Lara on the 360 -- a gleam of hope

You can see my review of "Legend" just a few posts back, so I'll confine this post to how the 360 version fares in comparison.

After my last few posts reading the riot act to Microsoft for the pitiful debut of the 360, I'm very happy to say that it gains some ground in my estimation with "Tomb Raider: Legend". Where "Project Gotham" is almost completely devoid of any noticeable graphical improvements, it's very easy to see the TRL takes advantage of the increased power for the most part. Oddly, only Lara herself (and any other human) lacks the same leap forward in appearance to her last-gen counterparts and the PC.

Yes, Lara isn't much better looking on the 360 than on the original Xbox, at least from a texture, and animation standpoint, though that does make up the bulk of the visual effect. The one thing that helps boost her appearance noticeably, and this only now and then, is the improved lighting effects we see on the 360, like when it's reflecting off a pool of water or a dark, slimy, interior ruin wall. When she's out and about in fairly normal lighting, she doesn't really look all that different from the other versions.

What's really odd, though, is that her "normal" appearance, without the extra environmental help, is actually even a bit worse, particularly in the face and "wet skin" departments. Her face seems just a little screwy on the 360 for some reason. Her face is positively gorgeous from any angle in the other versions, but you wont be too keen on holding a close-up on the 360, particularly when she has wet skin.

When she gets out of the water or out from under a waterfall, the water on her skin, while convincing on the other versions, looks just plain streaky on the 360 -- sort of like a subtle version of someone's mascara running, only here, the effect is on every bit of bare skin, and decidedly unattractive.

So, Lara on the old consoles has a bit of an edge in appearance, but where the 360 really shines on this game is the environments. Stone walls, boulders, grass, cliffs, ruins, any inanimate object gets a very respectable boost in realism in both textures and lighting. Vines, ropes, limbs -- there's no head-scratching here, as with "Project Gotham" -- the improvement is clear and undeniable. Water, whether still, running, or falling, looks fantastic -- perhaps not quite as real in some effects (like the secondary ripples when Lara is treading water) as one might expect, but overall, quite satisfying.

The last really irritating thing I'll mention is that I found it practically impossible to keep the game from being too shiny and washed out no matter how I tweaked either the 360's or my TV's settings. It's most certainly the fault of the game, because I've never had anything close to this kind of problem on any game of any of my consoles including the 360. Also, there are some glitchy sort of "shimmering" artifacts that are particularly noticeable if you swing the camera around to a closeup of Lara that you wont see in the other console versions.

Despite these flaws, for anyone wondering about a great first game for their 360, my best recommendation would be "Tomb Raider: Legend". It's a nice, even if yet modest graphical intro to the 360 that separates itself nicely, even if only selectively, from the last-gens. The environments can't be beat, but if you want a lot of close-ups of Lara, to see her face at her best, get any of the other versions.

If you're an RPG fan, you shouldn't really be without "Elder Scrolls IV" either, but as crazy as this may sound to those who've played ES4, I actually got a bit more enjoyment from the graphic achievements in TRL. ES4 is no slouch graphically, despite the very freaky look of almost any human in the game, and if you're mourning the all too poignant brevity of TRL, then ES4 should chew up quite a good chunk of your leftover time.