User Reviews (1 - 11 of 69)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Eidos really shouldn't be in the video game business

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 16
Date: April 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

If the plants are done glorifying this pseudo-interactive disc of data, I'd like to give it an honest review.

Alot of what this game is, is a motorcycle driving game. For a good part of it you are forced to ride on a motorcycle as the ever sadistic programming code repeats scenery in order to dishearten the gamer as it become apparent that you are going through a seemingly never ending limbo of a sequence that was never fun in the first place.

Most of the bosses in the game would be able to kill lara 10 times over in a split second, if they decided too. Whether or not they decide to is completely up to them, you'll just have to hope you'll be allowed to play what you spent forty bucks on.

This is not a game you want to buy if you're into games that are *ahem* fun. Some would call this game "challenging". There's a big difference between challenge, and flawed design. This game is a prime example of when every effort by the programmers, desingers, and directors went into graphics graphics graphics. The gamer can just mope while watching lara get killed for the tenth time by a boss who can defeat his own weaknesses through a glitch, or inexplicably fall through the floor and die that way.

Having played this filth, I'm inspired to buy a game cube.

More boring mainstream gaming

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 20
Date: April 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

After hearing on the TV and in magazines about how great Tomb Raider Legend was, I went out and got it the day it came out. Lo and behold, it stinks. Boring plot, British accents abound (when will companies realize U.S. gamers want to hear characters that speak the way we do?), obstacles that seem copied and pasted directly from Prince of Persia, and enemies that STILL take 10-15 shots point--blank to kill.

All in all, just more of the same. TRL is for the mainstream gamer, the one that plays Madden and Metal Gear Solid "cuz they rock" and "cuz everybody else is" and for no other reason. Nothing unique in TRL, no reason to play it.

Tomb Raider Legend

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: June 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am a die hard TR fan. Own every game ever made. I couldn't wait for this game to come out and paid the price. I was so disappointed with this. This is not the Tomb Raider I have loved so much. I guess the familiarity from the other games is one of the things I enjoyed the most. There is no familiarity to this game except she looks like Lara Croft. What a jip this game is. It's obvious that this wasn't created by the original people, just another one of those games that bore me. I won't comment on the details as other reviewers have done that already. Anyway, my review would be too lengthy if I did. I know others were so disappointed in Angel of Darkness but in my opinion it was a heck of alot better than this mess. Lara was unique in the older games, in this one she is just another robotic clone of the rest of the stiff shut'em ups.

Not So Good

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 4
Date: June 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I didnt like this game. I am a hug tomb raider fan i have been ever since my moms bf gave me the first demo disk of the orignal tomb raider ever since then i can spend hours apon hours plaing it but that may be my problem. In my opion the new company changed Lara way to much. The thing i realy realy loved about her was the bad a** independent lara she was. In this game shes no longer a smart mouth or a bad a** they also put her in a dress whitch is a lara no no. I have read a lot of difrent things about this game on amazon it seems to be a favorit but in some tombraider forms its called the tomb raider that ended the legend. My oppion stands firm i like that they brought the tombs back but how much they changed her into a proper lady realy did suck the other thing i didnt like was how easy it was all the other tombraiders was longer and more difficult you realy had to stop and think to finsh the other tombraider games but with tomb raider legend i didnt i got all the way through it with out much thought. I never thought id say this about tombraider but i was very very disappionted. However since there are may mixed reviews on it rent the game and be the judge your self before you go and by it.

What happened to our beloved Tomb Raider???

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: April 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

What is going on with Tomb Raider Legend? This series has been my all time favorite game. (I've played every one) This game does not retain any of the trademark Tomb raider perks, ie necessary hidden switches, mind boggling puzzles, interactive landscapes, and feats of skill. "Legend" practically plays itself. What do they need us for? The moves are way too easy and the story is well, way too movie-like. The monsters and villians do not have half the bite they used to. I think the producers have been listening to their own hype. Why would anyone want to use Lara Croft as a dress up doll? Seeing Lara in a ridiculous evening gown made me want to throw up, slinky dresses is not what Lara Croft is about.

