OpenWorldGames Server ONE

I thought I'd start a new topic for this game since it's not "Tomb Raider 2012". Strictly speaking, it's not really "War and Combat" either, but as there is some combat involved I guess it's the nearest category under "Other games" to stick it in.

Impressions so far after a few hours of playing - great fun for an old Lara fan like me. It's like a return to the good old days of the early Tomb Raider games but with better graphics and a nice-looking incarnation of the spelunking one. TRL is over five years old now and the graphics aren't exactly what you'd call photo-realistic or anything, but they never were and in a way that was part of the charm of the classic TRs. Given the nature of the gameplay the graphics and level layout have to look a certain way so that you can see where Lara can get to and where she can't. Even so, there are some nice water and vapour effects, and good lighting. Nice creepy atmosphere too by dint of the ambient sounds, almost makes you want to keep looking over your shoulder (or over hers).

Controls are a little different to what they were in "traditional" TR games, they took me a little while to get used to but they w@&k well once I got the hang. One big gripe so far, and it's a common one of mine - no bloody screensave function! Why oh why... @%$&# :angry-new: I haven't tried IrfanView screen capture yet, maybe it'll w@&k in this (it often doesn't in games, I've found). So I've just got this pic so far using the laborious PrtScr/Alt>Tab/Paste Clipboard in IrfanView/save as .jpg image technique. I'll try and get some action shots sometime later because she looks good when she's doing her acrobatic tricks.

[smg id=3896 align=center width=600]

There are some fun puzzles and some cool moves that Lara can do, including some melee fighting moves which I haven't tried yet. Apart from her usual repertoire of climbing, jumping, swinging, leaping, swimming etc she can also use a grapple and has some novel ways of climbing/jumping around. She has a pair of zooming binos that come in handy for scouting ahead and for solving some puzzles. Apparently she's limited to two weapons now (no more portable arsenals). She packs her trusty pair of pistols on her curvy hips (with the trademark limitless ammo) and she can have one other weapon of some sort slung over her back (with limited ammo). She can also chuck frags, which I haven't had to do as yet. But the game's more about solving puzzles with some lateral thinking, which were the hallmarks of the classic TR games. In this area it looks very promising.

Good escapist fun, and it's nice to play with Lara again, so to speak. It's like catching up with an old friend :-()

Looking forward to your observations and opinions, fragger!  :-X

Quote from: fragger on January 05, 2012, 04:41:52 AM
, and it's nice to play with Lara again, so to speak. It's like catching up with an old friend :-()

Exactly my thoughts when I played it mate, it was like putting on a comfortable pair of slippers :)

At the time it was quite an excellent looking game on 360.

Nice... looking forward to more impressions, fragger!  :-X

Too bad ( ???? ?) I have so many games to play now or I'll be sure joining you on this game!  8)

This game is a lot of fun and I'm finding it rather addictive. They really have managed to capture the feel and character of the Lara of old, it's quite the little nostalgia trip :-X

Like all TR games Legend is a 3rd person affair with cut scenes advancing the story whilst linking the playing levels (typically each level or group of levels is set in a different part of the world). In addition to moving Lara around you can move your view of her independently. This differs from old TR games where you only ever viewed her from behind (there was a "head" mode which allowed you to move just her head around and the camera view moved accordingly, but this meant you were restricted to the range of movement of her head. If you wanted to see further than this view allowed, you had to move Lara around on the spot first, then go back into "head" mode). It took an old TR vet like me a little while to get used to it, but once I did I found it works really well. Lara can interact with certain objects – manipulate switches and levers etc, push and pull things like crates and rocks, and she can kick some small objects around. Sometimes she needs to do these things in order to help solve puzzles, and some of the puzzle solutions are quite imaginative and novel. Usually if there's something that she can or needs to interact with, her head will automatically turn towards that thing whenever she's near it.

As in previous games, there are vehicles that Lara can operate. So far in this game (I'm only at about 3%) I've come across a motorcycle, but it just happens to be a very faithfully modelled Ducati, I think an 860. First time I've ever been jealous of a computer game character :-() The Duke was used in a quite exiting chase-and-shoot sequence with a bunch of bad guys also on bikes, who did some great-looking wipe-outs when Lara took them out.

Combat is per standard TR formula – if Lara has her guns out and there's something she can shoot, she will automatically aim at it. A reticule appears over whatever she's targeting, grey if it's out of range, red if it's in. If there's more than one available target, she'll aim at whichever one is closest to her line of sight, but you can make her switch to another. There is also some kind of "manual aim" mode but I haven't tried it yet. Bear in mind that this is not a full-on combat game and that the emphasis is on puzzles and finding your way around, not accurate gunplay. Lara can melee after a fashion – she can run, slide and knock opponents' legs out from under them, she can run up and either kick a baddie in the head or jump up, plant her Timberlands in his face and use him to backflip off. When she does this there's a slow-mo effect which gives her time to pump him full of lead while he's staggering backwards and she's flipping over. None of the melee moves are actually lethal in themselves, they just knock enemies off-balance long enough to give Lara time to well and truly plug them without copping return fire from them for a moment. Frags are good for sending multiple enemies flying.

There's a kind of parallel minigame, and this has been a feature of many TR games. From the main menu you can visit Lara's home, Croft Manor. Completing locations and missions in the main game will unlock various doors in Lara's mansion, which then give you access to rooms where there are various extra puzzles to solve. Throughout the main game and also in Croft Manor there are bronze, silver and gold hidden "rewards". Finding all of these during the course of a mission will unlock extras in the game, like new outfits for Lara, upgrades for her default twin pistols, and some other stuff. You can jump out of the main game and go to the Manor anytime you like, and your progress in both areas is saved.

