I started playing Tomb Raider: Legend last night. I had only played through the first level before I was side-tracked by Condemned. In fact, I’ve still only played through the first level. Legend has a very interesting feature called Croft Manor.
As the name implies, this lets you wander around Lara’s crib. Basically it’s a little sandbox in which to play around. There’s a pool, a library, Lara’s room, and a gym—complete with all kinds of climbing walls, poles, bars, platforms, you name it. It’s fun to just run around freely with no constraints, but this mode also has lots of secrets and rewards to find. It’s basically a minigame in and of itself, in which you try to uncover all the secrets of the mansion. It’s actually very addicting, solving one puzzle and then moving on to the next. The experience is especially interesting since you’ll end up solving many of the puzzles without Lara’s new puzzle solving binoculars. I’m not making that up. She has binoculars that identify elements of puzzles. For instance, point them at a box and Lara will announce, “I can move that.” Anyway, I hope the puzzles in the game are as well crafted as the puzzles in Croft Manor. I found it very engaging.