Tomb Raider: Legend - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tomb Raider: Legend

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Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend is the seventh game

in the Tomb Raider series. Published by Eidos
Interactive, this is the first game in the series not to be
handled by British-based Core Design, developed
instead by British-owned U.S. studio Crystal Dynamics.
The PS2, Windows, Xbox, and Xbox 360 versions were
released in Europe on 7 April 2006 and in North
America on 11 April 2006. The North American PSP
version was released on 20 June 2006, the Nintendo
GameCube, Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS
versions were released during November 2006 and the
Mobile version was released in December 2006. The
Windows version was released in 2006 and it was also
made available for download to GameTap subscribers
on 31 May 2007.

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend

Contents[hide]
1 Chronology
2 Story
North American cover art

3 Locations
4 Characters

Developer(s)

Crystal Dynamics, Nixxes, Buzz

Monkey Software, Human Soft,
Fathammer

Publisher(s)

Eidos Interactive

Designer(s)

Doug Church (original design)

Riley Cooper (lead designer)

Writer(s)

Toby Gard
Eric Lindstrom
Aaron Vanian
Austin Grossman

Composer(s)

Troels Brun Folmann

Engine

Proprietary/Custom game engine

Version

1.2 (10 May 2006)

Platform(s)

Microsoft Windows, Mobile

phone, PlayStation 2, PlayStation
Portable, GameCube, Game Boy
Advance, Nintendo DS, Xbox
360, Xbox

5 Voice cast
6 Versions
6.1 Differences between versions
6.2 Demo
7 Reception
8 Music
9 References
10 External links

Chronology

[edit]

Although this game was released before Tomb Raider:

Anniversary, its story takes place later. Lara now has
two assistants stationed at Croft Manor, Zip and Alister,

Release date(s) 7 April 2006

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who accompany her virtually throughout her travels, via

constant satellite radio and video feed. Therefore,
players who wish to complete the games in
chronological order should play Anniversary before
Legend.

Story

[edit]
The plot summary in this
article is too long or detailed
compared to the rest of the
content. Please edit the
article to focus on discussing
the work rather than merely
reiterating the plot. (April 2008)

Genre(s)

Action-adventure

Mode(s)

Single-player

Rating(s)

ESRB: T
OFLC: M / PGGBA, DS
PEGI: 12+

Media

DVD, GameCube Game Disc,

Steam download, Game cartridge

Input methods

Keyboard and mouse, Gamepad,

Stylus

The plot opens with a flashback sequence showing a nine year old Lara Croft traveling with her
mother. The plane carrying them crashes into the Himalayas, apparently leaving them as the only two
survivors. After taking shelter in the ruins of an ancient temple, Lara discovers an ornate stone dais
holding a sword whilst searching for firewood. She unwittingly activates the ancient artefact and
watches in horror as her mother vanished in front of her eyes into a portal.
Years after the plane crash, Lara, now an adult, travels to Bolivia after one of her friends, Anaya Imanu,
mentions a stone dais located in the ruins of Tiwanaku, a pre-Incan civilisation. After following a
twisting rocky path, she runs into a group of mercenaries who are under orders to attack her on sight.
After disposing of them, she proceeds to a temple encountering more mercenaries and dangerous
native wildlife along the way. On the other side of the temple, she sees the dais and finds James
Rutland, an American socialite and self-proclaimed adventurer. Rutland mentions Amanda Evert, a
friend of Lara's who supposedly died years before, and then orders his mercenaries to kill Lara. She
overcomes them and reaches the dais, confirming that it was the same as the Himalayan one.
Lara meets Anaya at a village in Peru, and after another battle with Rutland's mercenaries, they reach
the tomb in Paraso, where a tragedy befell them years ago. A flashback sequence shows Lara on an
archaeological excavation with her university colleagues, where she and Amanda witness an unknown
entity kill the rest of the team. The entity vanishes when Amanda removes a mysterious glowing stone
from a wall, but this also causes a cave-in that floods the cavern. Amanda becomes trapped under a
pile of rubble, leaving Lara with no choice but to escape or drown: she flees the cavern, seemingly
leaving Amanda to her death.
Back in the present, Lara discovers the artefact she is seeking may be
linked to Excalibur -- part of the King Arthur legends -- and that Amanda
survived the cave-in and is looking for the sword, which reportedly had
been broken into four fragments which are now spread across the globe.
Lara, now realising what she is looking for, recalls that one piece is in the
'care' of Yakuza boss Shogo Takamoto, who had it stolen from Waseda
University. Lara travels to Japan, where her friend in the Japanese
media, Toru Nishimura, assists her in setting up a meeting to negotiate
with Takamoto for his fragment. Takamoto refuses to negotiate, claims he
has no idea what she is talking about, and orders his goons to kill Lara.
Lara dispatches the goons and chases Takamoto across the rooftops of
Tokyo all the way to the roof of his penthouse apartment. Takamoto uses
the power of the fragment to attack Lara but she kills him and recovers it.
Excalibur reforged (left
with Ghalali Key in the upper