Saving is automatic by checkpoint, however you can manually save at any time and you can have any number of saved games. However, loading a saved game will only ever start you from the last checkpoint reached in that particular game. I've never been crazy about checkpoint systems, fortunately the checkpoints in TRL generally aren't too far apart so you won't have to recover too much ground if you die.

Here's a few more screenies (I shrunk these down as they were a bit hefty in size, they look better in the original 1920x1080 format):


[smg id=3912 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3913 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3914 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3915 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3916 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3917 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3918 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3919 align=center width=600]

I must remember to try and get some action shots. Trouble is, I get caught up in the action and I forget to take the screenies - especially when there's no bloody screenshot hotkey... :D

Actually, something noteworthy just dawned on me...

When I installed this game, not only did I not have to register or activate it online, it never even asked for any kind of rego or validation code. I put the disk in, hit "Install" when the launch window came up, then once it was installed I just started playing it.

My gast is duly flabbered ???

Quote from: fragger on January 07, 2012, 02:39:24 AM


My gast is duly flabbered ???

LOL :)

 :laugh:

my gast is pretty well flabbered, too  :-D

Nice pics, flabb.. err, fragger. Rather appetising, figuratively speaking (pun intended)  :-()

Nice pics fragger!  :-X

Nice screencaps, fragger... Lara is looking good - as usual! The graphics seems pretty decent too.  :-X
Her mansion looks quite like I remember from the old TR games... can you shoot the butler? If I remember correctly in one of the old games you could wander through the mansion and the butler would follow you holding a tray with tea for you. You could shoot him endlessly and he'd fall to the ground only to stand up again and keep following you.... aaarrrrgggghhhhh... annoying butler.... freaks me out....  ;D

 :-D

I'd forgotten about the creepy butler in that old TR game. I remember him now that you've reminded me - no matter where you went in the house, he came doddering after you with his stupid tray. You could sprint all the way to the other end of the house, but eventually he'd shuffle his way to wherever you were. You couldn't hide from the bugger either, he'd just keep homing in on you. He freaked me out too - something about the way he'd just keep silently following me was kind of off-putting. He made me jump every time I turned around and there he was, and if I remember correctly he had a knack for getting in the way - stupid flipping thing :-\\ I'll give him this though, he never spilled the tea :-() The butler in Legend doesn't appear to do anything except hang around the fireplace, although he had some dialogue in a cut scene. Dunno if he'll do anything later on or not, it's still early days. Lara has a couple of other tenants in the house: a computer whiz named Zip who gives her advice and reports via a radio link when she's doing missions (fortunately you don't hear from him too often so he doesn't get annoying) and some other dude who's name I can't recall just now who is a bit of an authority on antiquities and ancient legends and such. He too contacts Lara with tidbits of relevant info from time to time.

I haven't tried shooting the butler yet as it took me a while to find Lara's pistols in the house. She has them on missions, but it's a puzzle to find them in the manor when you first go there - you actually need to complete the first mission in the main game (Bolivia) to make the appropriate doors open in the mansion that lead to the guns. Next time I'm in I'll try it and see what happens.

I seem to remember in one game if you locked him in a freezer room, something happened..... buggered if I can remember what though....ooopps another senior moment for me  :(

Me too mate, me too... I'm only remembering these things when you guys bring them up (like locking the butler in the freezer). Did something happen? Sounds familiar... I do remember that it was it was a welcome trick to get him out of the freaking way ::)

LOL that was it yeah. :)

OK, I tried shooting the butler. He's either a hologram or bullets just pass right through him without meeting any resistance - he didn't even flinch. At least he stays put in this game :-()

38% into the game now, and I'm off to Africa. Looks like the game may actually be a little on the short side, but AU$13.80 is not a bad price to pay for a few dozen hours of gaming fun. I've played about 20 hours thus far, so not bad value for the dough. I believe there's also some replay value as there is an option called "Save Rewards". When you select this it saves all the hidden rewards you've found throughout the game so far (bronze, silver and gold doodads) so that if you replay a mission you can go looking for the ones you'd earlier missed. Some of them are TOUGH to find, there's a heap I haven't uncovered yet. Occasionally I'll spot one but can't figure out for the life of me how to get to it. The more of them you find, the more gets unlocked in the way of pistol upgrades, outfits, etc. There are three skill levels so there's also the option of trying the game on different difficulty settings.

The story is quite good, with a neat little background level at one point that takes place when Lara was an archaeology student on a dig with a group of friends where they uncover far more than they bargained for. This was before Lara was a gun-totin' hell-raiser so she has to get through the mission without benefit of weapons or equipment - just her classic blue singlet, khaki shorts and acrobatic ability.

Some of the puzzle-solving is quite imaginative and requires a bit of thought and observation - and co-ordination. I can see how a console controller would make life easier in some instances. On a PC you can remap the controls, which I've done to make it less of a frantically hurried key-bash and more playable with my (apparently eccentric ;)) control preferences.

Combat is probably the weakest aspect of Legend. There were a couple of heavy gunfights in Japan with a bunch of Yakuza types, and as Lara can only carry three health kits I got done a few times. I've found the trick to surviving combat is to keep Lara on the move to throw off the bad guys' aim and to make use of her melee moves, they can make quite a difference. Making good use of frags helps. Just about every bad guy drops one when he dies (as well as ammo) so there's plenty to go around, and she can carry up to four of them. There was a boss-fight at the end of the Japan mission which wasn't easy, even once I figured out how to get the guy (a Yakuza boss with an ancient sword-type weapon that shoots out waves of what look like plasmatic energy). Grenades helped me enormously in that fight. Earlier in the game I had to kill a couple of jaguars in South America – as usual, Lara is not terribly eco-friendly...

