They expect Lara to carry the entire series. They play for the movie-like nonstop action, the escapist plots, and the difficult puzzles. Lara is a superb protagonist, but even she can t save this title from critical damnation. For the sake of her, I truly hope Eidos doesn t push the Tomb Raider series in the same direction that the Police Academy movies went eventually releasing sequel after sequel that people don t even know, or care to know, exist. Lara still has a bright future, but it s going to take a complete and total overhaul of control, gameplay, and plot.
Chronicles can be fun, particularly the killer final level.
However, based on the price of the title, and the complete lack of ingenuity, I can t recommend Tomb Raider Chronicles to anyone other than the most frothy-mouthed, rabid Tomb Raider fans. The quality just isn t there. The manual is scanty. It gets the job done, but there's nothing special here. 6.0 Graphics Nice gradual graphical improvements over previous titles in the series, but to compete with other games it lacks the much needed complete overhaul.