Re: Review: Tomb Raider Legends
- From: "McGrandpa" <McGrandpaNOT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 02:23:43 GMT
"Spalls Hurgenson" <yoinks@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:dc5a4250dii07mb384842571tahfk8bh1t@xxxxxxxxxx
Review: Tomb Raider Legends (Tomb Raider 7)Spalls, I think you need a faster CPU, it's a treat to end those laggy
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Except for the first game, I never warmed up to the Tomb Raider
series. I played through the second and third games once each, gave up
on four and five halfway through, and never got past the third level
for the sixth (Angels of Darkness). But that first game, man, I played
the bejeezus out of that. Eidos' original classic was awesome enough
that it alone convinced me to shell out for five -and now six-
sequels. So how does the latest iteration of the series, Tomb Raider
Legend - stack up? While it can't hold a candle to the original, it is
probably the one I enjoyed most of all the sequels. But it is still
not without its fair share of flaws.
The first thing you'll notice about the game is that the developers
were intensely interested in creating a cinematic feel to the game.
The introductory movie looks like something from a James Bond flick.
Immediately I started wondering if I'd like this "new direction" Lara
Croft was headed in. Fortunately, the intro is not indicative of the
gameplay itself. That's largely intact from the first games. But more
on that later.
First, the technical stuff. Graphically, Tomb Raider Legends is heads
and shoulders above the previous games. The levels are much more
organic in appearance, and textures are suitably high-res for a PC
game. Animations are smooth and realistic. Lighting is greatly
improved; there's even a "next generation graphics" option that lets
you turn on HDR lighting, if you have the pimped-out-rig that can
handle it (I don't, not at a suitable framerate anyway).
Unfortunately, some flaws exist - the particle system is not
particularly robust, and some models (notably the vehicles) look like
something from two game-generations back. I also noticed some issues
with the water surface texture; it either wasn't there entirely, or
was overly reflective, or looked like a hole in the game-world. But on
the whole, the graphics more often made you go "ooh" rather than
"eiuuu".
Sound was also well done, especially the voice-acting. Lara sounds
great, and the supporting cast does its job well. Sound effects were
well done as well, although a bit sparse; extra ambient effects would
have helped fill out the game-world. Music was low-key almost to the
point of being unnoticeable, but it helped drive the action when it
was needed. It did the job, but was not particularly memorable.
It should not need to be mentioned, but the game is also very stable;
no crashes whatsoever. Some people apparently do have framerate issues
with nvidia cards, but I didn't notice any myself. I was also happy to
see the game was available on DVD (but, as it weighs in on the hard
drive at 7GB, perhaps that is not so surprising).
But now we get to the meat of the game: the gameplay itself. This was
really a mixed bag. On the one hand, when it worked, it worked VERY
well. But there were a number of instances when the gameplay just
didn't gel, and the game became unduly frustrating.
On the whole, the gameplay is true to the previous games: you lead
your third-person avatar through various tombs, running and jumping
over chasms, dodging traps, pulling levers, pushing blocks, and
shooting anybody that gets in your way. I quite enjoyed the
running-and-jumping bits; Lara learned a number of new moves in this
game and she leaps about quite organically. Obviously she's been
honing her techniques in parkour by taking tips from the Prince of
Persia, as their repertoire is quite similar (Lara lacks the
wall-walking trick, though).
But the twin demons of laggy control and poor camera angles hamper the
fun somewhat. Too often Lara would refuse to jump no matter how often
I pounded the "jump" key. If she did jump, half the time she'd jump in
some odd direction rather than to the ledge I intended her to go
towards. Such frustrations are of course par-for-the-course for this
sort of game (it's all about timing, after all), but too frequently it
was the interface that failed and not my timing. Prince of Persia,
which utilized similar gameplay, was more responsive and seemed to
anticipate my moves better as well.
More troubling was the use of a check-point save system, so if you DID
fall to your death it usually meant you had to repeat the same
sequence of jumps over and over again until you did it correctly.
