When she burst onto the scene in 1996, Lara Croft was unlike anything the gaming world had seen before. Here was a woman who was more comfortable in a dusty tomb than at a cocktail party; one that preferred to let her pistols do whatever talking needed to be done. The star of CORE Design's Tomb Raider took the world by storm, spawning a number of sequels and two full-length feature films. However, Lara's world came crashing down around her with the release of Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness in 2003. The game was so bad that the repercussions are being felt to this day. Fearing that Lara's days were numbered, Eidos recently took the development reins from CORE, giving them to Crystal Dynamics in an effort to pump some new blood into the franchise. After playing through Tomb Raider: Legend, we're happy to say that Lara's back, kicking ass and taking names in her most enjoyable adventure to date.

The game kicks off with a bit of an introduction to Lara's tomb-raiding roots. The plane carrying young Lara and her mother crashes in Nepal, and it's not long before the girl has stumbled upon an ancient sword lodged in a stone. I don't want to ruin the story for you, as it's likely the most coherent and enjoyable of the franchise. There are a number of cutscenes, although most of the exposition is handled by Zip and Alister, the two men who feed Lara information through her headset. The story takes the player all over the world, from the jungles of Bolivia and the frozen wastelands of Kazakhstan to the ruins of an English amusement park and a high-tech high-rise in Japan.


Fans of the series' early games will be overjoyed to hear that Legend brings much of the action back into the ancient tombs and tropical jungles for some good old-fashioned platforming. Gone are the days of meticulously lining up each and every one of your jumps, as you can now fluidly leap from ledge to pole to rope with the grace of a gymnast. Lara can adjust in mid-air, allowing her to grab onto ledges with one hand and save herself with the push of a button. The platforming is similar to that seen most recently in Prince of Persia, which, naturally, borrowed heavily from the Tomb Raider games. However, you won't be spending all of your time just jumping and swinging around, as the game features some diabolical environmental puzzles.

In the series' early titles, Lara spent a good deal of time sliding enormous square boxes around in an attempt to find the hidden switch that magically opened a far away door. Thankfully, those days are behind us, and we're instead treated to some puzzles and intricate contraptions that would make Rube Goldberg sit up and take notice. The game features a pretty robust physics engine, which allowed the developers to create some puzzles that don't have obvious solutions. You'll have to throw your memories of the previous games out the window, as you can now flip metal boxes through the air, push boulders off of cliffs, and float on coffins. While the puzzles are far from unfair, there are quite a few "Duh, why didn't I think of that in the first place?" moments to keep you humble.