CNN
Lara Croft, once one of the world's hottest video game vixens, stumbled in her last quest (2003's forgettable "Angel of Darkness"), but the femme fatale regains her cool in "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend."
Consider this new adventure a rebirth of the 10-year-old franchise. Now under the care of developer Crystal Dynamics, "Legend" proves there is plenty of heart and soul left in this once-coveted series.
Grade: None
Rocky Mountain News
Ten years, seven games and $28 million: That's how much gamers love Lara Croft.
But despite all of that testosterone-driven adoration, Croft's last adventure, Angel of Darkness, was such a botched game that it nearly put the heroine in the ground.
If Croft was to survive the jump to the next generation of consoles, she didn't just need a new game, she needed a metamorphosis.
Grade: C+
GameSpot
Tomb Raider: Legend follows the exploits of Lara Croft as she tries to solve the mysteries of her past. Specifically, she's investigating the death of her mother several years earlier. One thing leads to another and somehow the legend of King Arthur becomes involved, along with a magical sword that has been broken into fragments and scattered throughout the world. The story is barely coherent, but it serves its purpose in that it gives Lara an excuse to travel from one exotic locale to the next in search of these artifacts. The game takes you to places such as Ghana, Peru, Tokyo, England, and Kazakhstan, and all of the locations look great. And while Lara sticks mostly to tombs and ruins, she also spends time exploring a deserted research facility, hopping about atop skyscrapers, and shooting up bad guys in a rustic village. The variety of levels is great, although you'll end up seeing pretty much the same platforming and box-pushing puzzles wherever you go.
Score: 7.8/10
1Up
The last time Lara Croft was in a game worth playing, Final Fantasy VII had the hottest graphics ever, no one was entirely sure if Zelda would work in 3D, and only a handful of NES vets had any clue who Solid Snake was. Nine years is a long, long time in videogames — the difference between the NES's heyday and the Dreamcast's launch, to give one example — so it's pretty easy to understand why the Tomb Raider series entered the year 2006 as more of an irrelevant footnote in history than a cherished classic.
Score: 80 percent