At this point, I'd recommend Legend for any fan of the old Tomb Raider titles. The creators apparently realised that the old Lara games were the most fun and did an admirable job of recreating the feel and character of a classic Tomb Raider adventure :-X

Here's a few more caps:


[smg id=3920 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3921 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3922 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3923 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3924 align=center width=600]
[smg id=3925 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3926 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3927 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3928 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3929 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3930 align=center width=600]

very nice :)

The butler story.. reminds me of FallOut. That fricking robot butler who always blocked the way out of the room (with no ill intent) because he snuck up on you from behind while you were rummaging through stuff in a room. He was always there, in the way that is, and that made me blow him up one fine day that I will never regret but always fondly remember.  :-D

Quite glamorous, that Lara.  ;)

Speaking of Fallout, I just installed a mod that combines FO3 and FNV - starting from scratch.  We'll see how it goes.

Well Iiirc the reason its so reminiscent of old TR is the fact that the original designer Toby was reinstated to helm the project.

I think after you complete the game, you can return to previous chapters to look for treasures you may have missed.

There's something about that in the online manual, I'll have to have another read of it.

It's been going well so far (except for the occasionally drowning, falling down and getting crushed by heavy things) but now I'm sort of stuck. I've also been reminded of why I think checkpoint saving systems do in fact stink.

I'm up against the second boss in the game, this spoilt rich dude's son who's gotten hold of another piece of a legendary power-packed sword (the first boss back in Japan had the first piece - I think there are four of them to get) which makes him one tough hombre to beat. It's not just a question of fighting with him - there are a bunch of devices in the room which he can use to heal himself with and these must be taken out before you can think about defeating him. Without detailing the process involved in doing this, which is a tough enough ask, the job is made doubly difficult by the fact that you can't save the game at any time during the confrontation. There was a checkpoint save right at the start of the fight, and a couple of times I've come within an inch of victory only to die near the end and have to start the whole difficult process again from scratch. Exasperation city! Let the record show that I really, really, really hate checkpoints :angry-new: In the olden days of TR you could save anytime, anywhere, but not in this one. I got so frustrated that I did something I rarely do - I went online to see if there were any cheats that I could employ. Turns out there are some, but you can't just type them in or whatever - you have to unlock them by completing time trials, i.e. to unlock a particular cheat you have to get through a particular mission in under a certain time, and you can't attempt a time trial of any mission that you haven't done yet. In other words, if you haven't yet reached and played the mission to unlock a particular cheat AND done a subsequent time trial of that mission, stiff cheddar - that particular cheat will not be available until you do :D Well, firstly, I HATE bloody time trial things, and secondly, I can't get to the mission to unlock the required cheat because I can't get past this stupid boss because of the stupid checkpoint system! I don't get this at all. What problem do the devs of this game have with me just typing in cheat codes? Why do I have to earn the flipping things? Do they think it makes me a bad person or that I won't learn the right lessons about life or something if I don't?

So this is major gripe #2 (after there being no screenshot function): You need to earn your cheat codes like a good little boy/girl, you can't unlock them when you really need them, and unless you enjoy race-against-time things it's a complete pain in the bum to do so.

I don't know why some devs have such a prickly burr up their scungy backsides when it comes to cheat code accessibility - it's like they can't bear the thought of someone circumventing their precious piece of puzzle creation or something. Why can't they just make the cheat codes easily accessible, so that those who like to cheat can do so and those who like the challenge of not cheating can do that? Or so you can do either whenever it suits you? If we were talking about a MP game it would be a different kettle of fish, but this is a SINGLE PLAYER ONLY game! Who gives a tinker's cuss whether the player cheats or not? I thought the whole idea of gaming was to have fun, not get given the right royals.

I did manage to find a saved game that some thoughtful soul posted online that can be downloaded and which skips over that boss fight. I intend to have another go or two at taking down Richie Rich, but if I can't do it or I get too het up over it I'll be downloading that saved game, if for no other reason than to stop offending my neighbours with noisy late-night curses and epithets ::)

I honestly dont remember any frustrating boss in TRL, I would have considered Legend to be the most user friendly of the series, I'm sorry I cant give you any tips mate, its about 5/6 years since I played that game, so I really dont remember it. I played it on 360, would character control be a factor, ie controller vs M/KB?

Is this the guy?

http://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/tr7/walkthrough/level03.html (http://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/tr7/walkthrough/level03.html)

No, it's not him. He was the first boss and I didn't have much trouble with him at all. Since I posted I found another site which provides some useful tips on how to deal with this second boss so I'll give them a go. I think you do have a point about the controller, there are a few instances in the game where I could see that a controller would be more advantageous than K & M and this fight is one of them.

The sword fragment wielded by this second boss allows him to run really fast and strike Lara with it, and he also throws grenades at her which really hurt if you can't dodge them in time. You're locked in a circular room with the boss and there are four platforms equally spaced around the walls, which are what he jumps up onto to regenerate when his health gets knocked down by about a third. On the supports under these platforms are things like sculptures of heads that you have to shoot a few times to shatter, and when they do there are red crystals behind them that you also need to a number of times to shatter. Behind those are metallic surfaces that you can latch your grapple onto and pull on, which will bring the whole platform down. You have to bring down all four platforms so that the boss can't heal himself anymore, then you have to shoot him until he croaks. You can try and do some of the shooting and grappling while the boss is healing himself (but you only get a few seconds) or you can do it on the fly while you're running around fighting with, and trying to avoid, the boss. Either way it's a frantic juggle for a KB/M combo and quite unforgiving if you get it wrong. It would help if you could hit the grapple key while Lara has her guns out and make her simply switch to that, but you have to hit a key to make her holster her weapon first then hit another key to get out the grapple, then hit another key to make her pull on it, and you have to do it fast, all the while trying to avoid a hard-hitting enemy who runs around like Speedy Gonzales.

