peaceful and solving the manor’s mysteries are very elaborate. I need more games that do this. Why could we never roam about the batcave like this in the Arkham games? Useless. You can’t lock Winston in a freezer in this I’m afraid. But you don’t need to because he doesn’t stalk you around every corner anymore. He has learned to give the lady some space.
Tomb Raider Legend is a remarkable game. It fixed everything wrong from its original series and its past failings, innovated where it should have done a long time ago and revitalised the franchise back to how it used to be but with solid improvements in every way. It looks amazing, plays magnificently and sounds fantastic. Perhaps a little short but it has tons of replayability to it. It was a huge success upon release and has since fondly grown to be one of the biggest highlights in Lara’s illustrious career. She was always in the public conscience but this shot her right back to the top again. In 2006 Legend was frequently on the top lists of the most anticipated games of the year and was even nominated for a good few awards. Even in November that year Paramount was moving ahead with a third Tomb Raider film with Angelina Jolie! That of course never came to fruition and most people weren’t too excited due to the previous two films lukewarm success but Legend’s success garnered enough interest to see a third film and see it done right. Mostly, however, it renewed interest and faith with Lara and her adventures once again. A year later we saw Anniversary, a 20th anniversary remake of Tomb Raider also serving as a prequel to Legend and then another year later a sequel to both in Underworld thus creating the Legend trilogy.
This game certainly won me over to the franchise, I love this game and this take on Lara the most because its her at her absolute honest and best. I really, really want to see the next Tomb Raider game return to this characterisation of Lara again because this is who Lara is and this is who she is at her absolute best.
More fun and fancy free adventuress falling in love with tombs and ruins please!
Where to purchase:
Ebay: £3.40-£65/ $8-$200 (One for $2000 as well, what…)
Amazon: £40/$20
CeX: £2.50-£22