After Indy and Before Nathan Drake There Was… Lara Croft
Tomb Raider Trilogy includes Tomb Raider: Legend, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, and Tomb Raider: Underworld. When you first pop the disc in, you can install a very nice XMB theme which features a cool drawing of Lara Croft standing next to some ruins. The XMB theme is slick and one of the better ones I have on my system, actually. When you launch the game, you can select either “Games” or “Extras.” Within Extras you will find several developer diaries for each game. There are three for both Legend and Anniversary, if I recall correctly, and five for Underworld. Trophies are included as well, and avatars for PS Home.
Under “Games” is where you can select to start Legend, Anniversary, or Underworld. I decided to go with Legend first, which was originally released five years ago this April. Somewhat interesting to note is that it was actually an early Xbox 360 title. Also of note is that Legend was Crystal Dynamics’ first Tomb Raider title.
TR: Legend has Lara embedded in a race to find the components of mystical, famous sword. With the help of Alistair and Zip back at the Croft Manor, Lara goes adventuring in Japan, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Bolivia, and other locales while running into James Rutland and his mercs and an old friend turned nemesis named Amanda. The experience is about sixty percent adventure and forty percent shooting action. Controls are easy to pick up and the gameplay is like a blend of Uncharted and Prince of Persia due to the third person shooting mixed with lots of jumping puzzles. At times, Lara is driving a motorcycle which is actually a lot of fun.
I found the game to be comfortably forgiving in most regards — the platforming wasn’t too hard, the puzzles were straight-forward, the action made you pay attention but it was easy to succeed, checkpoints are dropped in often, and yet the game maintained a high fun and reward factor. I thought the balance of adventure and action were nicely mixed and I really enjoyed the visual experience. I wasn’t sure what to think of Zip and Alistair, who have a constant connection to Lara via a magical earpiece. While they did help improve plot points, they also made me feel too comfortable — one of the coolest aspects of TR: Anniversary is just that sense of being alone, and that is all but lost in Legend. Still, I found Legend to be a fun experience that you can roll through over a weekend.
TR: Anniversary is an interesting release. It’s sort of a re-release of the original Tomb Raider, but the developers took the opportunity to improve upon the original game by tweaking things like the camera and adding some new puzzles. With some shame, I admit I never completely played through the original game, so the differences are really lost on me. However, I can say that Anniversary is a great experience. It doesn’t have the cinematic flair of Uncharted, but it has a wonderful atmosphere all on its own. I think it only helps that the centerpiece of the story is finding the Scion, the key to Atlantis. And in many ways, Anniversary just feels like a ‘darker’ Lara Croft experience, and I think that really works for the series. Hopefully with the Tomb Raider series reboot the developers will go that route. Anyway, just playing through Anniversary makes me want to pick up the original game on PC or Saturn.
Finally, TR: Underworld, originally released in 2008 (so it has already been on PS3) concludes a subplot that begins in Legend and carries into Anniversary (I’ll avoid spoiling it for you). This latest Lara adventure is similar to the others in many ways regarding a balance of action and platforming with puzzle solving spread out across the globe, from the artic to the Mediterranean. Lara is able to hop between walls to get to higher locations in Underworld, and there are also no quick-time events, the only game in the Trilogy to be like that. Graphically, it is understandably the most impressive of the bunch, but pound for pound, I would have to give Anniversary the edge in terms of the overall experience.
Overall, this is a great set. About my only gripe would be the load times, especially the checkpoint load times which you think would be nearly instant. Instead, these average around 10-15 seconds, which may not seem long, but I was expecting something quicker. Fortunately, due to the pacing of each game and its difficulty, you probably won’t die too often so this isn’t a real issue.
With that, let’s get to the summary…