It would help enormously if I could save along the way during the fight, but since I can't it's annoying to have to go right back to the start of the fight every single time I fail. Twice I've pulled all four platforms down and have had the boss down to the very last dregs of his health (his health meter is visible also) only to get killed and have to do it all over again, which can be disheartening. The whole thing is also made more difficult by the fact that you can only carry a miserly three health kits, each of which restores just half of your health meter capacity, whereas in old TR games you could carry as many as you could find.

So far this is the only thing that has marred my enjoyment of the game - other than that, I'm quite taken with it :-X

Heres something that may help from the same site, check the end for a video link :

http://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/tr7/walkthrough/level04.html (http://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/tr7/walkthrough/level04.html)

Cheers mate. I finally got the bugger though without resorting to cheating or downloading a saved game. I got lucky with a bit of a glitch - I'd pulled down three of the platforms and instead of jumping up onto the remaining platform to regenerate, he kept trying to jump up onto one of the ones I'd already pulled down. So while he kept pointlessly jumping up and down on the spot I just kept plugging him with the pistols until he was out of it.

[smg id=3937 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3938 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3939 align=center width=600]

maybe I'm a bit rusty but I think I read this:

Plan 4 Energo System

then the list starts with

Magnitnaya Pushka > магни́тная пу́шка > magnet cannon
Bashnya > ба́шня > tower
Put > путь > routing / railway

and the two words on the bottom of the list with a red dot in front read

Energiya > эне́ргия > energy
Electritchestvo > электри́чество > electricity

Not completely sure though :)

 ??? You're full of surprises Art, I'm impressed! Thanks :) :-X

I'm in this abandoned secret underground Russian science complex and I came across the Magnet Cannon a bit further on, which looks like a big gun in a rotating turret powered by Tesla coils and which works like the Gravity Gun in Half-Life 2 except it can only pick up and hurl metal objects. I had to find the controls to power up the Tesla system in another part of the complex and use the mag gun firstly as a weapon to deal with some bad guys, then to "rearrange" some stuff to get access to the next part of the level.

I really like the way some of the puzzles in this game have been thought up :-X

Quote from: fragger on January 12, 2012, 02:39:37 PM
??? You're full of surprises Art, I'm impressed! Thanks :) :-X

I think I recall someone once saying that Art was really a computer that was pretending to be a plain ol' human.  :-()

 :laugh:

Of course, "Art Blade" is just his online username. His real name is HAL 9000.

 :laugh: :-X

 :-D

There is a simple story behind it. In Western Germany, before the Fall of the Wall, we had one song on the radio by a West German artist who was one of the few accepted to play in East Germany, on the other side of the wall (kind of "the iron curtain"). In one of his then popular songs he had one line in Russian that I found intriguing because here no one spoke Russian (there they did) and so I wanted to know what exactly he sung. That's why I started to learn Russian and that required me to read Cyrillic  :-D End of the story: Once I knew what the line meant I lost interest in studying Russian (erm, seriously, no use for that language over here in my life) but I can still read "Russian"   :-D

And, please rest assured, I am just a regular guy, no computer (JRD came up with that idea first, if my memory serves me right) :)

Quote from: Art Blade on January 12, 2012, 03:48:58 PM
...JRD came up with that idea first, if my memory serves me right...

I have no more reason to doubt your memory than I do to doubt the RAM in my PC.

 :laugh:

Quote from: Art Blade on January 12, 2012, 03:48:58 PM
Once I knew what the line meant I lost interest in studying Russian (erm, seriously, no use for that language over here in my life) but I can still read "Russian"   :-D

And, please rest assured, I am just a regular guy,

Yeah, we believe ya Art  >:D

Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login

 :laugh:

Maybe some of you guys doesn't know but I actually met the real Art Blade in London in 2010... my first thought was WOW - living tissue over metal endoskeleton coming from the future!!!!  ???
...
...
...
... he'll be back!!  ;D

Yes, but how do you know that the person you met was really Art, and not some phony that the real Art carefully coached.  ????

I'd be willing to bet $1000 that you'd not find the name "Art Blade" on his passport.

Quote from: JRD on January 12, 2012, 06:16:47 PM
Maybe some of you guys doesn't know but I actually met the real Art Blade in London in 2010...

WOW, I never knew that, I hope you locked up your women and small live stock   :o >:D  8-X :angel:

JRD and I had a splendid time together in London and I still have that 2nd-hand vinyl record I bought in a shop called Intoxica on Portobello Road :-()

I've finished, after brawling with yet another boss/monster, of which there are a couple too many IMO. I must say I enjoyed the first half of the game more than the second. There were some good clever puzzles in the first half, but very few in the last few levels  - and too many monster fights occurring too soon after one another. It felt as though the designers ran out of puzzle ideas and instead focussed on creating difficult precision-timing climb-and-jump moves and finicky boss fights to make up the last parts of the game. It was also overall a very linear affair – TR games were never exactly open world but some of the old ones had strong exploratory elements to their designs. With Legend there is only one way through everything with almost no deviations (like to search for bonuses and prizes, for instance) and gets somewhat dull and repetitive in the last few levels – same baddies, same stuff to push/pull around, same run/swing/jump/climb routines.

