Tomb Raider Legend

[fragger]

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... @%$&# 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.

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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 :-()

[PZ]

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

[Fiach]

, 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.

[JRD]

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)

[fragger]

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):

There are some nice atmospheric effects in places:

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This is the pool in Lara's house:

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And this is her lounge room. I guess a woman's castle is her home:

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It even comes with a butler:

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High noon in Peru, and Lara calls outs her deadliest foe yet – a stuffed teddy bear on a stick (actually, it's a training manikin for practising melee moves on):

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"Me Lara, you Tarzan! Now go do dishes, monkey boy!"

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When you leave Lara standing idle for more than a few seconds, a random animation plays. Here, she's swatting a fly on her butt:

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No, it's not Thelma and Louise. It's Lara and friend out for a Sunday drive (note the big truck tumbling along in their wake, Lara having plugged the driver):

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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

[fragger]

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 ???

[Fiach]

My gast is duly flabbered ???

LOL :)

[Art Blade]

 

my gast is pretty well flabbered, too  :-D

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

[PZ]

Nice pics fragger!  :-X

[JRD]

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

[fragger]

 :-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.

[Fiach]

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  :(

[fragger]

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 ::)

[Fiach]

LOL that was it yeah. :)

[fragger]

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:

Classic Tomb Raider – Lara underground in a brooding, cavernous ruin with spooky ambience and an intriguing puzzle looming:

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Oh oh, this looks ominous – and something tells me that getting across won't be as straightforward as it appears to be...

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I was right! Got across though – phew... That's a bottomless pit behind her - I know, I dropped her in it a couple of times trying to get her over...

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Yeah, baby – she's still got it!

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On to Japan, where Lady Croft gets to glam it up a little:

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Someone on the dev team likes Ducatis, evidently – this is the second one I've come across:

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She likes guns, motorcycles and little black dresses – I think I'm in love...

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Hot child in the city:

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First major graphical glitch – Lara briefly gets transparent, except for her guns and equipment:

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Mission accomplished – time to kick back and enjoy the ride:

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[Art Blade]

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

[PZ]

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.

[Fiach]

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.

[fragger]

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 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 ::)

[Fiach]

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

[fragger]

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

[Fiach]

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

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

[fragger]

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.

So long sucker, it's been fun... not.

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On with the adventure, which continues in Kazakhstan. And what do you know – it's another Duke, possibly a Monster 695. Nothing like a bit of product placement :-()

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And back into my favourite part of the game – puzzle solving (anyone read Cyrillic? Shelmez?)

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[Art Blade]

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 :)

[fragger]

 ??? 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