Lara proceeds to Ghana, to a site her parents worked on before her birth,
where she finds Rutland again, who is also in possession of a sword

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fragment. She follows him into an ancient temple hidden behind a

waterfall. When she reaches Rutland, he mentions an artefact called the
Ghalali Key, believing that Lara's father found it and it is now in Lara's
possession. Lara appears to have no knowledge of the key and this
frustrates him. Rutland then attacks her using his sword fragment but Lara subdues him and grabs the
second fragment. She then receives news from Zip and Alister that Amanda raided Croft Manor looking
for the Ghalali Key only moments ago. She offers to return to the Manor to see if they are alright, but
they persuade her to try and beat Amanda to Kazakhstan, the apparent location of the third fragment.
opening) and in its four
pieces that were spread
across the globe.

When Lara arrives in Kazakhstan, she discovers that Rutland's men have taken over a Soviet lab
where experiments on a sword fragment were conducted by the KGB fifty years ago. Lara catches up
with Amanda, who is still bitter about being left to die in Paraso. Lara goes after her and finds her
conducting experiments on the third sword fragment. Amanda is also using the glowing stone she
pulled out of the wall in Paraso to control the unknown entity that attacked them. Lara avoids the
entity since it can not be defeated yet, while she recovers the third sword fragment.
Following a map on the back of a shield (supposedly Lancelot's) also found in the Soviet lab, Lara's
search brings her home to England. She discovers the real King Arthur's tomb hidden under a tacky
and now-derelict King Arthur tourist attraction in Cornwall, along with the final sword fragment. Inside
the tomb, Lara discovers that after Arthur's death, three of his knights - Lancelot, Percival, Galahad
and Bors- took fragments of the sword to locations around the world, while the final fragment was left
with Arthur by Bedivere in the hope of resurrecting the Once and Future King. After slaying a giant sea
serpent that guards the tomb, and a group of mercenaries that have followed her, Lara returns to Croft
Manor to figure out how to put the four sword fragments back together.
Lara realizes that the Ghalali Key was in fact a pendant given by her father to her mother, and that her
mother had it with her when their plane crashed in the Himalayas. Lara returns to the crash site in
Nepal to find the Ghalali Key (it had been in her mother's possession, given by her father to replace a
locket she lost on the Ghana expedition. Lara actually finds the locket in Ghana). After traversing high
ledges to reach the ruins of the plane, she finds the key in the wreckage, then narrowly escapes as the
plane topples over the edge of a cliff. Lara then proceeds, emotionally shaken, to the temple she and
her mother found after the crash. She runs into Rutland's mercenaries, quickly defeats them and enters
the temple to restore Excalibur. She wonders if the dais is still active, but it merely collapses when she
places the sword in the stone.
Lara returns to the stone dais in Bolivia, where Amanda, Rutland and their mercenaries await. Lara
uses Excalibur to kill the mercenaries and inadvertently kills Rutland as well. Amanda rushes over to
him, and he dies in her arms. Lara apologises and tries to patch up the rift with Amanda, suggesting
they use the sword together. Amanda angrily refuses and releases the entity again, this time merging
with it to become more powerful. With the power of Excalibur, Lara defeats the entity and separates it
from Amanda, destroying it this time.
Lara uses Excalibur on the dais to reopen the portal and discovers what happened to her mother. Lara
realizes that the portal spans time and she is seeing her mother moments before she disappears.
Amanda gets up and shouts at Lara to pull out the sword or the dais will explode. Lara's mother hears
this through the portal, pulls out the sword, and the dais explodes. Amanda berates Lara for her
actions: however, Lara is unconcerned, furious at the realisation that Amanda was the one who 'killed'
her mother across time.
Lara fires a hail of bullets around Amanda and places her gun to Amanda's head, threatening to kill her
if she doesn't explain. Amanda states that Lara's mother isn't dead, but in Avalon, where Amanda
herself wanted to go. She hisses that she is wasting her breath, that Lara will never understand. Lara
knocks Amanda out with her pistol, snarling that "From this moment, your every breath is a gift from
me". The game ends as Lara, determined to find answers, tells Zip and Alister they still have much
work ahead of them.

