Amazon.com: Tomb Raider Legend: Xbox 360: Video Games

23 Reviews

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
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4.2 out of 5 stars (23 customer reviews)

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Laras back, but is it a good thing?, August 4, 2006

By	F0X H0UND (Greenwood Lake, NY) - See all my reviews

Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars

In this edition of Tomb Raider, Lara Croft finds herself traveling & exploring one exotic place to the next in order to piece together her past - and more specifically - what happened to her mother with the help of her two pals Zip & Allister.

Its your basic Tomb Raider game with a lot of jumping, flipping, swinging from ropes, sliding down ramps/hills, grappeling onto objectsand shooting things. You get a few weapons like a shotgun, SMG, assault rifle, grenades & grenade launcher, and the infamous dual handguns with the bottomless clip. Also, there are a bunch of "rewards" hidden throughout the levels and if a lot are collected you unlock new outfits and areas in Lara's Mansion. Oh, thats the other thing - you can run around Lara's Mansion.

Whats good though is that this game places you back into ruins and tombs instead of trying to make Lara some special agent (Angel of Darkness anyone?). So you'll find yourself in areas such as Ghana, Bolivia, Nepal, Lara's homeland of England, and many other areas. Each level looks absolutley beautiful - especially the jungle looking stages. The water effects are magnificent, and the lighting is beautiful. The character models are alright, nothing spectacular with the exception of our main heroine herself.

The music was superb. I can't really explain it.. it was just really good. Each stage has it's own song which fits beautifully with the level's culture and design..sso for instance in Nepal - a really empty & voide of life snow stage - it has gegorian chants which help intensify both the beauty AND the lonlieness of the level. You just have to hear it for yourself. The voice acting was GREAT and there are some really interesting and funny conversations between the characters at points.

So whats Tomb Raider: Legends' downfall? Well for starters its extremley repetitive - you'll be doing pretty much the same thing in every stage. Secondly, its a pretty easy game. Thirdly, its very short; its only 7 missions long come on!, and lastly the gunfights are kind of lackluste r. The guns don't sound powerful, nor are they - I literally had to empty a clip with my assault rifle into a Jaguar before it keeled over - and they ae terribly inaccurate. Thankfully the targetting system is pretty right on.

The ending to this game was interesting to say the least. You wind up at the stone dias after beating Amanda in her beast form. From there you place the ancient sword into the stone, the dias starts up, and you see your mother in a parallel universe doing the exact same thing you are. Amanda awakes and begins screaming to your mother for her to pull the sword out so the dias explodes while Lara tries to silence Amanda. Anyway, the mom pulls the sword out, the dias explodes, and Lara loses a chance to re-unite with her long lost mom.. so in a rage she threatens to kill Amanda at gunpoint. Amanda reveals that Lara's mom is in Avalon, Lara is so heated she begins shooting basically right next to Amanda to freak her out.. then she pistol whips her so hard she KOed Amanda. Then Lara says a great line, "every breath you take from now on is a gift from me.", and proceeds to make arrangements to see if she too can get to Avalon.

To finish it up, Legend is a decent platforming game but really not worth the $50 price tag it carries. It's definitley worth playing, even with it's flaws. I suggest you rent it first.

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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun Platforming - But Quick, May 12, 2006

By	Lisa Shea "LisaShea.com" - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars

The Legend member of the Tomb Raider series combines both traditional platforming and shooting along with some Dragon's Lair style button pressing timing.

I'm very pleased that Lara Croft has moved beyond being a "huge cleavage woman that male gamers simply like to watch" and turned into a legitimate action heroine. Yes, she's still quite busty, but she's actually admired now for her ability to shoot, think and puzzle her way out of solutions.

Many of the puzzles she faces are traditional. You climb up pipes and walls to reach higher areas. You push boxes in order to block spinning fans of death or to cross flaming passageways. You kill off bosses in a variety of ways.

In addition, you have timed sequence actions. These are much like Bond Moments from James Bond games, or the gameplay of the old classic Dragon's Lair. In these games the game makers would create gorgeously fluid sequences of animation and you would be instructed to hit buttons at precise moments in order to keep the animation flowing. I always found this style of gameplay to be a bit hokey - it took you out of the 'immersion' of the gameplay - but on the other hand it does mean you can view some fantastic cinematics when you get the timing right.

