Aiming in focus mode is even worse than when in standard mode. For starters when locked on focus (bringing the player to the right shoulder of Lara, Resident Evil 4 style) Lara cannot move as she shoots, leaving her as a sitting duck. Essentially, if you’re up against 5 opponents +, and you want to target the man at the top of the cliff face, be prepared to lose plenty of life. Thankfully, ‘easy’ mode is so easy it’s a challenge to be defeated by standard enemies even if you just stood there for 5 minutes.
The music is a further complaint. Whilst original composer was able to breathe rewarding, ambiance in original instalment, connoting surprise, suspense and danger, this new composer replaced that with a rather mediocre outing that generally breaks away from the action, rather than drawing us in. It’s not terrible but this is not Tomb Raider.
On the surface Legends is, especially visually, a highly polished game let down by a forced and illogical story and incredibly linier corridor levels. Why was that bike just hanging around on the top floor of an abandoned building? Why does Lara need a crack team to help her? How does these characters survive such obvious inescapable deaths?
I understand that Tomb Raider needs to take new directions to survive, but I don’t think these are the right ones. Yes it’s pretty and yes the controls are better (but not perfect) but Legend is still an average game. In most cases, there is nothing wrong with that. But considering this was the most successful and talked about series of the 90’s, bring gamers of all kinds and even non-gamers to the same experience, this stands to reason that every dog has their day, and no amount of makeup for this girl is going to hide that she’s probably had hers.
Interestingly, not only did Eidos lose original creators Core Design with Tomb Raider Legends, but have essentially lost the core design of what the series has always been about. Now that’s death by irony Lara!
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