With that said, I hope they never stop producing the tomb raider series(I still have hope), however, I hope the producers stop getting so wrapped up in the hype of technology and get back to the basics--story, detailed interactive landscapes, thought provoking puzzles, eerie tomb music and situations requiring study and skill.

Tomb raider has become a family traditon in my household, it's a shame they dropped the ball on this one. We can only hope the next one will be more reminicent of the past.

Disappointing

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: April 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have played all the TR and was expecting MUCH MORE from this one.
Major flaws of this game are:
1. The graphics - dead dull when you think of those of TR1 and TR2. When I played TR1 and TR2 I sometimes paused the game just to admire the landscape, it was so gorgeous - St Francis Folly in TR1, Tibet and the Monastery in TR2 to give just two examples. In TRLegend, nothing of the sort. It is just ordinary game graphics, flat and uninspired.
2.The music is even duller. TR1 + 2 music, and also TR3 music was really beautiful. In Legend you would prefer the game to be Isilent, because the music is just a kind of annoying background noise.
3. The game is too short.
4. The game is far too easy. I found TR1 + 2 difficult, had to think and look up the solution on Stella's website more than once. Here, the guidebook was an unnecessary expense. More for the under 12, than the 12+ advertised.
5. The video sequences are not very good technically. They are no better than in TR1. Today one expects more cinema quality than these amateur clips.
6. Lara talks too much - I prefer her enigmatically silent with only (inspired!) music in the background.
7. Lara's body is becoming hopelessly vulgar. It is OK that she is sexy, but this time her anatomical proportions are over the top, and she looks more like a tart than the smart aristocratic heroine she is supposed to be. She looks particularly abysmal in the Tokyo level: what an appalling "dress". Give the girl the style and elegance that goes with her persona and please, for the next game, deflate her breasts a little. It would make her more attractive.
8. Lara's face could be much prettier.

To sum up: for the next TR I want GRAPHICS, MUSIC, DIFFICULT PUZZLES AND MOVES, and a game that last for longer than a few afternoons, as well as a pretty, stylish Lara.

Fun while it lasted...but it sure didn't last.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: April 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'll just say, this is the shortest PS2 game I've ever played. It would be forgivable if the ending was big and explosive, keeping you hungry for more...but it just fell flat.

The gameplay was way better than the last, for sure, and was enjoyable. But I would have rather waited longer for a fuller game, one with more levels and a final boss that takes more than 2 minutes to defeat.

My advice...wait until this is a greatest hits title. Don't pay more than twenty bucks. You will regret it.

too bad

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 10
Date: April 14, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Angel of darkness wasn't all that bad.
It was those wierd screen-space controls
that made in unplayable. One would think that
this would be the first thing to fix but, no.
Still the same disorientating controls, that are
constantly changing, depending on the (often
just as disorientating) camera.
Why?!
Angel of darkness, Legend, same major flaw.
I gave it 2 stars because it looks nice.

Almost as Bad as Prince of Persia

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: June 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Never played a TR game before this one and now I know why. I will say the graphics and sound were truly amazing. Two thumbs up there. But, game play itself was boring. This game reminded me of Prince of Persia t2t but with a little more fighting involved. I guess I'm just not into games where you have to swing and climb and solve ridiculous puzzles. I beat the game once, just so my money for the game and book didn't go to waste. However, it's still sitting on the shelf, so all in all, I guess my money did go to waste.

Anyway, if you are into slow moving, puzzle solving, wall climbing with a little bit of fighting thrown it games, this one is for you.

A lost star for length

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 37 / 43
Date: May 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I feel short changed.

Well, so this is the new Tomb Raider....after all those sequels which were derided for apparently lowering the quality of the game every time (I actually quite enjoyed most of them, with only a few exceptions), Tomb Raider Legend has been lauded as the return to form. Well in my opinion, it's more like an expanded demo of a potential return to form. However it looks great, and as I started playing, I was hoping for the thrill of the very first game to come back to me. I played the original PS1 Tomb Raider game again recently and I couldn't believe how well it had aged. The levels were long, the explorable areas were huge, and the puzzles were multi-layered, often built out of smaller component puzzles. The game as a whole had a good solid length and satisfying difficulty curve. This is a game that is now a decade old, and I'm still impressed by it.

