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> Results: Tomb Raider: Legend
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Over the past decade Lara Croft has been searching archeological sites all over the world, and while the quality of the games has also been all over the map there has been a general trend—down. The decline in quality of the series was marked by a low point with the release of 2003's Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. After that it was not clear if another game in the series would be made, so fans have approached this new release with trepidation. Fortunately Tomb Raider: Legend is a solid game and a fine return to form for the series.
This one gets back to the series' roots—both in terms of the focus on action and adventure in a wonderful variety of locations, but also by featuring a story that looks back through time to Lara's childhood and her earliest adventures. You use all of her skills—problem solving, platform jumping, adventuring and gunplay—as you work your way through this nicely detailed narrative. Without revealing anything, every location and setting you visit makes sense within the context of the story. You are seldom placed anywhere that seems to exist for the convenience of the developers to execute some gameplay mechanism.  The action and adventuring is wonderfully well-paced. The gameplay moves you from puzzle to platform to action in varied fashion, with liberal checkpoints that make sure that you (almost) never have to pass more than a single significant challenge before hitting the next checkpoint. Each game mode is very well done. Platform-action is challenging and exciting, and it is generally entertaining to find your way from point to point. There are many times when you can see where you need to go, but there is no clear path. Finding out how to manipulate the environment and use Lara's tools and skills is the best part of the game. Puzzles are somewhat challenging, but never become a major obstacle, and once completed they are trivial to complete again. Gun battles are fun but are perhaps the weakest part of the game, as the enemies are not all that smart and the game depends on an auto-aim system that wastes a ton of ammo, which is fortunately plentiful. There are a few problems worth mentioning. Quality of the levels is uneven. The good news is that they vary between good and excellent! But there are times when you will occasionally stop to survey an area and think ‘I can see exactly how they planned this jump puzzle on paper'. Fortunately those moments are infrequent, and you often stop and see wonderfully detailed environments that you want to explore in more detail. But some levels are better than others, and that is a problem because the game is also fairly short. I consider myself inexperienced at Tomb Raider games, and a ‘completist' when it comes to finding secret items, and completing the entire game including exploring the Croft Manor pretty fully took me about a dozen hours. The system requirements on the PC version are pretty steep—too steep for the visual presentation. Enabling ‘next generation content' requires (not surprisingly) significantly advanced hardware, yet doesn't give results that merit the hardware differential. Finally, controls on the PC version are problematic in that they occasionally switch context somewhat randomly while performing platform jumps. Keyboard and mouse controls generally work very well, so context problems are made even more frustrating because they generally require multiple ‘die and retry' attempts to get the controls to behave themselves. Overall experience with Tomb Raider: Legend is very positive. Completing missions is enjoyable and many are challenging. Exploring the Croft Manor is entertaining, too. But the game ends too soon, and is occasionally frustrating with repeat deaths at the hands of inconsistent PC controls. It is apparent that this game was intended for console controllers, and no doubt plays better on a gamepad, but the PC version is still ok, with minor control and performance issues being the only things to mar an otherwise solid experience. Lara Croft has indeed returned in a style that will have fans looking forward to her next game!  
Some of the most famous aspects of the Tomb Raider games have nothing to do with the action, jumping, puzzles or adventure, but with the heroine of the story. She is a combined tough-as-nails adventurer and sex symbol all in one. That is the basis of the franchise, and should come as no surprise to anyone interested in this game. However, with each advance in the realism capable with new hardware, the ability to better model the human body also advances. Lara Croft is made to be a very beautiful woman in Tomb Raider: Legend and everyone on and off the screen knows it, including her. She is humorous and playful and there is some minor flirtation, but nothing more serious than that. I was very glad to see that the game developers didn't stoop to the pursuit of ‘jigglies' in modeling Lara or any of the other females. As a result this is an appropriately rated Teen game that has enough beautiful women to satisfy those who are interested in that without it being embarrassing for those who want to just enjoy the game without feeling voyeuristic.
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