Worse, save points -while not infrequent- could have been spaced a bit
more regularly. Also, since the game autosaves, you could hit a
checkpoint with low health and not be able to restore from a previous
checkpoint (especially annoying if you get caught right before a
battle). Couple to this that far too many of the jumps are over
bottomless gorges and the frustration level mounts geometrically
The battles were pretty standard fare; Lara runs and jumps and shoots
things with her twin pistols. I found these bits fairly uninteresting,
but they did break up gameplay and kept things from becoming too
monotonous. Fortunately, there isn't too much combat, and what there
is of it is pretty easy (minor gripe: dodging isn't as easy in this
game; Lara leaps about like a spawning salmon and still gets hit an
inordinate number of times).
A new addition to the gameplay is the so-called "interactive
cutscenes". Obviously put in to make the game feel more like a movie,
these are essentially long cutscenes of Lara jumping and shooting
mixed together with Dance-Dance-Revolution keypresses. Press the
appropriate arrow when it flashes on the screen and Lara makes some
incredible jump-dodge routine that you could never make in regular
gameplay. Miss the keypress and she dies. I felt this was a terrible
addition to the game; sure, it LOOKS cool, but it totally takes away
control from the player. To add salt to the wound, these sequences
usually occur *after* a long (and unskipable) cutscene animation, so
be prepared to watch some cinematics over and over again. On the plus
side, they are fairly easy to get by.
Lara also drives a motorcycle on three occasions; these are probably
the worst bits of the game. The modeling here is the worst in the
game, and the terrain is overly fogged to keep up framerates. The
gameplay is repetitive and dull , and camera control goes all to hell
(exceptionally annoying on twisty roads, when you're suddenly viewing
Lara from the side and it takes forever to spin back to view her from
rear).
The game also suffers from extremely linear design; there's very
little actual exploration. On occasion there will be a hard-to-reach
side room with a hidden "secret" (collect them all to unlock new
outfits, extras and cheats) but for the most part the raid is a
straight forward and obvious romp through a tomb. There's usually only
one jumping sequence that will get you through to the next chamber,
and there will only be one ledge you can reach to start that sequence.
There's no real opportunity for trial and error. And if you make a
mistake, you usually die and have to start over from the last
checkpoint. As I stated above, once you get started on these
sequences, they are pretty fun, but it's very much directed fun and I
often regretted the loss of freedom from the earlier games.
Finally, the game is short. I managed to finish the game in about six
hours; experts will probably complete it in about four. If you're into
finding all the secrets, you might eke out another few hours of
gameplay, but that's it. The ending also screams sequel (well,
actually, to me it screams either "Let's milk the fans for more money
rather than give them a complete story" or "we don't have enough cash
to finish the story as we intended, so let's ship now and hope we get
enough sales to finish the tale in a sequel", but I may just be a wee
bit cynical).
So, there we have Tomb Raider Legends. Technically well designed but
not outstanding, with a mix of some very fun gameplay and some poor
gameplay choices. It was a fun romp, but on the whole I think I'd
rather just play Prince of Persia Sands of Time again. Tomb Raider
fans, however, won't want to miss it and fans of the genre may want to
give it a look just for the experience. But in that case, rent it on
PS2 or buy it when it hits the bargain bin.
CANS (Completely Arbitrary Numerical Score)
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6371 out of a total 9369 (slightly above average)
Review machine
--------------------
Athlon XP "Barton" 3000+ (2.16 Ghz) / 1.5GB DDR RAM / BFG GeForce
6600 OC 128 MB
Played at 1024x768 with all details on "high" except for "next
generation content", which was off.
controls :)
--
McG.
----------------------
AMD A64 X2 4800+
GA-K8N-SLI
2x1gig PC3200 in dual channel
2x 7800GTX 256meg in SLI
XP Pro x64 and x32 dual boot.
.
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