 |
| Source // Steam |
Who doesn't love Lara Croft? She may frustrate the hell out of us with the way she controls, and be completely unrelatable to a great many people, yet we pick up sequel after sequel because we know we'll be in for an action-packed and puzzly dive through ancient ruins and otherworldly beasts.
Or at least gamers did back in the early days. Not all Tomb Raider titles are worth your time, and in a moment of concern perhaps, it was decided that Lara needed a bit of a reboot. A new origin story. New mechanics. The result was Tomb Raider: Legend.
 |
| Source // Steam |
 |
| Source // Steam |
Fun Times
Through sheer coincidence, it happens to be 9 years to the day after I finished Legend, according to my PS3 trophies, but I was late to this party. Releasing at the tail end of the PlayStation 2's life, up against an Xbox 360 version to boot, and not having played Tomb Raider games since they were good on the PlayStation meant that I had no interested in Legend upon its release in 2006.
It would, in fact, be many years later, with the PlayStation 3 release of the Tomb Raider Trilogy, that I finally got the chance to see what the reboot was all about. And that's why you've got to live with a load of promotional shots for these screenshots.
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
My save file has me tackling the final boss of Legend, that guy, armed with the one and only Excalibur, here a stone sword that opens portals to Avalon. I must admit, it wasn't wise to refresh myself with Legend from the end, rather than the beginning.
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
You begin a new game like a normal person in Bolivia. Lara's new origin story has her and her mother crash in a private aircraft, with her mother missing, and presumed dead. Many years later, hot on the trail of an archaeological mystery that could prove what happened to her mother, Lara finds herself mountain climbing without a rope, handstand-flipping over cliff edges and casually going about all this incredibly dangerous activity like it's a walk in the park, all voiced by Keeley Hawes.
 |
| Source // Steam |
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
As you'd expect from a Tomb Raider title, there are plenty of ruins to explore, and as well as being armed with controls that actually, finally, feel like you could put Lara exactly where you want her, you've got full camera control to survey the environments, full of ledges to dangle from, ropes to swing on, and mighty gaps to leap across.
Obviously, there are underwater sections, dangerous wildlife to shoot, and an army of thugs that have always gotten somewhere ahead of you. It makes for almost every button on the controller having a use, from jumping, grabbing and rolling, to aiming, shooting, turning on your flashlight and equipping your binoculars.
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
Frustrations
There's still room on the controller for new mechanics. Lara could always push and pull impossibly heavy blocks (except for anything in Angel of Darkness, I guess), and she can do so here, too, but with much more finesse, and a handy magnetic lasso tool too.
With it, puzzles can now use physics, such as rolling balls or pulling rafts across the water. Puzzles come in all shapes and sizes and are as grand as ever. Once you finally work out how to do the thing (I am definitely rusty on that part), you've usually got to manipulate something to your benefit.
The first puzzle involved weighing down some buttons with steel cages. Two of them needed to be flipped up to a higher level with a seesaw. That bit, though it took me some time to work out, wasn't too bad. Just moving the bloody cages in the first place was where my hassles started.
The lasso didn't care for them, so you had to get up close to push and pull them directly, at which point you find that they are unbelievably light and manoeuvrable, as though they're on brand new ball bearings or something. Because of this, you nudge the stick to move Lara in a direction and she ends up more often than not moving around the object, instead of pushing it.
There's an inverted kind of thing going on where, if you want to push a block to the right, you move Lara left, as though she's pushing on the left side of the object to get it to turn right. This makes sense. Once you learn about it. Before then, you're just faffing around, cursing at her for moving in any direction but the one you swear you're pointing her in. Getting her to just walk straight can sometimes be an effort.
 |
| Source // Steam |
 |
| Source // Steam |
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
Further Fun Times
Luckily, you can take out your anger on those who seek to kill you. Lara can aim her and dispatch her targets with the L1 and R1 buttons, and is capable of picking up fallen weapons from her opponents, too, giving you more options for dealing with the enemy, including using weapons to destroy the environment to send a pillar crashing down upon your foes, for example - though these set pieces are heavily scripted.
As you can see, you'll be getting your guns out in all kinds of locales around the world, for which Lara has an appropriate(ish) look. The green and brown is now brown and brown, but, thanks to the original designer being brought in to keep things focused, Lara still feels very much like Lara.
 |
| Source // Steam |
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
Now, I've not played this game for 9 years, as I say, so I have forgotten everything. The controls, the mechanics, and especially the plot. If I were to go through the game again today, it'd essentially be like going through it for the first time. But look at what I'd be getting up to? Tomb Raiding, obviously. Motorcycle chases, less so. What about attending fancy parties?
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
I wish I had some context for these screenshots. I've definitely played this game, but all I remember of playing it was that it was pretty good. I wasn't blown away by it, because I was playing an HD port of a PS2 game in an era where Uncharted was doing all the tomb raiding, but I was definitely happy with my purchase of the trilogy.
I'll have to piece together the plot from what I've seen here or hope to follow along with the Wikipedia summary.
 |
| Source // Moby Games |
That's Amanda? But she... no... Something else is going on there.
Final Word
I guess I'll have to swan dive back into Legend sometime. From the looks of the level selection menu, there's not too long a game to be found here, but an action-packed afternoon or two is enough to show that Lara is back and means business. Until the next reboot...
This comeback tour may not have been groundbreaking for video gaming, but the three titles that make up this trilogy are worth a look. I say that not because two of them are on the 1001 list and the other is a remake of the first Tomb Raider, but because all three are solid games for those who want what the Tomb Raider series offers - or offered at the time, at least.
Third-person shooting, puzzle-solving, acrobatic level traversal and a bonkers plot voiced by professionals. What more do you want? A nude cheat?
Today it feels a little off, sure, but it's easy to get back into - I found myself diving straight into the final boss, fumbling with the controls as I learned what they were in the moment, and succeeding (ignoring the couple of times where I walked off the edge of the arena to my death).
I'm not itching to relive my time with it, but I did go through a sizeable chunk of the first level to familiarise myself with things and would have no problems going through the rest. Until I got confused with a puzzle or failed to move a block properly, perhaps...
Fun Facts
"The team wanted to include a character from the original continuity, but almost all the major characters Lara had encountered were dead." And you thought she was just an archaeologist...
Tomb Raider: Legend, developed by Crystal Dynamics, first released in 2006.
Version played: Tomb Raider Trilogy, PlayStation 3, 2011.