Tomb Raider Legend

Lara discovers the sword she is seeking may be the famed Excalibur -- part of King Arthur's Legend -- and that Amanda survived the cave-in and is looking for the magical sword, which reportedly has broken into four pieces which are now spread across the globe. Lara hears that one piece is in the 'care' of Yakuza boss Shogo Takamoto, who had it stolen from Waseda University. Lara travels to Japan, where her friend Nishimura assists her in setting up a meeting to negotiate with Takamoto for his fragment. Takamoto refuses to negotiate and claims he never actually stole the piece, and orders his goons to kill Lara. Lara dispatches the goons as she chases Takamoto all the way to the roof of his penthouse apartment. Takamoto uses the power of the fragment to attack Lara but she prevails and recovers it.

Lara proceeds to Ghana to find Rutland, since he also possessed a sword fragment. She tracks him to an ancient temple hidden behind a waterfall. When she finally finds Rutland, he tells her about something called the Ghalali Key, believing that her father found it and it is now in Lara's possession. Lara has no idea what he was talking about and this frustrates him. Rutland then attacks her using his sword fragment but Lara subdues him and grabs the second fragment. Lara receives news from Zip and Alister that Amanda raided the Croft Manor looking for the Ghalali Key while she was in Ghana. She offers to return to the Mansion to see if they are alright, but they persuade her to get to Kazakhstan as fast as she can to beat Amanda there.

When Lara arrives in Kazakhstan, she discovers that Rutland's men have taken over a Soviet lab where experiments on a sword fragment led to its closing down fifty years ago by the KGB. Lara catches up with Amanda, who is still angry about being left behind in Paraíso. Lara goes after her and finds her conducting experiments on the third sword fragment. Amanda is also using the glowing stone she pulled out of the wall before she died to control the entity that attacked them in Paraíso. Lara fights off the entity and recovers the third sword fragment.

Following a map on the back of a shield also recovered from the Soviet lab, Lara's adventure brings her home to England. She discovers the real King Arthur's tomb hidden under a tacky and now-derelict King Arthur tourist attraction in Cornwall, along with the final sword fragment. After slaying a giant sea serpent, Lara returns home to figure out how to put the four sword fragments back together.

Lara realizes that the Ghalali Key was in fact a pendant given to her mother by her father, and that her mother had it with her when their plane crashed into the Himalayas. Lara thus returns to her past again as she tracks down the wreckage of the plane in Nepal, and recovers the Ghalali key before the plane falls off a cliff. She then returns to the temple where her mother lost her life, reassembles the sword Excalibur and uses its awesome power to escape.

Now Lara has Excalibur, she returns to the stone dais in Bolivia, where Amanda, Rutland and their mercenaries await. Lara uses Excalibur to kill the mercenaries and inadvertently kills Rutland, too. Amanda rushes over to him, and he dies in her arms. Lara apologizes and tries to patch up the rift with Amanda, suggesting they use the sword together. Amanda angrily refuses and releases the entity again, this time merging with it to become more powerful. With the help of Excalibur, Lara defeats the entity once and for all.

Lara uses Excalibur on the dais to reopen the portal and discovers what happened to her mother. Lara realizes that the portal spans time and she is seeing her mother moments before she disappears. Amanda wakes up and shouts at Lara to pull out the sword or it will explode. Lara's mother hears this through the portal and pulls out the sword and the dais explodes. Lara is stunned to realize that Amanda was the one who 'killed' her mother across time.

Lara fires a hail of bullets around Amanda demanding answers. Amanda says that Lara's mother is alive in Avalon, where Amanda herself had wanted to go. Amanda states that since Lara would not believe her, she is wasting her breath. Lara knocks Amanda out with her pistol, saying "From this moment, your every breath is a gift from me." Lara then leaves determined to reach Avalon and save her mother.

