Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation

The monstrous Tomb Raider franchise delivers a nicely complete package with its latest installment. Excellent pacing, loads of story, and puzzles galore elevate this game above its predecessors.

TR:TLR's page-turner of a story is delivered in several different ways. Lara's very first tomb raid as a teenager is presented as a playable level that she (with pigtails and all) has to traverse with the help of her original mentor, Werner Von Croy. The game then jumps via FMV cutscene to the modern day, for a trip to the egyptian desert in search of artifacts. As you progress through the game, in-engine and FMV cutscenes describe how Lara's original idea to get a little bit of treasure awakens an ancient evil and brings her into contact with treacherous henchmen, vengeful Egyptian gods, and equally vengeful former teachers.

The pacing and presentation of subtly different types of gameplay is masterfully handled. Segments of exploration and combat will yield to door/lever and jump puzzles, followed by a heart-racing vehicle level or two. After that you might encounter a long swimming or monkey-swing area. Gamers will never find themselves getting bored, because each segment of gameplay is just long enough to be fun without becoming repetitive.

It helps that a lot of thought has been put into the puzzles themselves. Gone are the days of a game full of nothing but finding levers to open doors. Instead, you will occasionally encounter a large puzzle that requires a close look at the environment, testing of the puzzle mechanics to see how the various parts work, and then using logic to see how to proceed. Ok, you will still have to pull levers or push buttons, but it's no longer the entire game!

New and subtle control changes allow for greater flexibility when dealing with situations that previously were frustrating. Users can now choose which enemy to target, for example, rather than just whoever is closer. Precision jumping is less of an issue thanks to solid level design, but Lara's ability to make incremental jumps forward still sometimes helps when trying to reach ledges. A large selection of rolls and sideways moves (on ledges, underwater, and even while climbing) mean that access and avoidance are all in the hands of the gamer. Another welcome feaure is that Lara's body turns invisible when the user manually brings the camera in to look around. This allows looking without having her body block your field of vision.

Graphics are still a mixed bag. Levels are designed out of basic geometric shapes instead of the random geometry seen in Legacy of Kain and Shadowman, leading to a general feeling of blockiness. Enemies are still very low-detail, and sometimes don't look all that real. Thankfully, moving clouds and mountainous backdrops really spice up the outdoor areas and tastefully applied colored lighting give the indoor spots plenty of atmosphere.

Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation was a great ride. I was never bored, and in fact was continually spurred on to see what the next chapter in the story held for Lara. Enemy and level blockiness sometimes killed the immersion, but overall the sense of poking through ancient burial grounds was very strong. Now, if someone could only explain to me how it was possible for ancient Egyptians to leave flares and uzi clips inside of their temples

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