Tomb Raider Legend Demo user review

[techtrip]

I played the first Tomb Raider and loved it. I picked up TRAOD and had some fun with it, but the clunky controls and some overly hard boss fights kinda ruined it for me. I was a little skeptable about Tomb Raider Legends so I downloaded the demo to see if it would be more of the same or better than TRAOD. I am happy to say that this demo ROCKS. No more grid style character movement ( which I loved in the first game but not so much in TRAOD ) Lara moves very fluid now and is easy to control. It takes a little getting used to on the pc keyboard, but after a very short time, and maybe a few key rebinds it is extremly easy to control Lara. The addition of acrobatic movesets is also a plus which works well with the new movement scheme. The puzzles in the demo were not to simple nor to difficult and strike a nice balance to keep the game pacing going without much distraction and are very enjoyable. I noticed in some trailers the Lara can drive vehicles and has some timed button pressing sequences ( similar to God of War ) and if these are pulled off as well as the gameplay in this demo we are all in for a treat. Graphics are on par if not slightly better than Prince of Persia games on the pc. The environments are not bare and have plenty of objects to fill up the playing area, but the texture colors can be a little brownish, which may be by design for the Tomb theme, but there not ugly by any stretch. If this demo is just a small sample of what is in the full version of the game we may finally have a Tomb Raider game that is back on top of the charts. I have read quite a few responses to this demo on the web, some were good, some were bad. The majority were very good and the onesthat were bad appear to be hardware specific problems which as a computer gamer I can understand there frustration because I have been there more times than I can remember. I think if this game gets the advertisments that it deserves it will reach the top of the charts for pc action/adventure genre:) Tomb Raider is back!!

[hotrippr]

Thers already a thread like this, you need to post there:mad:

[Alexlovesguns]

Well, here goes another one.. big post, be warned..

Played the PC demo and overall its most impressive, im amazed how high i can push the resolution and even use AA with a meazly 6600GT AGP and it still runs silk smooth, the demo doesnt allow to try next gen on but from what i've read around no current pc handles next gen so well, even high end SLI setups. But it looks beautyfull even without next gen setting and all other settings were enabled except the blurry depth/vision thingy. The loading time is just a couple seconds (!), it loaded all that level in a blink, i read about how this graphics engine streams data and its hard to believe but its real and a very remarkable achievement.

I also took my sweet time going thru the demo 3 times in a row, admiring every texture (ruin walls and statues, wow!), the lighting, decorations, the way the music changes depending on the situation Lara is in (sound/music is top quality but i miss my 5.1 surround), the neat physics tricks, overall very well done:thumbsup: . I did find some texture/mapping errors and colision/missing geometry with a couple objects (the rocks on the right where Lara meets those 2 mercs), Laras model has some parts that dont seem mapped correctly (legs and head) and the legs dont look too well when she crouches (knees) but im starting to nitpick here, or am i;) ?

Gameplay is great, controls and movement are simple and smooth and the people who complain must have never ventured into other games other than TR/TR5 or experience bad fps, its easy to move, turn, jump and interact with the environment and with 5 minuts practice the average gamer should find himself going thru sets of diferent platforms at a very fast pace, the use of the mouse allows to see, shoot and jump very fast, the way Lara is supposed to. The moves and animations are good, running, jumping, swan dive, etc but the sneak walk doesnt fit imo, Lara's normal walk from past games felt better and will be missed, i will also miss the ability to crawl and speed run, hopefully those will be considered in the next game.. Puzzles were easy, i hope it becomes more challenging/complex after the initial levels. Weapon handling, nice, fast and fun and we even get to aim if we want/need to. Weapons feel good and there are more fighting options other than running around shooting. Big improvement there.

The gadgets are one thing that i believe was overdone, i like the grappling hook but the radio set, the PDA, the "talking" binocular, i think they might have overdone a little with the tech inspired by those TR movies wich no real TR fan should care about:p .
Most of us met Lara alone in the jungles and ruins/tombs/temples, using flares and torches and whatever she (or we) could find, i understand there was a concern to take the game back to the roots but the game feels inspired by the movies in some aspects, that is unfortunate..
Lara gets wet, Lara gets dirty,i could go on..

Demo receives a 9.5 from me, i cant wait for the 7th to arrive and to finally enjoy the full game, heard the game is short and seen some not so exciting Croft manor pics, miss the open/big spaces, i predict i will give a 9.0 user rating to the full game, i am happy to say that TR is finally back, really missed it since TLR, please let CD make some more:D .