Tomb Raider-Legend : Return to Paraíso [Mission 2] {Walkthrough/Gameplay}
Channel: theRedLad
Date: 2020-11-22

Tomb Raider: Legend
Mission 2 : Return to Paraíso 
[No Commentary]

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IGN Review : Nearly 10 years ago a little-known British developer crafted a title whose impact on the videogame world would be massive and permanent. Tomb Raider starring Lara Croft graced game systems in November 1996. Within a year, the sexy, smart and sassy heroine would go on to become world-famous for her voluptuous build, can-do attitude, and endless mass market appeal. Along with Shigeru Miyamoto's brilliant Super Mario 64, the first Tomb Raider illuminated new corridors in 3D game development, showing fresh possibilities in character and game design, 3D control, and camera work.


A lot has happened since the heady days of Core Design and Eidos Entertainment's first big splash. It's been nearly a decade. Lara's popularity has continued to thrive well into this century, especially with two movies starring Angelina Jolie, but though she remained a cultural icon to the masses, her games went down the toilet. After Tomb Raider 2, fans got five progressively worse sequels, the last of which was so second-rate that Eidos canned Core Design from its own series.

Enter Crystal Dynamics, the Menlo Park, Ca. developer best known for its gothic action-adventure game, Legacy of Kain. Crystal D spent more than a year researching the Tomb Raider series before it actually started the design proper, digging up the essentials to figure out what people loved so much about the originals and how to return to that point. Among other beneficial moves, original designer and animator Toby Gard was retained as a consultant. And the team's research pointed to a few things: people love exploring enormous exotic locales, they love great stories, and they want the freedom of making an acrobatic character move nimbly and athletically. That's exactly what we get with Tomb Raider: Legend. Crystal D's fresh approach, erudite design and execution, and its focus on good controls, smart puzzles, and competent combat, do the trick. They've resurrected an icon and a legacy from its tumultuous past by making the best and most definitive Tomb Raider yet. 
Slated for PC, GameCube, PS2, Xbox and Xbox 360 (with a PSP release in May), the game starts with a focused thematic storyline that carries all the way to its final moments. In one of the first of many flashback moments, Lara and her mum begin the game traveling in a small airplane. Suddenly an engine catches on fire and they have to crash land. The two make it through the crash unharmed, but they find themselves in an ancient land with strange iconography and mystical architecture. Lara activates an ancient artifact and her mother is sucked into a magic vortex that pretty much ends Lara's childhood on the spot. The game proper starts soon thereafter in modern times in Bolivia with Lara Croft climbing cliff sides, a little reminiscent but a lot less vain than Tom Cruise's intro to Mission Impossible 2.

The narrative proceeds through in-game dialog, cutscenes, and flashback sequences, both watchable and playable. Just like in Resident Evil 4 (or Diehard Arcade if you want to get technical), many cutscenes demand quick interactions to keep Lara alive, and the extra effort pays off. It's clear Crystal D has done its homework. The story unfolds at a healthy pace, the dialog is extremely well handled, and while there are some obvious videogame archetypes, the enemies aren't terribly comic or over-exaggerated. The dialog is crisp and nicely edited. Lara is witty, and then it's back to the action. But Crystal D does develop Lara's character. You do get the feeling that she has a past that drives and haunts her, and she shows some real emotion. As Lara says to an engineer friend, she is in the business of digging up things. That's what this narrative does well. Crystal D builds her character and makes you care for Lara. Considering the history of the series, that's a daunting task.