I just got done with Tomb Raider: Legend this very moment. When I say “done” I don’t necessarily mean “finished.” You see it’s not that this game is bad it just falls in the same category so many other games fall into from the past: Fun for three hours followed by the feeling of doing this before three hours ago and then the game decides it wants to ramp up the frustration level because maybe that would be fun. Sure this kind of masochistic game play might be fun for some but for most it’s an excuse to stop playing and all too often reminds the player that they’re playing a game. Mechanics start to rear their ugly heads, pretty soon you see how the game limits you and you stop enjoying the game and just want to move on to the next level to get the game over with. Unfortunately in a game such as this the difficulty will often make you want to execute bloody murder on your controller and live out your youth as you scream at it “Can’t we just move on?” Today I reached this level on Tomb Raider. The story is pretty good for this series but man after the same fight with a hydra of some sort the game became a chore I no longer had any want to continue. All the fun I had days before turned into loathing. Bugs made the hydra even harder to fight and it wasn’t a factor of good Artificial Intelligence just poor programming. I felt as if I had wasted 5 hours of my life and 2 weeks of my gamefly subscription that I could have been enjoying with a different game. What is it about game designers that make them feel as if insanely unfair challenges are what gamers above the age of 10 want? With all the fun this game could have been and the story I now feel as if I’m missing out on I just wish someone would have taken another pass at levels like these and realized that the days of an unfair game are no longer accepted as fun. So thank you Tomb Raider: Legend for reminding me what a good game is and that I shouldn’t have to put up with the abuse of my gaming happiness due to bad game design. Thank you and I hope you get it right eventually….
