Tomb Raider: Legend

I love this game, and honestly after spending hours Steam playing this I want to say that I am happy that this is out on GOG, thank you very much!

OK. I played the original Tomb Raider loooong ago and didn't like the perspective much so I skipped next ones in the series. Out of curiosity I bought this one with a healthy discount and decided to give it a go. Of course it looks dated for today's standards but that was expected and I'm not judging the game for that. It's the edge of what I find acceptable in "classic 3d game". So it will do. But there are too many thing that won't do. First and foremost - it's a console game ported to PC. And it shows. From the controls, through those annoying "push the right button" action scenes to the save system. The save system is atrocious and similar to the one in XIII - you can save any time in the game but... it will save the last checkpoint, not your actual progress in the game. And the checkpoints aren't separately saved so while you can do "resume game" at the beginning, if you load any other "save", your original checkpoint is lost forever. It's not saved anywhere. And that was the last straw. But before that was the annoyingly jerky camera motion and relatively annoying riddles. They can be fun sometimes but they seem to be the 3d equivalent of pixel-hunting in good old point-and-click adventure games - you must guess whether the developers wanted you to be able to jump to that rope or not; whether you should jump to that ledge or not. Whether you should drop down here or if you'll die if you do. And so on. Oh, and the model of the main character is over the top - it's the pimpled teenager's wet dream. I understand that Lara is supposed to be relatively attractive sporty type but this one is really made to excess - it's ridiculous. Especially the evening dress version. I'm apparently too old for this.

It's amazing how superior Legend is to its direct sequel Underworld despite releasing first. Lara jumps higher, swings faster, shoots better and generally controls much better. I like them both but this one has better story sequences and music, too. She's also less of a wimp from minor falls. It's also more straightforward with mechanics and clear where you're supposed to navigate, more often than not. The menus and UI are peak. Sure the graphics are dated and some people's patience may vary with the quick time events but there aren't many of those anyway. All around I have to say this is one of the best entires across all of Tomb Raider's eras and possibly the best by classic standards.

Game is great in many ways but unfortenately there is a section in the game where you ride a bike chasing a train and have to fight enemies which is horribly unbalanced at least on hard difficulty I was playing at. No you can't change difficulty setting as you would have to restart the game from scratch. I did get pass it eventually but so many deaths in that section. That section I can imagine will make people quit the game and never look at it again. It ruined the experience of the game that I enjoyed otherwise. Game was fine otherwise but that section just ruined the full experience of the game for me.

Tomb Raider Legend tells the story of Lara Croft searching for the truth to what happened to her mother after and incident at a relic sight as a child. Its a failry straight forward story that ends on a cliffhanger. Lara is full of personality and manages to be a great combination of charming and badass that suits her perfectly. The gameplay is very smooth especially the combat which is the biggest upgrade from Core Designs games although the platforming holds your hand a bit too much which would only get worse with the survivor trilogy but here and in Anniversary and Underworld it is still satisfying. Graphics look good and hold up nicely of course showing age but the style and art design holds up well across the whole trilogy though. The soundtrack is great especially the main theme. Voice acting is quite good too no real complaints here.