Lara Croft's affair with mediocrity appears to be fading
User Rating: 7.9 | Tomb Raider: Legend PS2
The Tomb Raider series has gotten a little stale and deflated lately, and Angel of Darkness didn't help one bit. But Tomb Raider: Legend actually manages to breathe some fresh air into the series. Environments no longer look like they were designed around squares and cubes, and Lara's movement is much more fluid. Jumping to a distant ledge no longer requires the process of walking to the edge, taking exactly 2 hops back, and running and jumping exactly at the end etc. The platforming aspects now feel more like Prince of Persia, and it is truly a joy to vault around tombs as this voluptuous but not outlandish edition of Lara. You will be doing a great deal of swinging on poles, jumping off overhangs before they crumble, and leaping over spike filled pits. All the familiar traps are in place and well implemented in the game. Combat retains the usual clunkiness, and I wish the developers would just discard the targeting system and make you aim on your own, which would make fights much more rewarding. The various environments you will travel to all look gorgeous, and lighting and particle effects are impressive for the ps2. The cutscenes run on the in-game engine, and many are interactive and require you to time button presses with on-screen prompts. If you are a fan of Tomb Raider, this is worth playing, as it is the most refined release to date. However it might be more of a rental than a buy, as the game is very short and offers little replay value unless you really want to find all the hidden artifacts, which isn't that much fun. Hopefully the series' next installment will feature the same smooth gameplay, but with more content.
