Tomb Raider Legend review

First things first, then, this is a time-hopping round-the-world tour of some of the most exotic places on the planet (and Cornwall), stopping in deep jungle, icy wasteland and many an underground cavern. Thankfully, this time there is plenty of tomb raiding, falling blocks and Prince of Persia-style acrobatics, although the balance between platforming and shooting soulless AI with big guns is roughly 50-50. In both modes (which are interspersed throughout, playing havoc with the pacing) control is delightful, with only a few niggles which mainly relate to the antiquated single stick movement (think Resident Evil 4) and a wayward camera that struggles in the tighter spots. For the most part Lara goes exactly where she should and the grid-based system has been abandoned so movement feels free and fluid.Most of the controls are explained in the first tutorial level which not only sets up the story but is actually more enjoyable than most first stages and serves as a good taster for what you'll be doing much more of later. Despite needing to do things quicker (ledges later collapse under you) and more frequently (combo-ing jumps together) the latter levels don't really require any more skill from the player than they did in the first 20 minutes, which is odd. Sure, there are more enemies in the battle sections, and some of the puzzles take longer to solve, but the game never really gets any harder - in fact the last level is arguably the easiest of the lot, but explaining why would spoil the story.Instead, Crystal Dynamics have simply opted to make reaching the end of each puzzle room tougher - swing more, leap further and avoid even more leaking gas - it's true that each puzzle is essentially exactly the same as the last: enter a room, see where you need to be, and then spend 15 minutes trying to scramble up walls and swinging on ropes to get there. Rick Dangerous-style traps are still liberally thrown in too - 2006 is no place for random, unpredictable deaths, especially when the loading times between re-tries are so unforgiving. Cut-scenes are also dotted with real-time action bits too - either triggered by pressing buttons in time a la Shenmue, or actually having to run about with the left stick whilst the game is still in 'cinematic camera mode', which typically means legging it towards the camera whilst a large rolling ball/crazy monster/falling rock tries to obscure your view and force another retry.Luckily, the game is very generous with checkpoints so you'll never need to do more than about 2 or 3 minutes worth of a level more than once, and these can be used as save points too if you need to switch off. And so on the game rambles, and as the story mode gets more and more implausable (a Good Thing in a tale like this) and the pacing gets shot to even greater extremes every now and again something wonderful happens, or you crack a clever puzzle and Legend makes you smile again. Sure, you'll scoff at the lousy voice acting and the appalling AI (and cry frequently, if like Gamestyle, the game forces dirty disk errors every 30 minutes) but there's just enough here to warrant a full playthrough. Dashing through the main story will take about 6-7 hours, but theres always hunting down the collectables to open up the Extras menu, which consists of alternative outfits, character biographies and object viewers.Most won't, though, and we suspect that Legend will be a frequent casualty of GAME's 10-day refund policy, and that across all formats second-hand racks will be full of the game in a few weeks time. It's a shame, because there's obviously been a lot of skill and dedication crafted into the game and the production levels are outstanding. The visuals are amongst the best the 360 has to offer (and easily out-classes the PC version in it's 'next-gen' mode) with realtime shadows, soft ambient lighting and crisp textures, and the whole thing moves at a fluid 30fps, so no complaints there. We just don't know if Tomb Raider games still hold the same magic they once did with the Need for Speeds and GTAs out there, but we hope that Eidos are given another chance to work on a longer story and one with (hopefully) some lasting multiplayer aspect too. Legend is a good, solid game, but it's a short-lived experience that suffers from a wonky storyline and combat/platforming sections that don't really gel together. We're sorry to say it, but might well be best experienced as a rental.