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Locations

[edit]

The locations of Lara's seventh adventure are in order of play:

Tiwanaku, Bolivia - A pre-Incan civilization, currently in ruins. Lara arrives after her colleague Anaya
Imanu mentions a stone dais not dissimilar to the one that made her mother disappear. Lara climbs
through rocky ledges and ruins to find this dais, then meets James Rutland, who hints at knowing
one of Lara's old friends, supposedly dead for years.
Paraso, Peru - Lara meets Anaya in the town square of the small town, but they soon find
themselves under fire by Rutland's mercenaries. After the attack, she takes a motorbike to the old
ruins near Paraso, where years ago, an unknown creature ambushed Lara's amateur
archaeological expedition and killed most of her university colleagues. She returns to find out if the
woman Rutland mentioned, Amanda Evert, survived the slaughter.
Tokyo, Japan - A piece of the sword, stolen from Waseda University, is in the hands of a Yakuza
boss and Lara travels to Tokyo to acquire it. She arrives at a corporate party hosted by her closest
friend in the Japanese Media, then traverses the rooftops of Tokyo to get to the boss's penthouse.
Lara then discovers that the boss, Shogo Takamoto, can use the fragment to obtain supernatural
powers, so she kills Takamoto and takes the fragment from him.
Ghana, Africa - James Rutland is discovered to be on the trail of another sword fragment, in Ghana,
near an archaeological site that Lara's father worked on before he died. Lara follows Rutland and
discovers a temple hidden behind a large waterfall. She finds a pendant that her mother lost on the
expedition. She then confronts Rutland, but spares his life, keeping the sword fragment.
Kazakhstan - Lara's search brings her to an abandoned secret KGB testing facility where
experiments with the sword fragment led to disaster. This level features another motorbike chase
sequence, with Lara racing alongside a train, and ultimately jumping on to it. The train stops at the
facility, where Lara discovers Amanda to be alive and well, and keeping the unknown entity that
attacked the Paraso expedition as her own pet.
Cornwall, England - "As in take the M5 to the A30 Cornwall?" asks Lara dubiously. Lara
investigates an abandoned tacky King Arthur tourist attraction and unearths the catacombs beneath
it which is home to at least one enormous sea serpent and possibly the tomb of the real King Arthur.
Himalayas, Nepal - The artefact that can re-forge Excalibur lies in the plane wreck Lara and her
mother survived. Lara scales the snowy Himalayan heights and revisits the crumbling Buddhist
monastery where her mother disappeared.
Bolivia Redux - The final confrontation takes place between Lara and Amanda, and the truth is
revealed about Amelia Croft's "death".
Croft Manor (training level), England - Croft Manor contains a number of puzzles in the form of
hidden passageways, lyrical codes and concealed switches. This level can be played at anytime for
as long as the player wishes - however the first level, Bolivia, must be completed to unlock the
doors of the manor.

