Tomb Raider: Legend

Whether this is your first or ninth adventure with Lara, it is one you won’t soon forget. With perfect controls, intuitive gameplay, stunning graphics, majestic music, and a totally engaging story, this is the type of adventure game Legends are made of.

Between the plotting, level design, and gameplay, Tomb Raider: Legend does an admirable job of rescuing the franchise. Crystal Dynamics have torn down the franchise, consulted with the creator, and rebuilt it from the ground up as something significantly different…Something great.

A solid title from the ground up. It has a nicely written story, with lively characters and a charismatic and sexy protagonist in Lara Croft. It has great voice acting and music, and the artists have done a marvelous job of creating beautiful and diverse locations for the game's backdrop.

Tomb Raider: Legend is the definitive sequel/prequel/quadquel to the Tomb Raider series. It's hard to imagine where it can go from here.

Legends boasts plenty of new elements, including a grappling hook fro swinging from lamp posts and cornices, interactive cutscenes that require fast reflexes to spare Lara being squished beneath a rock, and clever physics-based puzzles. [July 2006, p.54]

Tomb Raider: Legend is not only the best Tomb Raider game in years, but as far ahead as one can possibly get from the disaster that was Angel of Darkness.

Tomb Raider: Legend successfully brings the legend back in a movie-like experience. Great on atmosphere, tempo and diversity, but a bit short on content. The gunfights are passable, but the bike levels are just plain weak. [May 2006]

While it has modernized the gameplay mechanics, Legend feels like a walk down memory lane, recreating the feel of the original games. This is somehow comforting; no matter how many times Lara misses a ledge, is crushed by a boulder or dies in a hail of bullets, you feel she will always be there for you.

While the gameplay is serviceable, fun and current, the art design and visual production are head and shoulders above similar games in many respects.

A refreshing change from the dull Croft games of late, jam packed with a varied assortment of fun puzzles, interesting locales, and an interesting story.

A fun game with a very high level of polish but not a great deal of depth. It’ll cast its spell on you early with its beautiful visuals and agile main character, and it’s a fantastic experience while it lasts, which isn’t nearly long enough.

What it does have is quality rather than quantity though and the excellent Croft Manor level will add hours of fun to the value.

The changes Crystal Dynamics have affected means it’s easily the most polished, well-rounded package of the seven.

A crisply executed adventure that alternates among third-person shooting, platform-jumping, and environmental puzzles, Legend doesn't excel at any one in particular, but it rotates the elements smoothly and regularly enough that it compensates in variety.

In this regard, Crystal Dynamics deserve all the praise, but if they will continue to ignore certain aspects in the next Tomb Raider game and will choose to go down the simplification road, there are very good chances that the next Tomb Raider will end up like "Angel of Darkness."

The cliffhanger story is well put together. The action is simple and effective. The controls not only work, they're fun...Best of all, the sense of discovery and adventure is captured with a fresh sensibility.

It's certainly not a perfect game nor does it completely break new ground in the series, but it's nice not to smell the stench of failure as soon as you open the box. For Lara fans, Tomb Raider: Legend is a step in the right direction.

The best new addition is a magnetic grappling device that allows Lara to move faraway items and swing across chasms. Puzzles are beautifully integrated into the environment and frustration rare.

Most players probably able to breeze through in less than eight hours, but there's never a dull moment.

Some may argue over what the series should have become, but what’s important is that it has made that tough decision for itself, and established a rock solid foundation for inevitable, now justified successors. [May 2006, p.86]

Every second of this game screams skillful design and the result is a liberating game world that feels open and responsive.

Most importantly, the puzzles are back on track. Traps, levers, pulleys, chains, chasms, secret passges, underground lakes, rotating knives — there’s a cunning solution to each, designed to keep you puzzling for just long enough to gain satisfaction in the solving, but not long enough to make you want to hurl your own internal organs at the screen.

A successful resurrection, but not quite worthy of legendary status. [May 2006, p.92]

While you'd think the Tomb Raider style of gameplay would have expired by now, Legend really rejuvenates the series back into the realms of play-ability.

It's not a rehash, nor a reinvention, but instead an appropriate incarnation in a post "Prince of Persia" world. [May 2006, p.74]

A good return to the roots of the series. It doesn't do anything new or different, but it has a great blend of action and adventure that will always keep you moving and interested.

It's far from revolutionary, but as a mélange of elements that have proven successful in other action/adventure games, it's certainly entertaining and gratifying on many levels.

Legend is the best Tomb Raider game that has yet been made. Despite the game’s few grating problems, that’s quite an accolade. [May 2006, p.102]

It's fun for a bit, and fans of Lara will welcome the new addition as a breath of fresh air.