Tomb Raider: Legend and Underworld – My Return to the Franchise

After playing Tomb Raider: Legend and Tomb Raider: Underworld, I fell back in love with the series that I have grown up with. I played the first few when I was young, but then broke off my relationship with Lara through lack of connection – she was always off exploring caves and such and I was starting school and meeting real people; we just couldn't make time for each other any more.

The differences between Legend and Underworld are striking to say the least; the improvement on graphics, the diversity of places, the difficulty of missions – the whole shebang. Legend is good but not the best I've seen to come out of 2006. However I'm not complaining, the Ghana level did have me rotating my right analogue stick for a few seconds before I swan dived gracefully into the water below. Overall, I liked it; the levels weren't to difficult, it was nice looking (not quite Jessica Chobot/Underworld standard but good). I was frustrated at a couple parts due to the awful camera angles that made me do a leap of faith to grab a ledge that I hoped would magically appear, but other than that, I was quite happy. Plus the hardest difficulty was relatively easy (175GS is sitting handsomely in my achievement pocket of my showing off coat). I rebuilt my friendship with Ms Croft to the level at which she didn't fall off ledges or jump past a pole the I was quite clearly aiming at, until Underworld came along.

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If you've played Underworld you'll know just how fine looking the graphics are. I knew right from the first level when I divided into the Mediterranean sea and saw the sight I'd only seen on Google images, that I was going to like this game. Until I properly started playing it.

The ledges weren't as obvious as they were in Legend, the jumps were more complex and the progression through the story wasn't as obvious. I haven't rage quited a game so quickly since Grand Theft Auto 4. However, there was more epic scenery to go and achievements to claim so I pushed on and I'm so thankful I did. I won't ruin any of the plot here (even though the games been out almost 2 years) but to illustrate my point I will say this; you get a huge hammer which wipes enemies out quicker than a peanut would clear a room full of nut allergists, you can make Lara swim through the Arctic ocean in a gold bikini hitting sharks with said hammer, and you can explore the wonders of the Thailand rainforest (which is truly beautiful – no joke). Plus you can bully a blind kraken. This is a serious game … honest.

At this point when I have run out of words in my vocabulary and my attention span has depleted, I would give a half decent and genuine conclusion about these games. However, there is food present so I'm going to quote the lady in question, Lara Croft, when I give my final thoughts on these games:

"Isn't she beautiful? I'm falling in love all over again."