Crystal Dynamics has significantly solved the ever-lingering problems that it's predecessors carried on for years.
It is revealed in various flashbacks in the game that when Lara Croft was nine years old, the plane carrying her and her mother crashed into the Himalayas, leaving them as the only survivors. After taking shelter in the ruins of an ancient temple, Lara discovered an ornate stone dais holding a sword whilst searching for firewood. Unwittingly activating the ancient artifact, Lara watched in horror as her mother vanished in front of her eyes into a portal. Years later, Lara travels to Bolivia following a tip from an old university friend, Anaya Imanu. Lara attempts to find an dais similar to the one in Nepal.
Tomb Raider: Legend is such a huge step for the series. Everything that was bad in the older games seems to be fixed here. The platforming is faster and Lara's acrobatic moves are even better looking then before. The upgraded gameplay mechanics are noticeable right from the start and the nice visual presentation of Tomb Raider: Legend is like the icing on the cake.
Graphically, Tomb Raider: Legend holds up well. It's not the best in the PS2 library but since the game was ported to so many different systems including the Xbox 360 I'm surprised nothing here was really compressed or down-graded. You will come across many beautiful lush environments and some may even take your breath away.
Tomb Raider: Legend is also complimented by a lovely sound-track that seems to hit at just the right times, like when discovering a new area with a huge waterfall as you leap to the water down below. It's things like this that have kept the Tomb Raider series alive this long.
At heart, this game is a platformer-puzzle game. It's focuses less on the shooting aspects and more on using Lara's acrobatic moves to find your way around. All this is at it's best in Tomb Raider: Legend and they really put to shame the old tank-like mechanics that old fans of the series will remember.
The script in this game is pretty well done. Nothing is overly cheesy and the voice-acting and dialogue are pretty clever. Many of the voice-actors aren't up to Lara's standards but they still provide entertainment. You won't run into any horrendous acting or dialogue in this game at all, and that is a good thing for sure. Nothing kills a exploration game more then bad dialogue.
Sadly, not everything is perfect in Tomb Raider: Legend. The game is played in a third-person perspective and the camera can prove to be an issues once and a while and when it comes to action-sequences and certain areas where precision is key, the camera can sometimes put up quite a fight.
Gunplay in Tomb Raider: Legend is by far the weakest it has ever been. The A.I. is pretty weak and unless you standing completely still during a shoot-out, the odds of you dying is slim to nothing. This doesn't really mean that gunplay is boring but it doesn't really provide a feeling of challenge either. She has a lot of great moves to perform, such as a bullet-time attack, where everything goes into slow-motion and you can pummel your enemies for extra damage. Sadly, since the shoot-outs are so easy, it is not even necessary to perform a melee-kick or the bullet-time attacks at all. It was all a nice addition though and I would like to see this put to better use in a sequel.
Like always, puzzles seem to be a issue in this game as well. Some of them make perfect sense while others don't seem to be as coherent and can leave you stuck for quite a while. The puzzles in Tomb Raider: Legend are a mixed bag, and if you're the type of person that disliked the other Tomb Raider games, then the odds are, this will not impress you either. They aren't nearly as difficult, but they still can be pretty annoying.
Final Notes:
Tomb Raider: Legend is by far one of the best games in the series. It really brings the series to a whole new level of excitement and even tries a few risks along the way, like motorcycle shoot-outs and adding new equipment like the magnetic grapple. All this works pretty well, but doesn't mean it couldn't use a little tune-up. All in all, Tomb Raider: Legend is an enjoyable experience that is worth a budget price-tag. Crystal Dynamics really took charge and did a number on a dying series and I salute there effort. I'm happy to report that it was a job well done.