At a recent press event in NYC, Microsoft rolled out a bunch of upcoming Xbox 360 titles, and aside from Oblivion, which is just spectacular, no other game impressed me as much as Eidos and Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider Legend. I never thought that I'd say something like that considering the debacle that is the Tomb Raider franchise, but with most things with life, there's always an opportunity to turn things around for the better, and if my 25 minutes with Lara is anything to go by, Eidos is headed in the right direction.

The primary reason why I thoroughly enjoyed my play session is because Tomb Raider Legend feels very much like the very first game in the series. Miss Croft definitely has some new tricks up her sleeve, yet at the same time, Crystal Dynamics hasn't strayed far from what made the 1997 original game so immensely entertaining. The experience wasn't memorable because I got to shoot bad guys in the face 300 times before they died, but rather, it was the puzzles and the environments that instantly hooked me. In that game, there's giant water falls, huge drops, tombs, caverns, and other fascinating places, and the puzzles, while archaic by today's standards, truly take some effort (as well as a little brain power) to solve, and that's the same exact feeling that I get from playing Tomb Raider Legend. Some of its puzzles are still outdated, and many of the bad guys, at least the ones that I have seen, have the same exact face, but they're not the focus. Shooting is one of Tomb Raider's faces, but it's not the game's finest ingredient.

There was really no one to help me get through this particular section of the game, so I'm going to just guess that it was the fabled Bolivia stage that's been making its way around the demo disk circuit. Basically, Lara's dropped into this humongous jungle, one that's been lovingly decorated with vines, giant rocks, an diverse array of lush, green foliage, a waterfall that empties into the clouds (that's how high up she is), plenty of shiny, gold artifacts, and dead tree branches, boulders, and gushing rapids, which are truly hypnotizing because of how Crystal Dynamics has animated the water.

No sooner did I take a single step in this paradise did the in game tutorial kick in, but it's in no way invasive and played out, and because I'm a Tomb Raider veteran, I find the controls to be extremely user friendly. Bottom line, this game is very easy to pick up because it, much like simple platform titles, features easy to learn controls that, once mastered (and it only takes a few seconds) become second nature. You can lock onto targets with the Left Trigger, maneuver Lara with the Left Analog Stick, manipulate the camera with the Right Analog Stick, shoot with the Right Trigger, interact with things by tapping Y, crouch and/roll with B, jump with A, and grapple with X, and for the most part, that's all you need to know. Plus, if you're familiar with the Tomb Raider games, you'll immediately catch on to what the developers want you to do.

Obviously, if you climb up onto a ledge and come face to face with a vine, then logic should denote that you should run towards it and leap off the cliff, and doing so will cause Lara to automatically grab it. Then, you can just build momentum by pressing up and down on the Left Analog Stick, and when she's really swaying back and forth you time your jump and she'll make it (in theory) to the other side of the chasm. Not exactly complex mechanics, nor are the controls needed to solving puzzles. Push this rock off this cliff, hit that switch. It's stuff that I've seen before in hundreds of other games, yet, because Legend feels so much like the first couple Tomb Raider games, it comes off feeling retro and cool, if that makes any sense. Upon playing it for a few moments, my reaction wasn't "Damn, it's another cookie cutter Tomb Raider game", but rather, "Wow, this game really takes me back to all those fun experiences I had in 97." It evokes that kind of vibe, especially when Lara whips out her pistols and just starts riddling enemies with bullets. Her signature hand guns (she dual wields, of course) have infinite ammo, and not having to worrying about slapping in fresh clips makes the game even more enjoyable to me.

That's not to say that that's all there is to the game, because it most certainly isn't. There's going to be sequences where she rides a motorcycle, repels down buildings, and spies on enemies using a pair of high tech binoculars which come with night vision. There's also (from what I've heard) bullet time sequences. Not exactly sure how that'll effect gameplay or whether Crystal Dynamics has successfully pulled it off, but Tomb Raider Legend appears to be a melting pot of fun gameplay ideas anyway, so I'm confident that it'll be entertaining.

What first attracted me to Tomb Raider Legend, before I even picked up the controller, were its visuals. It's an absolutely gorgeous game, as I hope you surmised from my brief jungle description. The way the sunlight bounces off the water and the grass, the mist that calmly rises from the water fall, Lara's enormous boobs (indeed, they're enhanced, round, and impossible to miss) all look spectacular. The fact that some of the enemies look exactly the same is a little bothersome, and Crystal Dynamics seem to be going a bit overboard with the bloom lighting, a little too Far Cry-ish, and that's all right. But the water... the way it pitches and rolls... is captivating. It sucks that it's not affected by Lara's body (her legs move effortlessly through it like it's not there), but I still approve of the overall effect.

So here's a scenario that I never expected to face: As a gamer who's become a bit disenchanted with today's videogames, the ones that ask players to navigate enormous environments, solve mind bending puzzles, and trick them into getting lost for over an hour, Tomb Raider Legend is on my must buy list. I'm that impressed by it, and right now, I'm hungering for more. Of course, the overall game could turn out to be one huge pile of garbage and that would be an upsetting discovery, but for now, I'm happy to swim in what little hype the game's generated and believe that it's going to be an incredible experience. It's just up to Eidos and Crystal Dynamics to meet me half way.