Anyway, here's a brief review of it all. I'll start with the pros:

Fairly good story that fills in a few blanks about Lara's past. Nice feel to the game overall, recaptures much of the old Tomb Raider character and atmosphere. Quite immersive, and as with old TR titles I found myself becoming so attached to Lara that it was quite a jolt whenever I caused her to get snuffed in some horrible way (no doubt my male "protect-the-female-of-the-species" gene was being urgently pinged at such times).

Lovely graphics (for a TR title) with rich ambience and excellent sound. Some very nice flame, water, lighting and atmospheric effects. Lara looks great, nicely animated with a number of outfit changes and some cool new moves and equipment. I love the effect when she climbs out of water – it keeps dripping off her for a few moments, then she stays looking wet for a little while, gradually drying off over time. There are some nice weather effects, such as snow and blowing dust. Lara's breath condenses in cold air, which is a nice touch.

Some imaginative puzzles (in the first four or five levels anyway) requiring some lateral thought and observation. Good level design overall and quite challenging in places, with very good physics modelling. The designers did their homework regarding textures and structures with culturally accurate architectural styles, idols, art, sculptures and stonework.

Flexible skill setting system which allows you to select any of the three difficulty settings at the start of any level within the same game, so you could play level 1 on difficult, level 2 on easy, and so on. Makes for a bit of variety. There is a "Save Rewards" option that lets you save whatever bronze, silver and gold rewards you have accumulated thus far, and there is a corresponding "Replay Mission" option where you can redo any completed mission in the current game and collect any rewards you may have missed. All the bad guys will be back in whichever mission you choose to replay, however – it's not a cakewalk.

Very fast loading time, about 2 seconds on my aging PC, and that's at 1920x1080 widescreen res and with all graphic options except anti-aliasing and "Next Generation Content" set to on. NGC applies advanced shadowing, texturing and transparency, and having this on made a HUGE difference to my frame rate, bringing it down considerably. If you have a whizbang machine you should be able to have this option on. Personally I don't think NGC made enough of an improvement to the graphics to warrant using it, unless you really want just that extra bit of pizzazz. Without it the game ran silky-smooth with no frame dropouts, pauses or judders on my old rig and still looked terrific.

No online activation or registration required - in fact there was none of any sort whatsoever. Just install it and immediately play.

Now the cons:

No screenshot function.

Cheat codes must be earned, i.e. you must complete a particular level at least once, then complete a time trial of that same level, to unlock a particular cheat. Each cheat is associated with a particular level, so that is the level you must complete in order to get that cheat. If you haven't yet reached it, too bad – you can't get access to that cheat. It's a kind of silly and pedantic approach for a single player-only game.

The game uses a checkpoint saving system, which can be exasperating when you're within a gnat's whisker of winning a boss fight but get killed and have to start all over again, and some of those fights ain't easy (not on PC anyway - see below). A "save anywhere" method, as in the old TR games, would have been very welcome.

Not very well suited to keyboard and mouse control. The console-oriented design is painfully apparent in terms of controls. On a PC it can sometimes be a juggle-fest, although remapping can help things a bit. Occasionally, especially in confined spaces, it can be difficult to get a useful view of one's surroundings, and this got me killed a couple of times.

Dull second half of the game, degenerating to a same ol' same ol' with boss fights occurring too frequently. Tricky-to-pull-off moves become a cheap substitute for the clever puzzles of the first half. Anticlimactic ending which felt kind of rushed.

A measly health-kit allowance of just three, each of which will restore half your health, and about the only ones you can ever find are those dropped by dead enemies, and not always then. If you're in a level where there are no bad guys and your health goes down for some non-combat related reason, e.g. by getting pounced on by a leopard or by having a painful but non-lethal fall, and you don't have any health kits on you, tough luck – there are none to be found anywhere.

Combat is kind of lacklustre and can be both dull and frustrating, with a somewhat hit-and-miss targeting system. Often Lara would switch targets when I didn't want her to and would switch to the wrong ones when I did. Weapon sounds are good though.

Summary:

Would I play it again? Possibly, once more, sometime in the future, maybe. As it stands, the latter levels of the game somewhat turned me off wanting to play it again, at least for the time being. I think my favourite part of the game was actually discovering all the secrets in Lara's mansion – if only they'd employed that kind of creativity in conceiving the puzzles for the game proper. For instance there was a nice sequence of four riddles uncovered in the mansion, each one leading to the next riddle DaVinci Code-style which ultimately revealed a gold reward. Why couldn't they have incorporated this sort of thing into the actual game? Who knows.

[smg id=3948 align=center width=600]
[smg id=3949 align=center width=600]
[smg id=3950 align=center width=600]
[smg id=3951 align=center width=600]

It's worth playing once at least if you're a Lara fan, and probably best played on console if you have one. At least I managed to buy it cheap so I'm not complaining too much - $13.80 isn't bad for about 40 hours' worth of gaming. All things considered, it's a fun game and I'm glad I picked it up.

Nice review mate, glad you (sort of ) enjoyed it :)

Thanks mate :) Overall I did enjoy it, and I'm having some fun going back and finding the rewards that I'd missed. I had to consult some walkthroughs online to find some of them, they were really well tucked away. I'm resorting to walkthroughs only because I don't intend playing the game again anytime soon (though I'm pretty sure I will sometime down the track) and I wanted to unlock all the content just so I could have a look at it.

