Field Notes
As fun as the title sounds thus far, it’s not without its faults. While it's a huge step forward for the Tomb Raider titles, it doesn't do anything radically new that other titles such as Prince of Persia, Beyond Good and Evil, or Everything or Nothing have already demonstrated. That might be a good thing, since many of those gameplay concepts helped to make those titles accessible and entertaining at the same time. Just don't expect Legend to turn the world upside down.

On a more technical note, there were a few things that stood out during gameplay that weren't so great. One gripe I have is in the delay in loading saves and restarting from the last checkpoint. Even if it was only a few minutes from where you had died, it felt as if the game loaded up the entire level just to get you back to where you were a few paces ago.

While the narrative itself is a welcome advancement of the Tomb Raider story, there were moments in the game where there was the occasional continuity gaffe. At one point, your friends get in trouble and seemingly drop off from contact...yet when you use your binoculars to scan items in the background to see where you need to go, you'll hear them as if they're just fine. There was also one instance of where I had tripped some dialogue from Zip, but when I backtracked and then reached that certain point again, heard the dialogue repeat itself. This happened several times to repeat effect, as I tested it. It was odd, but considering how well polished the rest of the title felt, I was surprised to hear this.

One strange bug that stopped me cold was when I found myself stuck between a floating raft and a wall. Somehow, I was trapped as the raft bounced against Lara's feet when she should be falling off of it into the water only to end up stuck against the wall she was next to. As a result, she was pretty much trapped there, caught in an infinite "falling" spiral until I reloaded from a previous save.

But perhaps the greatest criticism that I can level against Legend is its relatively short play time. On the default difficulty, most gamers can probably expect seven to eight hours total to get through the main game. Although the inclusion of extras such as Croft's Manor and the hidden artifacts that you can try to find during the main game to unlock bonuses and achievements for your 360 can help keep the game fresh, there's not a whole lot else to do outside of that once the main story is finished.