Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend

Tomb Raider 7
Tomb Raider Legend
Release Date	April 2006
Platforms	PC, PS2, XBox, XBox 360, PSP, GBA, Nintendo DS, Gamecube
Levels	8
Secrets	115
Developer	Crystal Dynamics
Publisher	Eidos Interactive
Game Chronology:
The Angel of Darkness	Tomb Raider 7	Tomb Raider Anniversary

Tomb Raider Legend is the official title of Tomb Raider 7. It was released on April 7th (Europe) and April 11th (North America) 2006.

It is the first Tomb Raider game to be made by Crystal Dynamics. The Tomb Raider licence was taken from Core Design by Eidos after Tomb Raider The Angel Of Darkness was released, and seen as a failure. Crystal Dynamics took charge, aiming to bring Lara back to her roots. They set about this task, recruiting the original designer of Lara Croft Toby Gard to help them in it.

Release Date

Full Game

PC, PlayStation 2, XBox and XBox 360

• 
  
  Europe - 7th April 2006
• 
  United States - 11th April 2006
• South Africa - 21st April 2006

PlayStation Portable

• 
  Europe - 9th June 2006
• 
  United States - 21st June 2006

Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS

• 
  Europe - 31st October 2006
• 
  United States - 1st November 2006

GameCube

• 
  Europe - 1st December 2006
• 
  United States - 1st November 2006

Demo

PlayStation 2

• 
  Germany (German OPM) - 10th March 2006
• Worldwide - Night of 31st March/ 1st April 2006

Levels

• Bolivia - Tiwanaku
• Peru - Return to Paraíso
• Japan - Meeting with Takamoto
• Ghana - Pursuing James Rutland (West Africa)
• Kazakhstan - Project Carbonek
• England - King Arthur's Tomb?
• Nepal - The Ghalali Key
• Bolivia - The Looking Glass (Bolivia Redux)
• England - Croft Manor

Length

Tomb Raider Legend can be finished in under 4 hours, collecting all secrets.

Story

Main article: Tomb Raider Legend Story

Looking for a stone dais that links to her past Lara travels to Bolivia. There she has a run in with James Rutland who manages the steal a piece of an important artefact from right under her nose. He also mentions that Amanda is helping him, which Lara finds quite odd because she thought that Amanda died back in the ruins near Paraiso all those years ago. But before fleeing the scene, James points Lara in the right direction, back to Paraiso, Peru. A race around the globe for the pieces of the legendary sword Excalibur begins.

Features

• Lara comes to life: the dual-pistol-wielding adventurer's polygon count and animation set has been increased significantly, presenting Lara in the finest fidelity to date
• Return to the Tombs: Lara's new quest brings her to lost ancient realms that guard Secrets of the Past
• Fluid movement: the revamped control system provides intuitive and fluid character movement
• Dynamic animation system puts focus on continuous motion, giving Lara the ability to seamlessly handle any obstacle and interact dynamically with any surface
• Move and shoot. Lara uses her physical prowess to combine gunplay with unique signature moves
• Variety of player choice-intelligently use the environment, technical gear and weapons to overcome challenging situations.
• Physics, Water and Fire systems bring the perilous environments of Lara's world alive, and challenge the player to improvise solutions to obstacles
• Visit a vast array of cinematic and exotic locations including ancient tombs, dangerous jungles, snowy mountain ruins and numerous unexpected surprises in between!

Locations

Lara visits the following locations:

• Bolivia
• Peru
• Tokyo, Japan
• Ghana
• Kazakhstan
• Cornwall, England
• Nepal

Gear

Lara has her twin-pistols again. She can also carry grenades and other weapons which she is able to pick up from enemies that she has killed. Only a limited number of weapons and a limited amount of ammunition can be carried at one time. In order to pick up a new weapon when the maximum number of weapons is already being carried, Lara will drop the currently selected weapon.

List of Weapons

• Dual Pistols
• Grenades
• RC650 Assault Rifle
• Shotgun
• SMG
• Grenade Launcher

Lara has at her disposal a headset with which to communicate with her staff remotely, a personal light source (PLS), RAD binoculars, a magnetic grapple, and a PDA. The light source does not last indefinitely and requires a short period of time to recharge once its power has fully depleted. With the RAD binoculars, Lara is able to discern special features of the landscape she is examining, which can prove useful in solving some of the puzzles. The PDA maintains a list of Lara's inventory, the number of secrets she has found and has yet to find, and information regarding her current objective and location. In the flashback part of the Peru level, Lara cannot use the PLS but instead uses red flares. Excalibur or the weapon from the game Soul Reaver can be obtained as weapons by completing respectively either a time trial or the complete game.

Other Gear

• PLS
• PDA
• Headset
• Flares
• RAD Binoculars
• Magnetic Grapple

Vehicles

• Ducati
• Jeep Wrangler, Jeep Commander (neither is playable)

Outfits

Main article: Tomb Raider Legend Outfits

Tomb Raider Legend is to date the game with the most outfits available to Lara. For the first time the player can, after completing a level at least once, pick an outfit for Lara. All special outfits need to be unlocked by fulfilling a certain task, like finishing a level, or collecting secrets, first. There are several basic outfits which are also available in a different colour.

• Legend

The Legend Outfit, often referred to as Standard Expedition Gear is also available with a Union Jack top, as well as in black, blue and pink

• Biker

The Biker Outfit, also called Ducati Motorbike Outfit is an outfit Lara wears in the England level for the first time. It is also available with a red jacket, no jacket (as seen in the Croft Manor cut scene between Bolivia and Peru) and exclusively for PSP with a brow jacket.

• Evening Dress

The Evening Dress is worn by Lara in the Japan level. It is in-game available as ripped and red version.

• Classic

The Standard Outfit makes its return in the flashback part of the Peru level. It is also available in gray.

