Finally, a tomb worth raiding
Thanks to these intuitive controls, I could use the conscious part of my brain to concentrate on the fun stuff, which is climbing around and exploring tombs. Legend has the formula down to a science: Lara delves into ancient ruins, evades deathtraps, repairs crumbling mechanisms, and loots corpses in true Prince of Persia style. The game looks really pretty, with crystal clear graphics. Lara moves fluidly yet still tackles obstacles with precision, and there is a good variety of levels.
Legend puts a lot of focus into puzzle solving instead of combat, which is a great thing because, even though gunplay is fun; targeting sucks, the bad guys A.I is spotty, and long range skirmishes are like watching a stormtrooper battle: everyone’s shooting, but nobody’s getting shot.
Legend has poached some gimmicks from other recent successful action-adventure games, including God of War’s one button recovery option (which gives you another chance to nab a ledge that you initially missed), interactive cut scenes from Resident Evil, and pole swinging from Prince of Persia. But copying is fine as long as it works, and it does here.
It also took Halo 2’s cliffhanger ending, but I didn’t like the cliffhanger ending – I don’t like having to wait more than a year for resolutions. But when the next game does come out, rest assured I’ll be there to see what happens.