Random Demo Theater #3

Guns, gams and gazongas! Lara Croft is back!

by Wootini

Guess there wasn't much else to throw on this month's PlayStation Magazine demo disc. Aside from 3 new demos, it was all samples of old music titles. So at least there was a theme. Didn't much care about the two sports titles — it was the demo of Tomb Raider Legend that I was interested in. In fact, as soon as I unwrapped the plastic, the disc went straight into my PS2. I was THAT curious.

Firstly, the game looks great. Well lit, soft textures create a reality that's just this side of fantasy. Lara's in fine form, and has a slightly more realistic figure. True analog control has been added, and as it turns out, there was no reason to worry. Yeah, jumping can get a little hinky at times, but they actually give you a little leeway with it, and if you don't quite make the leap, if you're close enough, Lara will reach out and grab the edge of the ledge, and with a quick press of the triangle button, you can firm up her grip and climb up. Easy peasy.

The demo is apparently the first half of the first level, so naturally, it walks you through the controls. Which is helpful, because there's some changes. Jumping and such is still easy, but I found shooting strangely awkward and hard to get used to. If it's not a FPS, I don't feel right pressing the R1 trigger to shoot. It's just wrong. Anyhoo, there's some jumping and exploring of some cliffsides, and then there are some soldiers to gun down. After that burst of combat, there's a tomb to raid, with jumping puzzles and traps and swimming and all that fun stuff from Lara's good old days. Remember when Tomb Raider was fun? Well, it looks like it is again. The sense of wonder and exploration was back, and this time buffed up with some awful purty graphics.

I'm looking forward to picking up the full game to see if they can maintain this for the entire time. As a side note, I'm intrigued to learn that the PSP version will be coming out a little later than the console titles, but should be pretty much the same game with slight variation and some new minigames. Odd. Now that there's a handheld powerful enough to replicate a console experience, which do I choose? Do I go for the full-on console experience for the better graphics and potentially easier control scheme? Or do I opt for the handheld so that I can actually play it more often and actually finish it?

Decisions, decisions...