• Winter

The Winter Outfit is first worn in the Kazakhstan level and returns in Nepal. It is also available with no coat (as seen in the later part of the Kazakhstan level), in orange, in orange with no coat, in pink and in pink with no coat.

• Unlockable Outfits

A number of unlockable outfits that do not appear within the regular game is also available: a Catsuit, a Snowsuit, a Suit, a Suit, Cream, Special Forces, Special Forces, Urban, Goth, Goth, Lace Shirt, Sport, Sport, Green.

• Croft Manor Outfits

Further there are two outfits that can only be worn inside the Croft Manor, the Swimsuit and Swimsuit, Black.

• Amanda Evert as Outfit

Besides the outfits for Lara, you can unlock Amanda and Amanda, Winter as outfits.

Characters and Enemies

Characters

Main article: Tomb Raider Legend Characters

The character playing the main role in Tomb Raider Legend, besides Lara, is her former friend Amanda Evert. At first it is unknown that she is such an important figure in the storyline as she hides behind James Rutland and his mercenaries. Another foe Lara encounters is the Yakuza Shogo Takamoto who stands between her and a piece of Excalibur. Lara is supported by many friends in this adventure; her butler Winston, her two assistants Zip and Alister and her friends Anaya and Toru Nishimura. The story centres around Lara's search for her mother Amelia Croft who is often mentioned and seen in flashbacks.

• Amelia Croft
• Amanda Evert
• Alister Fletcher
• Anaya Imanu
• Kent
• Toru Nishimura
• James W. Rutland Jr.
• Winston Smith the butler
• Shogo Takamoto
• Zip

Enemies

Tomb Raider Legend differs from the preceding games of the series in that most of the enemies encountered by Lara are human and not animal. The enemies in Legend vary mainly in the amount of protection that they have and the type of weapons they are carrying.

Human Enemies

Listed in the order of appearance:

• Light Armored Mercenary
• Medium Armored Mercenary (include Yakuza Goons)
• Shotgun Mercenary (include Yakuza Black Suits)
• Support Mercenary
• Riot Shield Mercenary
• Heavy Armored Mercenary
• Motorbike Mercenary
• Enemy Jeep

Animal Enemies

• Jaguar
• Snow Leopard
• Pitbull

Level Bosses

• Takamoto
• Rutland
• unknown Entity
• Sea Serpent
• Amanda Entity

Traps and Obstacles

Lara encounters Spears, Spikes, Blades and many more traps.

• Giant Icicles
• Spears
• Spikes
• Blades
• Squeezing Walls
• Movable Crate
• Boulders
• Rolling Explosive Barrels

... to be continued

Platforms

This game was released for 8 platforms, which were PS2, PC, Xbox, Gamecube, Xbox 360, PSP, DS and GBA. The PS2, PC, Xbox and Xbox 360 were released first then PSP and finally the Gamecube, DS and GBA.

Platform Differences

The original Xbox version does not include the introduction movie with the opening titles. According to Xboxic,[2] the manager of the Xbox development team genuinely forgot to include the intro video on the final build disc when sending it off for the final game testing with Microsoft's Quality Assurance team. When the mistake was discovered, the QA department told Eidos they would need to resubmit the game for re-testing from scratch. Due to time restrictions, Eidos chose to release the Xbox version without the intro movie.

PlayStation Portable players have received some exclusive extras. While the textures and polygon count were significantly reduced to run on the portable, some new gameplay modes were introduced: the Tomb Trials, three multiplayer modes and six additional outfits that were not available in any other version of Legend. The Tomb Trials put the player against a series of traps and acrobatics to be dealt with before the assigned time is over, based on locations of the regular levels. Note: on the last level, "Bolivia Redux", the "Natla Industries" crates are not present, and you cannot destroy the statues scattered around the level. The Nintendo GameCube version has had a couple of cuts, most likely due to disc space. The rolling demos that would normally play if the game was left inactive while in the title screen have been removed, and the Unfortunate Mishaps video is also missing. The game runs at a slightly smoother framerate than the PlayStation 2 version, and it also loads faster. But at some specific points there are some noticeable frame rate drops (such as in the train chase, in Kazakhstan). The many filters used for explosions and motion blur are also gone, rendering the game with sharper textures but less remarkable explosions. It was also released in 24 November 2006. The versions for Nintendo handheld consoles are different. Despite following the same storyline and featuring all the levels and key moments from the bigger counterparts, the game is a sidescroller on the GBA. The levels have been broken down into several smaller segments, probably due to technology limits, and feature a lot more platforming than the original versions. The progression of the storyline is told via comic-strips during key moments. The rewards are also present and they unlock simple minigames. Lara also changes outfits in this version, though she's limited to only three - the regular outfit, the Tokyo dress and the Winter suit. The PC and Xbox 360 version includes exclusive "next generation effects", which can be toggled on the PC version. When the next gen effects are off, the game is visually identical to the PlayStation 2 and GameCube versions of the game. In the PC version, you can save anywhere but loading a game will just take you back to the last checkpoint. This was most probably done to facilitate making and porting the game from console to PC, shortcuts to accommodate the inherent limitations in consoles. The Mobile version presents a compressed version of the story, featuring only three levels (Tokyo, Ghana and England) based on the original levels from the console versions, and has a far more limited gameplay style. It features, however, three gameplay modes: Corridor Combat, Room Combat and Platform Exploration.

Moves

According to the developers Lara can execute up to 5 moves in a row, fluently. She can swing on rope, on bars, she can climb, shimmy, jump, shoot, jump against objects to knock them over, she can do sideflips, backflips, dive under traps and doors, use a magnetic rope with hook.

Development Team

Story

• Eric Linstrom
• Doug Church
• Toby Gard