The game is relatively quick on the first pass, but there are plenty of secrets and items to find to get you to go back and replay a number of times. Still, for the high price you pay for 360 games, I really would have expected this to be MUCH longer. On one hand, you have games like Elder Scrolls Oblivion that you can literally play for months and months and enjoy it. On the other hand, you have games like this where you could play through in say 6-8 hours and be completely done. Surely there was plenty of room on the DVD to fit more levels.

The graphics were quite impressive - from the lighting to the flickering flames and dark tombs. The way in which you light up your world as you look around really added to the feeling that you were down in a dark world, with perhaps new secrets lurking just around the corner. Little touches like the swing of Lara's braid added to the realism.

The sound was reasonably good; the voice acting wasn't Drama Movie quality, but it certainly did well as a fun action game atmosphere.

I would really recommend renting this one first to see how much the game grabs you. If you're a real Tomb Raider fan, you might be thrilled to have this in your collection. However, if you're not sure, it's best to give it a quick try before you pay out the full price for what amounts to a weekend game.

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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lara Croft meets Dragon's Lair!, April 29, 2006

By	DarkDan "DarkDan" (Norman, OK United States) - See all my reviews

Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars

I've never been a "huge" big fan of the Tomb Raider series, and I don't like third-person games in general. But I picked up Tomb Raider: Legend on a lark, and now I'm addicted. I have completed this game on all difficulties and earned all of the Xbox 360 achievements for this title.

The game storyline dives into the Arthurian legend which reveals an interesting parallel to Lara's personal life as you uncover more about the story. It's an interesting spin and makes for a great epic adventure. To really connect you to the story, there's "Super Actions," which are parts of the cut-scenes where, as you're watching a predicament unfold, you're suddenly required to hit a specific button on your controller (to move, duck, jump, grab, or fire your grappling hook) or Lara will meet an untimely death. These Super Actions will remind older player's of Dragon's Lair, a game where you were required to match your button presses with the on-screen directions. In short, it's a great way to remove the monotony of cut-scenes and makes you really focus on the story, because it could mean the difference between life or death.

The rest of the game is a well-done adventure story. Navigating Lara through the adventure with a 360 controller is nearly flawless, a testament to the many years of experience behind the series. The only problem comes with inopportune camera redirects, such as the change between climbing on the ledge of a cliff and pulling yourself up above the edge. When you do so, the camera will spin around; changing the direction that pushing "up" on the controller will move you. This will cause you to occasionally direct Lara back to the edge of the cliff or, sometimes, to leap off entirely and plummet to her death. Aside from this flaw, most users will find that this is one of the best controller layouts for a third person game, which is something I'm always hyper critical of.

If you've read the other reviews, you know this game is short. In fact, I would say this game only has 7.1 levels, since the last level is nothing more than a glorified "boss fight" (usually the ending of a level where you face a super powerful foe) which could have been tacked on to the previous level. However, Tomb Raider: Legend does offer a considerable amount of replay-ability with the massive amount of unlockables and secrets the game offers. Hidden on every level are bronze, silver and gold treasures, often in unusual and interesting places. Bronze are easily found while gold treasures will require all of Lara's skills and a bit of ingenuity to find them all. The most exciting find may be the gold treasure hidden in Croft Manor (an extra level unlocked as you play through the single-player campaign.) The Xbox 360 achievements are tied to finding most (but you do not have to find all) of these treasures, as well as earning points for finishing each level and the game (with separate achievements for completing it at the hardest and easy or medium difficulties) and the time trials. There's also an incredible number of additional features (outfits for Lara, cheat codes, developer's content and more) for completing each level and the time trials.

So, if you love scouring levels for secrets and unlocking special features, this game is for you and will easily quadruple the amount of playtime you get from this title. If you're a fan of the Tomb Raider series, you'll be absolutely delighted with this well-executed and exciting episode that will, most certainly, leave you excited for the next installment of the story.