I got the walkthroughs from here, it's quite a good little TR site. It's also where I found the TR 2012 clips which I linked to in the TR 2012 topic:

http://tombraiders.net/ (http://tombraiders.net/)

There are walkthroughs and tips and so forth for all the TR titles, not just Legend. The walkthroughs are very good, with links to screenshots and videos illustrating where to go and what needs to be done.

Hope you get to play Underworld, I really liked that one, great gfx and a great sense of scale.

I think having a controller to play Legend somewhat enhanced the experience for me :)

That's too bad about the cheat codes - same in the Assassin's Creed series.  I personally don't entirely appreciate games with "bosses" in them because they are too unrealistic for my gaming preferences.  The games I play, like FC2, the AC series all have reasonable characters that are at least human-like and predictable.

Good mini review, fragger!  :-X

Thank you PZ :) I'm the same, was never crazy about bosses, but they've always been part and parcel of the TR games. Traditionally though there would be one big boss fight at the end and maybe a less tough one-off creature of some sort along the way. For instance about a third of the way through TR1 there was a "Lost World" type level that came with a tyrannosaur that Lara had to deal with, and a big monstrous thing that's hard to describe at the game's climax. In Legend there were no less than five bosses and the last three appeared fairly close together, so it was like, "Aw geez, not another @#$%& monster fight, I just did one..."

@Fiach, I've actually ordered Anniversary which is the next one in the series, from what I've read about it there are far fewer boss battles and more puzzle solving, which I what I enjoy the most in TR. I'll probably get Underworld after that, I've been reading good things about that one too.

I hope I didn't give the impression that I was disappointed with Legend because I wasn't - my niggles aside I enjoyed it a lot. It's just something I wouldn't play over and over - but then I only ever replayed the old TR games once or twice too. They are a lot of fun, but once you've solved the puzzles there's not a huge incentive to replay unless it's to look for missed secrets.

My understanding was that Anniversary was set before legend, but its been a few years since I played them, I know that UW does tie up that story arc though.

You are correct, Anniversary is set before Legend. Its story ties in somehow with that of the original game. I think it was so named because it was released to mark the tenth anniversary of TR1.

I picked it up at ebay Aus for $14.95 + free postage, should be here in a few days.

Btw, did you ever play Guardian of Light? I believe it's a Diablo-style isometric take on Lara and TR.

TR:A is a remake of the original TR, its made with the legend engine, so it should bring back lots of memories, personally I thought it was tougher than Legend.

As regards TR GotL, Yes mate, its very good too :)

Thanks for the info Fiach :) I'm looking forward to raiding some more tombs! I've seen some screenies of GotL and it looks like fun. Apparently it can played as a two-player co-op with Lara and some Mayan warrior guy. I quite enjoy those isometric view things - not that I've played any lately. I think the last one was Commandos, which was only about ten years ago...

Yes the Commando games were good, pretty tough too :(

You should try Desperados, you can get it on gog.com pretty cheaply.

GotL has LOTS of puzzles, I think you will enjoy it, its on sale on some d/l sites, try gamersgate for example, or green man gaming, , it usually comes up periodically.

Commandos was fun but tough all right. There was one level I could never get through as the timing required was insanely tight - if you were a fraction of a second out the jig was up :D Can't remember the details at this remove but I seem to think it had something to do with that Aussie diver with the dreadful accent - typical ::) He used to say things like "Oi'll be roight owver - sir!" Cringe...

I'll have a look at Desperados, cheers :)

TR Anniversary came today, I've been playing it for the last few hours. Fiach was right, it does indeed bring back fond memories :-X It's a few years old now (2007) but it's a great-looking game. It is tougher than Legend but I think in good ways. At least this time there's no lousy three health kit limit. Like the classic TRs there are large ones and small ones, to restore all or half of your health respectively, and you can have as many as you can find. Lara can carry more weapons too, like she did in the old game.

It's been a long time since I played TR1 but as this is a remake I'm remembering some of the level layouts as I come across them. This new incarnation has much better graphics of course (and nicer than Legend it seems, even though it uses the same engine) and incorporates all of Lara's newer moves, like climbing/swinging on ropes, climbing ladders and grappling, as well as her full repertoire of gymnastic moves. She can also use her grapple to run horizontally along walls where allowable, which looks really cool. No Ducatis in this one, in fact no vehicles at all - just as there wasn't in TR1.

Like Legend, Anniversary uses a checkpoint system. But I can probably live with it this time around as the emphasis is more on puzzles and less on combat and boss fights. There should only be a couple of those, but I'll probably have to deal with a few velociraptors and a T-rex when I get to the "Lost World" part of the game :-\\ Most of the "enemies" in the original game were wild animals and it appears to be the same here - so far I've had to deal with vampire bats, wolves and the odd bear. Lara certainly wreaks havoc on the natural world - David Attenborough would probably give her a very stern lecture if he caught her at it.

Good fun so far, and even more of a nostalgia trip than Legend was 8)

Enjoy matey :)

Cheers :)

OK, have to ask - who's the girl in your avatar? (You know who the one in mine is...) She's got blue hair but she ain't no Marge Simpson :-()

Mine is just some "logo" taken from the X² game, out of several logos you can pick for your in-game computer avatar which is displayed when you check your personal stats. :)

I see :)

I'm enjoying Anniversary more than Legend, it's a more immersive game and is way more puzzle-oriented. The more I see of it the more I realise that the graphics are quite an improvement over the previous game and the level design has had more thought put into it. It's not exactly an open world game but there is scope for exploration and players who take the trouble to poke around and keep their eyes peeled will be rewarded. I especially like Croft Manor in this one, the place is all one big puzzle and is a pretty much a game in itself.