Locations

The locations of Lara's seventh adventure are in order of play:

• Tiwanaku, Bolivia - A pre-Incan civilization currently in ruins. Lara arrives there by scaling the rocky cliffs of Bolivia. Lara is in search of a stone dais, very similar to the dais where Lara's mother mysteriously disappeared.
• Paraíso, Peru - Lara meets an old friend, Anaya, in the town square, but they soon find themselves under enemy fire. They then revisit the dig site where Lara once lost many friends and she uncovers the secret they had been searching for all those years ago.
• Tokyo, Japan - A piece of the sword, stolen from Waseda University, is in the hands of the Yakuza boss and Lara wants it back. Lara traverses the rooftops of Tokyo to get to his penthouse.
• Ghana, Africa - Another piece of the sword is in the hands of James Rutland, who is currently in Ghana. Lara uncovers a phenomenal temple, set in a lake and hidden from sight by roaring waterfalls.
• Kazakhstan - Lara's search brings her to an abandoned secret KGB testing facility where experiments with the sword fragment led to disaster.
• Cornwall, England - "As in take the M5 to the A30 Cornwall?" asks Lara dubiously. Lara investigates an abandoned tacky King Arthur tourist attraction and unearths the catacombs beneath it which is home to some rather unfriendly sea serpents.
• Himalayas, Nepal - The artefact that can re-forge Excalibur lies in the plane wreck where Lara and her mother once crashed. Lara revisits the crumbling Buddhist monastery where her mother disappeared.
• Bolivia Redux - The final confrontation between Lara and Amanda and the truth is revealed about Lady Croft's death.
• Croft Manor (training level), England - Croft Manor contains a number of puzzles in the form of hidden passageways, lyrical codes and concealed switches. This level can be played at anytime for as long or as short as the player wishes, however they need to complete the first level to unlock the doors of the manor.

Characters

• Lady Lara Croft: Countess of Abbingdon and archaeological wunderkind. In Legend, Lara searches for fragments of a mystical sword that may hold the key to the disappearance of her mother.
• Lady Amelia Croft: Lara's mother. After surviving the crash with her daughter, Amelia mysteriously disappears in an incident in a Himalayan temple and is presumed dead.
• Lord Richard Croft (unseen): Lara's father and Earl of Abbingdon. After his wife's death he taught his daughter archaeology and raised her alone. In the context of the game, he disappeared in Cambodia when she was 18
• Anaya Imanu: A South American civil engineer and university friend of Lara's. She was with Lara during the tragedy near Paraíso.
• Amanda Evert: An old friend and archaeology colleague of Lara's. Her apparent death was witnessed by Lara at Paraíso, but harnessing the power of the Paraiso demon brought her back to life. Amanda re-appears in the Kazakhstan and the Bolivia Redux missions as an enemy.
• Kent: One of Lara's university peers. He and his team were mysteriously killed during the Paraiso episode.
• James W. Rutland Jr.: The son of a senator and a West Point graduate, Rutland also grew up in a bubble of wealth. His motives, however, are a little more self-centred, and he is romantically linked to Amanda. He dies in the last level (Bolivia Redux) when Lara swings excalibur at him.
• Winston Smith: Lara's butler. He has served the Croft family for generations. He became a live-in servant after his wife died.
• Alister Fletcher: An archaeologist who provides advice and allows for Lara to bounce ideas with via her headset.
• Zip: A reformed computer hacker who aids Lara on her journey from her mansion in England and, alongside Alister, works in her mansion, who made his first appearance in Tomb Raider: Chronicles. In this game, Zip is older and has tattoos.
• Shogo Takamoto: A ruthless Yakuza Kumicho and black market dealer, easily identified by his large number of tattoos. His past encounters with Lara have been unsavory.
• Toru Nishimura: One of Lara's friends, once a daring investigative reporter and now a wealthy media mogul. He is glad to offer Lara help when she so needs, but has become more cautious as a result of his new found responsibilities.

Voice cast

• Lara Croft — Keeley Hawes
• Zip — Alex Désert
• Alister Fletcher — Greg Ellis
• Anaya Imanu — Melissa Lloyd
• Amanda Evert — Kath Soucie
• Kent — Alastair Duncan
• James W. Rutland Jr. — Rino Romano
• Winston Smith — Alan Shearman
• Shogo Takamoto — Michael Hagiwara
• Toru Nishimura — Paul Nakauchi
• Lady Amelia Croft - Ève Karpf
• Child Lara — Charlotte Asprey

Versions

Following the success of Lego Star Wars: The Video Game on the Nintendo GameCube, Eidos announced their decision to port Tomb Raider: Legend to that platform, marking Lara Croft's first appearance on a home Nintendo console. Legend is also the first game in the series available on a Microsoft console: Xbox (and later on the Xbox 360).

