Tomb Raider: Legend
It's true what they say; the seventh time is the charm.
Published: April 6, 2006
By far, though, the biggest areas of improvement are in the art and sound design. This is a gorgeous game -- not just a gorgeous Tomb Raider game, but one of the best looking games the PS2 has ever seen. Sure, having the option for both widescreen and progressive scan is certainly a nice touch (you're even asked if you want to turn either on before you start the first level), but it's really the views the developers crafted that impress; the first time you witness the massive, screen-filling waterfall in Bolivia with a faint rainbow arcing overhead, it's breathtaking.
Little touches are everywhere: when you dive into the water, the splashes are particle-based, lights in dank caves throw out wobbling mixtures of yellowish light and soft shadows that splay off everything -- including Lara, terrain everywhere is rounded and undulates softly rather than being a flat plane, there's even a bluish-white curl of smoke of the tips of the weapons after firing off a couple shots in the precision targeting mode.
Nowhere, though, is the attention to detail as great as in the animation. It's not just the way Lara moves, but the way her body reacts to things. In one sequence, you forced to ride atop a coffin and use the grapple to pull the coffin against the current. As you do this, inverse kinematics let Lara's lower half move with the bobbing of the coffin while the top part of her leans into each tug and rears back. Jump at an odd angle onto a pole to start a swing and her body will actually contort, her lower half twisting with the sideways momentum. It's such a subtle thing, but it looks amazing.
The audio, too is quite impressive. The score mixes the usual heavy jungle percussion, throws in a couple of brassy, noisy flourishes and generally just sort of sounds like you would expect a Tomb Raider game to sound. For once, though, the soundtrack wasn't what grabbed me (though a couple of the songs during the end credits, which I'm sure played during the game but I was too involved to notice, were really, really good, and were a proper fit for the rolling credits), it was actually a combination of the voice acting and the sound effects.
Again, from the effects you get the usual sounds like punchy machine gun or pistol fire, the crackle of fire, but it's the smaller things like the light, fleshy skin-on-stone claps, the constant ambient dripping or falling sand or wind howl that thickens up the atmosphere so nicely. They even managed to pull a nice audio trick during a party scene in Tokyo, where if you duck into a side hallway and start walking down it, the treble drops out of the party music and all you hear is a muffled bassline.
Because the cast is so much more of an ensemble -- at least in terms of commentary -- it's nice to know Eidos picked up some solid voice acting. Casting Keeley Hawes as Lara was a great choice, and some of the lines (particularly towards the end of the game) have the kind of edge and visceral quality that actually sells the whole performance up until then.
I haven't had this much fun with a Tomb Raider game since... well, ever. Crystal Dynamics did the impossible; they not only resurrected the franchise, but updated it so that it actually feels like a modern action game rather than a catch-up effort. Great controls (except for those stupid motorcycle parts), amazing graphics, a solid storyline and wonderful vocal performances add up to not only a reinvigoration of the series, but the best Tomb Raider game yet, and a worthy purchase for everyone, not just the fans of the series hoping for a real sequel.