Combat is per the standard TR self-targeting format but is challenging, and Lara can pack a few different types of guns. There are no soldiers or mercs in this game (unlike the hordes in Legend) so Lara has no melee moves, but she does have a special one called an "Adrenaline Dodge". If pulled off successfully the game will go into a brief slow-mo and if you're on the ball with your timing you can nail most charging wild animals with a single headshot. It takes practice but it looks good when it comes together. As I expected, there was a Lost Valley section and I had to deal with a T-Rex which was freaking tough, even after I found the trick to putting him down.

I was a little unfair before calling this game a remake, it's more of a re-imagining and it's been handled extremely well. It's also looking like it will be a somewhat longer game than Legend and like that game there is a Replay Mission option which allows you to go back and find stuff you missed. I thought I was doing well and finding most of the goodies but I later discovered that I'd only actually uncovered about half the secrets so far. Gotta look harder...

Here's some pics:

[smg id=3961 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3962 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3963 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3964 align=center width=600]

lol, reminds me of Hitman, he once had to find a way into a villa using a secret entrance that was hidden in a hedge maze  ^-^

Aw man... not this again...

I'm halfway through the game and I've gotten into a boss fight that has stopped me in my tracks. There are these two big stone centaurs that come to life, there's nowhere to hide or take cover from them and I'm having a bitch of a time getting the better of them. I tried for over an hour last night and couldn't figure out how to deal with them at all (evidently one can't just repeatedly shoot them until they expire from a surfeit of bullets) and once my exasperation tolerance had been etched away I went online in search of the required methodology. I found it, and much to my chagrin it entails yet another of those ultra-demanding, keyboard-pounding, tie-your-fingers-in-knots high-dexterity affairs which would be difficult enough if it wasn't compounded by the unforgiving checkpoint saving system - i.e. get someway toward succeeding, die, and have to go all the way back to the start of the fight again. No saving partway through, no dispatching one centaur then saving before trying to deal with the other one. Make a slip a good way into the fight and it's all the way back to the start, baby.

I really like this game, the puzzles are challenging and thought-provoking, but these boss fights SUCK. They're not fun, they're studies in frustration. If I could save my progress during these insane battles as per the older games it might be tolerable, but to spend significant dollops of my time trying to get somewhere only to have to do the whole thing over from scratch just because I made a mispress during a moment of frenzied keyboard-bashing is not conducive to gaming joy. Whoever decided on a checkpoint saving system for this game should be taken out and shot and not be given the choice of being saved beforehand >:D

I can't see myself finishing this game because I don't want to spend a fruitless night trying to get past this boss fight, and as with Legend I can't get to the cheat codes because I need to do a time trial of a level I haven't yet reached, and I can't reach that level because I can't get past the place where I'm stuck and need the cheat code. Damn.

sounds quite annoying  ???? :( :angry-new: However, good luck  :-X

And yes, let's nail the bastards to a barn door and set them alight  >:D

Well, the games iirc were originally heavily consolised designs, I cant begin to imagine how you would cope with some of the moves on a M/KB control scheme. On saying that, I always thought Anniversary to be a difficult game and I actually use a bloody controller .

Its a shame that you cant continue, is there no level skip code, there used to be on the earlier games, But I think it involved some serious gymnastics to achieve it.

You're probably right Fiach, a controller may make a world of difference.

I had another go at it earlier on, and bloody hell, I didn't make much of a dent in it ::) My keyboard, yes - the fight, no.

There's a scene in the original Terminator film where Big Arnie goes into a gun shop to stock up on weapons and he's asking the guy behind the counter for all these different types of guns: "The 12-guage autoloader... The .45 long-slide with laser sighting..." Then, just before he asks for an Uzi 9 millimetre, he asks for a "... phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range..." The guy responds with, "Hey, just what you see, pal!"

Shotguns and pistols be buggered - I really want that plasmatic rifle :-() >:((

I copied a walkthrough from the net for dealing with those centaurs and when I pasted it into Word, it was like three pages long ??? Aaargh... I think I'll go back to Africa and shoot some @#$%& mercs. It's not their fault, but stuff 'em - I need to vent and they're easier to take down than those four-legged trogs...

As I read Fiach's comment I recall the gymnastics to cheat in TR games... it was truly acrobatic! Something like jump bacward twice, roll, left, roll right then a another couple jumps in that direction and so on and so forth... one had to find a wide area to do the tricks to enable the cheats.   :D

I don't quite understand this "I can't get to the cheat codes because I need to do a time trial of a level I haven't yet reached, and I can't reach that level because I can't get past the place where I'm stuck and need the cheat code" thing. As if there's a point in the game where cheating is allowed but if you didn't get to this point yet then cheating isn't allowed!  ????  THAT'S WHY IT'S CALLED CHEATING for crying out loud!!  :angry-new:

Are you sure you searched the right places on the web for cheating codes, fragger? Kids nowadays can dig up amazing things from games... there must be a way!!!!!

I agree totally mate, it's like "No, you can't cheat here until you've earned the right to!" It's as though they're trying to force some kind of highfalutin moralistic lesson about the evils of cheating down my throat. Hello...? It's a single player game! Who the frig gives?