Characters

[edit]

Main article: Tomb Raider characters - Tomb Raider: Legend

Voice cast
Lara Croft Keeley Hawes
Zip Alex Dsert
Alister Fletcher Greg Ellis
Anaya Imanu Melissa Lloyd
Amanda Evert Kath Soucie
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Kent Alastair Duncan

James W. Rutland Jr. Rino Romano
Winston Smith Alan Shearman
Shogo Takamoto Michael Hagiwara
Toru Nishimura Paul Nakauchi
Lady Amelia Croft - ve Karpf
Child Lara Charlotte Asprey

Versions

[edit]

Following the success of Lego Star Wars: The Video Game on the Nintendo GameCube, Eidos
announced their decision to port Tomb Raider: Legend to that platform, marking Lara Croft's first
appearance on a home Nintendo console[1] . Legend is also the first game in the series available on a
Microsoft console: Xbox (and later on the Xbox 360).

Differences between versions

[edit]

The original Xbox version does not include the introduction movie with the opening titles. According to
Xboxic,[2] the manager of the Xbox development team genuinely forgot to include the intro video on
the final build disc when sending it off for the final game testing with Microsoft's Quality Assurance
team. When the mistake was discovered, the QA department told Eidos they would need to resubmit
the game for re-testing from scratch. Due to time restrictions, Eidos chose to release the Xbox version
without the intro movie.
PlayStation Portable players have received some exclusive extras. While the textures and polygon
count were significantly reduced to run on the portable, some new gameplay modes were introduced:
the Tomb Trials, three multiplayer modes and six additional outfits that were not available in any other
version of Legend. The Tomb Trials put the player against a series of traps and acrobatics to be dealt
with before the assigned time is over, based on locations of the regular levels. Note: on the last level,
"Bolivia Redux", the "Natla Industries" crates are not present, and you cannot destroy the statues
scattered around the level.
The Nintendo GameCube version has had a couple of cuts, most likely due to disc space. The rolling
demos that would normally play if the game was left inactive while in the title screen have been
removed, and the Unfortunate Mishaps video is also missing. The game runs at a slightly smoother
framerate than the PlayStation 2 version, and it also loads faster. But at some specific points there are
some noticeable frame rate drops (such as in the train chase, in Kazakhstan). The many filters used for
explosions and motion blur are also gone, rendering the game with sharper textures but less
remarkable explosions.
The Nintendo DS and GBA versions were also released on 14 November 2006. These versions are
different. Despite following the same storyline and featuring all the levels and key moments from the
bigger counterparts, the game is a sidescroller on the GBA. The levels have been broken down into
several smaller segments, probably due to technology limits, and feature a lot more platforming than the
original versions. The progression of the storyline is told via comic-strips during key moments. The
rewards are also present and they unlock simple minigames. Lara also changes outfits in this version,
though she's limited to only three - the regular outfit, the Tokyo dress and the Winter suit.
The PC and Xbox 360 version includes exclusive "next generation effects", which can be toggled on the
PC version. When the next gen effects are off, the game is visually identical to the PlayStation 2 and
GameCube versions of the game.
In the PC version, you can save anywhere but loading a game will just take you back to the last
checkpoint. This was most probably done to facilitate making and porting the game from console to PC,

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shortcuts to accommodate the inherent limitations in consoles.

The Mobile version presents a compressed version of the story, featuring only three levels (Tokyo,
Ghana and England) based on the original levels from the console versions, and has a far more limited
gameplay style. It features, however, three gameplay modes: Corridor Combat, Room Combat and
Platform Exploration.

Demo

[edit]

The PlayStation 2 demo was made available in some regions in the Official PlayStation Magazine, as
well as on Jampack Vol. 14. A PC demo was released on 31 March 2006 and an Xbox 360 demo was
released on Xbox Live Marketplace on 5 April 2006. A downloadable demo was available for the
Nintendo DS via the DS Download Station for a short time.

Reception

[edit]
This section needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced
material may be challenged and removed. (September 2008)

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.