Differences between versions

The original Xbox version does not include the introduction movie with the opening titles. According to Xboxic, 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 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 can not 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 November 24 of 2006, curiously, 5 days after the release of Nintendo's next gen console, the Wii.

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 Mobile version presents a compressed version of the story, featuring only three levels (Tokyo, Ghana and England) based on the original levels from the consoles version, and has a far more limited gameplay style. It features, however, three gameplay modes: corridor combat, room combat and platform exploration.

Demo

The PlayStation 2 demo was made available in some regions in the Official PlayStation Magazine, as well as on Jampack Vol. 14. A PC demo was released on March 31, 2006 and an Xbox 360 demo was released on Xbox Live Marketplace on April 5, 2006. A downloadable demo was available for the Nintendo DS via the DS Download Station for a short time.

Reception

Tomb Raider: Legend was released to widely positive reviews by the media and from many Lara Croft fans. Many herald it as a tribute to the classic gameplay of the original 1996 Tomb Raider. That said, the game was on the whole a commercial success leading to a re-envisioning of the original game with new gameplay (Anniversary).

• IGN - 8.2
• Toonami - 8/10
• CD-Action (Poland) - 9/10
• Edge — 8
• Electronic Gaming Monthly — 8.5, 8.5, 8.0
• Famitsu — 33 of 40
• Game Informer — 8.75
• Game Informer (2nd opinion) — 8.5
• GamesTM — 8
• GameStar (05/2006) — 89 %
• MConsolas (Portuguese) — 9.0
• OPSM2 UK — 8/10
• Official PlayStation Magazine (US) — 4.5/5.0
• Official PlayStation Magazine (German) — 9.4
• Official Xbox Magazine — 9.0
• Official Xbox Magazine UK — 8.7
• PC Action (German) — 9.0
• PC Gamer (US) — 90%
• PlayStation 2 Magazine (German) — 9.8
• PS2mag (French) — 9.0
• PSM Magazine — 92%
• ROP (Portuguese) — 9.0
• GameSpy - 3.5/5
• GameSpot — 7.8 - won the Most Improved Sequel award on the Best and Worst Awards, and a nominee of the Best GameCube game category.
• Vito Raliffe - 8/10
• X-Play , G4 TV — 4/5
• PC Life (Spanish) — 9.0
• Hunters Weekly (Gaming section) - 9.7
• Bravo, Gamer TV - 5/5

• The game topped the UK game charts at number 1 and remained there for three weeks.

• As of June 30, 2006, the game has sold over 2.9 million copies worldwide, has become the fastest selling Tomb Raider game in the series and has helped the series sell over 30 million units.

Music

The 7th game of the series plays a new kind of music that changes after the actions of Lara. Most of the music is alternative. The alternative genre was already used before for the trials of each game and often in the game. Even the movie dedicated a major part of its soundtrack to the genre.

Legend's title track starts off with the first few notes of Lara's theme in Tomb Raider I being played with slight ornamentation on a Middle-Eastern Duduk. This theme is also heard several times during gameplay, mostly as a background motif or in a three-note repeating motif that was used sometimes in previous Tomb Raider game soundtracks. The lyrics to the main theme and other musical cues in the game are from a Gaelic folk song named Ailein duinn by Capercaillie.

In 2006 Troels B. Folmann was awarded a BAFTA in the category, 'Best original Score' and the GANG award, 'Music of the Year'.

Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• On the unlockable costume Goth, the symbols on Lara's vest and belt buckle are from another Crystal Dynamics/Eidos series, Legacy of Kain. They are the symbols for Raziel and Kain's respective clans. Also, in the main hall of Croft Manor, a painting can be seen of the human Kain, the same one that Raziel sees in Kain's Mausoleum in Defiance. Lara's blue sport outfit uses the Soul Reaver symbol of the sound glyph on the shoes. The unlockable Soul Reaver weapon is also a nod to these games.

• The main hall of Croft Manor is nearly identical in layout and ornamentation to its counterpart in the first movie.

• In the last level, Bolivia Redux, the crates bear the Natla Industries logo. Jacqueline Natla was the main enemy in the original game, and Natla Technologies was her company.

References

External links

• Tomb Raider: Legend Official website
• Tomb Raider Legend @ Tomb Raider Chronicles - Walkthroughs, save game, help and technical support.
• Tomb Raider: Legend at Stella's Tomb Raider Site - Walkthroughs, strategy and savegame files.