Regarding the gymnastic tricks in the old games, well, if only it was still that easy to enable the cheats... I remember that too and it would be a darn sight easier to get access to the cheats that way compared to what you have to go through now. I've looked and looked online, but the cheats seem to be hard-coded into the game the way they are and if there's another way to get at them I've yet to find it. I hate how "they" basically try to force you to earn your cheat codes, like you're some kind of unscrupulous slimebag for wanting to skip over a ludicrously difficult part of their game in order to enjoy the rest of it. But if they want me to give up on their game and drop out halfway through without seeing what else they have created in the course of rescuing me from the moral bankruptcy that would surely ensue from committing the unspeakable sin of cheating in a single-player video game, then hey, I can do that, and thanks for saving me from myself. Seeing the second half of the game would have been nice but I reckon I can get over it.

Oddly enough, the site where I found the walkthrough usually has saved games for download that let you dodge those pesky boss fights but there doesn't seem to be one for this part of this game. Not there, anyway. Maybe there's one elsewhere - I'll look when I have the inclination.

Or maybe this would simply be a good time to have a go at Duke Nukem Forever... after I've offed a few of the aforementioned mercs in Africa of course.

You could try this...

http://tombraiders.net/stella/downloads/TR1install.html (http://tombraiders.net/stella/downloads/TR1install.html)

Its basically a way to get an enhanced version of TR(PC) to run on current gen PC's.

So, if you can get a copy of the original PC game and install it in conjunction with this, maybe you could have the best of both worlds, TR1 with Cheats.

Interesting idea Fiach :-X As it turns out, I do still have all the old TR games. I remembered they were all in a CD storage cabinet, and when I went to check I also found that I still had Quake II, the original Duke Nukem, Commandos, Crusader: No Remorse, Crusader: No Regret, Civilization II, Alpha Centauri, Sid Meier's Gettysburg, No One lives Forever, Jane's WWII Fighters, Links '98, Descent, Medal of Honour: Allied Assault, MoH: Spearhead, Unreal Tournament, Flight Unlimited II, Grand Prix 3... a trove of games from yesteryear. What a blast :-()

Some great games, I really liked No one lives forever, very funny game, I only played Descent 3, But I did play a similar game called Forsaken, which I had on PC PS1 and N64, because I loved it so much.

Some nice memories there! :)

Actually, it was Descent 3 in my cabinet, not the original Descent. Lots of fun, I remember flying around in some of those vertigo-inducing levels :) And yeah, No One Lives Forever was very entertaining and had some good laughs in it :-X Apparently there was a sequel but I never got around to it.

I found a saved game online that let me skip over those flipping centaurs. Call me a wuss if you like, but – well, yeah, OK, I am. But do I care? No! Because now I can get on with my favourite part of TR – puzzle solving! I hated to give up on a game that I was enjoying so much just because of one stupid thing. But having said that, if there was now only some way to circumvent the checkpoint saving system, I'd really be one happy little spelunker. I reached this part where I had to spend about a minute manoeuvring a big stone block into the proper position before using it to begin climbing up and around a whole lot of walls and ledges, and right at the end of all that there was a very tricky timed grapple swing-and-jump. If I missed this jump I would fall to my death, get reloaded at the previous checkpoint and go through the whole performance all over again. Guess what - I kept missing it! It took about a dozen goes before I finally got it right :D If I could only have saved on the last ledge before the grapple-jump, I could have saved about a quarter of an hour of my life... but because of the checkpoint system I couldn't, so I didn't :angry-new:

On further reflection, I guess my gripe isn't so much with the checkpoints per se as it is with where they've been placed, as in the example above. Some of them are not reached until after I've had to get through a long sequence of tricky routines followed by some really unforgiving move (i.e. one where if I mess up I die) that results in me having to repeat the entire lengthy, tricky sequence if I fail. That can get monotonous after a number of cocked-up attempts (the requisite knuckle-dislocating keyboard ballet doesn't help). A few times I've gotten cranky enough that I've had to quit the game, do something else for a while, then come back to it and try again. That's not a good way to game.

But all that aside, I'm now into the third act, Egypt (after Peru and Greece). Almost right off the bat I'm into this amazingly intricate multi-part teaser that's just an awesome bit of puzzle creation. Anniversary is better value than Legend not just in terms of puzzle conceptualization but also in game duration - already I've put in about twice the hours as I did in Legend and I'm nowhere near the end yet. After Egypt there is yet another act (Atlantis) and I think I'm only about a quarter of the way through the current act.

Impressions thus far: A few of the checkpoint locations and that crazy-making centaur fight are the only things that have marred the game for me - otherwise it's great fun, has clever puzzles, looks superb and has great sound. When stacked up against all the TR goodness that Anniversary has to offer, the few gripes I have with it don't detract much. This game should be great fun for any TR fan - just find and DL a saved game from the net when you get to the bit with the centaurs if you want to save yourself a lot of cussing...

Here's a few more pics:

[smg id=3965 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3966 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3967 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3968 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3969 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3970 align=center width=600]

[smg id=3971 align=center width=600]

I'm glad you have that sorted out, mate!  :-X

Legend seems very nice indeed... very TR!!

I found this video of a level I've been through last night in Assassins Creed Revelations. While doing that I couldn't stop thinking about Tomb Raider. Watch it and you'll see why!  ;D

Assassin's Creed: Revelations GALATA TOWER 100% Synchronization Masyaf Key (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bceC7sYGNI#ws)

AC is not really like that but at some specific levels you have to go through areas like that cave or an old church or a temple etc in order to find something special. In AC:R you are looking for Masyaf Keys, which you find at the end of the level, but it can be a treasure or a seal for instance, that will give you special armor. Masyaf Keys will allow Ezio to relieve Altair's (AC1 character) memories and dig out his ancestor's experience... pretty cool in fact!  8)