Further information might be found on the talk page. (January 2009)
According to the Metacritic review site, the PC, PS2 and Xbox
versions of Tomb Raider: Legend have met with "generally

Reception

[show]

favorable reviews", [9][10][11] while the DS vesion has met with "mixed or avarage reviews". [12] The
game topped the UK game charts at number 1 and remained there for three weeks. [13] As of 30 June
2007, the game has sold over 3,000,000+ copies worldwide. [14]

Music

[edit]
This section needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced
material may be challenged and removed. (July 2008)

Legend has the longest score of the series. It took

Music info table
nine months for the composing process for four and a
Data
Info
half hours of music, which includes the cinematic
Gaelic,
scores as well as some tracks that were never used General mood
Modern
in the game.
Main composer
Troels Brun Folmann
Legend plays a new kind of music that changes after Main theme
2 minutes and 20 seconds
the actions of Lara. Most of the music is alternative. In-game score
88 tracks/4 hours
The alternative genre was already used before for the
Average track length 2 minutes and 35 seconds
trials of each game and often in the game.
Sometimes the music has small parts of electroniclike orchestra, just like Nathan McCree (and later Peter Connelly) used to compose for the Tomb
Raider games, but instead of recreating the atmosphere of a real orchestra, Troels employs the use of
echoes for the orchestral sounds.
Legend's title track starts off with the first few notes of Lara's original theme used in all of the games
before this one, being played with slight ornamentation on a Middle-Eastern duduk. As this was the
first Tomb Raider game made by Crystal Dynamics, the team was slightly oblivious to the existence of
the Tomb Raider anthem. The theme is heard several times during gameplay, mostly as a background
motif or in a three-note repeating motif that was used in previous Tomb Raider games. The tune and

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the lyrics to the main theme and other musical cues in the game are from a Gaelic folk song named
Ailein duinn by Capercaillie.[citation needed]
In 2006, Troels Folmann was awarded a BAFTA in the category, [15] 'Best original Score' and the
GANG award, 'Music of the Year'.

References

[edit]

1. ^ "Lara Croft Somersaults to GameCube"

. Retrieved on 2007-09-06.

2. ^ Xboxic. "Xbox not getting a Tomb Raider Legend intro"

3. ^ "Famitsu scores"

. Retrieved on 2007-09-06.

4. ^ Miller, Matt. "Tomb Raider: Legend"

. Game Informer. Retrieved on 2009-02-09.

5. ^ Reiner, Andrew. "Tomb Raider: Legend"

. Game Informer. Retrieved on 2009-02-09.

6. ^ Mueller, Greg (2006-04-10). "Tomb Raider: Legend Review"

7. ^ Lopez, Miguel (2006-04-20). "Tomb Raider: Legend (PC)"
8. ^ C. Perry, Douglas (2006-04-05). "Tomb Raider: Legend"
9. ^ "Tomb Raider Legend (pc: 2006): Reviews:"

. GameSpot. Retrieved on 2009-02-09.

. GameSpy. Retrieved on 2009-02-09.

. IGN. Retrieved on 2009-02-09.

. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2009-02-21.

10. ^ "Tomb Raider Legend (ps2: 2006): Reviews:"

. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2009-02-21.

11. ^ "Tomb Raider Legend (xbx: 2006): Reviews:"

. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2009-02-21.

12. ^ "Tomb Raider Legend (ds: 2006): Reviews:"

. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2009-02-21.

13. ^ Tomb Raider Chronicles. "LARA CROFT SCORES THIRD WEEK AT TOP"
14. ^ Tomb Raider Chronicles. "SCI ENTERTAINMENT PLC TRADING UPDATE"
15. ^ IMDb. "Won the BAFTA award"

. Retrieved on 2007-09-08.

. Awards for Troels B. Folmann. www.imdb.com. Retrieved on 2008-04-02.

External links
Tomb Raider: Legend

. Retrieved on 2007-09-06.

[edit]
Official website

v d e

Tomb Raider series

[show]

Categories: 2006 video games | Eidos Interactive games | Game Boy Advance games | GameCube
games | Mobile phone games | Nintendo DS games | Platform games | PlayStation 2 games |
PlayStation Portable games | Tomb Raider series | Windows games | Xbox 360 games | Xbox games
| Arthurian games

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