Tomb Raider: Legend

It’s getting to be that time again. It’s time for another edition in the ever-growing Tomb Raider series. After a few years of struggling with the franchise, it looks like Eidos is really buckling down and trying to drag the franchise out of the muck with Tomb Raider: Legend, which promises to hark back to what made the franchise a hit in the first place, this time on the PC, PSP, PS2, Xbox, and a particularly pretty Xbox 360 version.

By the looks of things Eidos isn’t really going for anything terribly over the top with Legend, instead focusing on putting together a very solid action adventure that is fun first and foremost. This time around players find Lara Croft searching the depths of South America, where she encounters a person from her past, and suddenly she’s off to try and find a relic of a whole lot more significance.

As the game’s developers continue to work on ensuring the game's controls are nice and smooth as players make Lara run, jump, and shoot her way through ancient ruins, they are also looking at ways to allow gamers to better take advantage of surrounds. It’s not just a matter of knowing when to take cover behind a nice big rock. In Legend, players will have several instances of opportunity where reflexes are key, as various things in a given level

briefly come into play. For instance, a barrel may suddenly become uncovered for a short time. When this happens savvy gamers can try and shoot it, causing it to explode and kill any enemies that may be near it. Overall, the combat is expected to be quite fast paced. Hell, Lara can even toss enemies into the air, juggling them about as she rips them to shreds.
Despite this, Crystal Dynamics is primarily trying to bring the series back to its roots, placing emphasis on the game being an adventure. There’ll be plenty of chances to solve puzzles and try to figure out how to navigate ancient crypts, and generally put players' brains to good use.
Regardless of which version of the game one looks at, all of the builds are looking pretty darn good so far. There’s a lot of detail in the environments, and Lara Croft is looking more lifelike than ever. Most impressive of the bunch are the PSP version, which is looking quite slick for a handheld game, and, of course, the Xbox 360 version, where it seems that Crystal Dynamics is trying to push the system's hardware as hard as they can.

Speaking of the PSP build of Legend, this version of the game will actually have three extra gameplay modes for players to fiddle with. So far we know of two of them, one involving an obstacle course that players need to complete before time runs out, the other being a game of hide and seek where two players compete via wifi by hiding treasure in a maze, and then racing to be the first to locate their competitor’s hidden treasure.

It’s really a shame that the Tomb Raider series has faltered so much recently. From what Eidos and Crystal Dynamics have shown thus far, though, it does appear that they are putting a lot of effort into restoring the series. Hopefully Tomb Raider: Legend won’t disappoint when it is completed.