So how far have we come? Well, Tomb Raider Legend has definitely played true to the original spirit. It has enhanced the character of Lara Croft, as well as re-invented the control system. I'm very happy about the former update (Lara is still beautiful, upper-class and indomitable), but not so keen on the latter. It came as quite a shock to me to find that the definitive control system had been completely re-worked and, with no option to customize it, I was initially bewildered. X is now jump? Triangle is action? No walk button? No sidestep or sidejump? No backstep for those tricky jumps? It took some getting used to, and I'm not sure whether it's an improvement or not. The grid of jumpable distances and calculations that all TR fans will surely recall has been dumped, and instead Lara behaves like all other platform game protagonists...if you want to jump across a gap, just run at it and leap when you think the time is right. The game does the rest...in fact here it does a bit too much. If the gap is deemed as passable, the game will compensate for any small miscalculation on your part and make sure you end up on the other side. This seemed a bit odd to me, and I found that I missed the feeling of knowing whether I had accomplished anything or not. This new scheme also allows you to perform acrobatic tasks like jumping directly upwards from hanging off a ledge to another ledge about 6 feet above, which is surely physically impossible! As are sideways and backwards jumps from ledges and poles that magically dump Lara safely on another ledge or platform if the game deems that that was the way to progress. Does this sound picky? I know that in the past Lara could do cartwheels while firing her guns, and do a backwards somersault to land on a platform higher than her own head, but I didn't seem to mind that as much! I think it's because the game does not present enough physical challenges anyway that I felt further hand-held throughout the exploring phases by this new scheme.

Another thing, is that the weapons mode is a real let-down. The old auto-aim has been replaced by a targetting mechanism that only stays locked on target intermittently. This is very obvious on the final boss, where Lara's aim is constantly lost when she runs to dodge any long range attacks. I would have liked a way to lock-on, and then strafe while firing, but this is seemingly no longer an option - unless I missed it. But in bizarre opposition to the boss fights, regular gun fight sequences are incredibly easy, you only have to run around wildly firing non-stop and the enemies will all drop. I never came out of a hugely out-numbered fight (say Lara against 6 or 7 goons) with damage more than about one medipack's worth, and that's when I wasn't being the least bit careful.

I've got still more gripes - you can't stockpile anything. One additional gun at a time is all you get, and a maximum of three medipacks!! Thats just criminal. Mind you, with the game this easy, arriving at the last boss with 20 stored medipacks would be a pushover! Oh well, Lara's previously bottomless rucksack was always a bit far-fetched, I suppose.

Ok, I've left the worst till last, and that is undeniably the games length. I finished it in about 4 days, and that's unheard of for a TR game. Short levels, few puzzles, not enough secrets, not enough booby traps or variety of enemies. Every level is like a taster for what the development team are obviously capable of. They just needed to make them all 3 times as long. At least. The levels look great (time for some praise at last, now!)...they are leafy and organic, dank and spooky, or full of ruined temples as and when required. I could have done with some larger and more awe-inspiring architecture, though, and the sense of immense scale has not been maintained. I don't recall many of the towering structures and giddying drops that made climbing so perilous in the earlier game. Fans of TR1 will surely recall the Atlantis level - a constant climb through a kind of giant floorless shaft ending up on a platform where the boss appeared - one slip off the edge meant a fall down through the entire level to a final sickening thud on the floor. There's nothing like that in this game, and I think what I miss the is the sense of realism you get when you can see where you've been climbing from and it's dizzyingly far down. Tomb Raider Legend doesn't play with layered or cyclical environments, and all the levels are pretty standard: start travelling from Point A and keep going as far you can and you'll get to Point B. There are two motorbike riding leves but they are very arcadey and almost impossble to lose.

Tomb Raider Legend is a wonderful taster, passed of as a full length game. A lot of care went into design and execution, but it's still a bit glitchy (although with nothing like the game-halting problems of Angel of Darkness, thank god!). I look forward to another game from this team, and let's hope it's a biggun next time.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next 

Actions