I Finished TOMB RAIDER LEGEND!!!

This is the first non-PC-version of a Tomb Raider game that I've completed.

I had TOMB RAIDER REVELATIONS on our Sega Saturn, and I lost interest in that one fairly early on.

Never played TOMB RAIDER CHRONICLES.

I have TOMB RAIDER: ANGEL OF DARKNESS for PS2, but the gameplay on that one is really annoying. It's similar to RESIDENT EVIL gameplay, only with RE you're shooting mostly. Somehow it seems to work for RE.

But when I think of TR I think of leaping and swinging and jumping out of the way of boulders and bounding off crumbling bridges and things.

As well as shooting, hehe. :)

But the company that produced TR Legend and TR Anniversary abso-LUTE-ly got the gameplay right!!!

AND I JUST FINISHED THEIR FIST INSTALLMENT!

:D

Originally, I got stuck in Kazakhstan (with the Tesla gun, if you're familiar with the game) and then TR Anniversary came out, and I figured I would end up finishing that one first.

But then I got stuck in the Lost Valley (which surprised me since I've played the original TOMB RAIDER through COUNTLESS times. I mean, yeah, this is a new game, but the levels -- and even the many of the secrets -- pay homage to the original game) and put that down for a while.

Anyway, this last week and a half I've become obsessed with TR Legend, and I've been playing it for an hour or two at a time, until today.

I woke up, finished this week's chapter, then started playing around 4:30 pm. I started at the beginning of Kazakhstan, and I ended up playing through the level!

So I kept going...

And ended up playing through England!!!

By this time it was, like, 11:00 pm and I had had 2 large glasses of coffee and nothing to eat. So I paused the game and made myself some food, took about 5 minutes to digest, then I kept going.

I played through Nepal, dying SEVERAL times because it's a level of trap after trap after trap! You shimmy across an icy ledge and it crumbles just as you're leaping to another ledge, which itself crumbles; but you just barely leap to a path which crumbles beneath you as you run and you get to the end and leap to a pole that you can only swing on once before IT crumbles!

lol

It's really quite exciting. When you get to Nepal you really get a sense that you're at the very end of the game!

But I kept playing, and Brian crashed just before I played it through.

Often when Brian & I are both off, he'll sit and watch the game, chatting with me. It's nice to have conversation reminding me that this is just a game in parts, and it's REALLY COOL to have someone yelling with me when I die or when I JUST BARELY execute a difficult move! It makes it feel more like a sport, lol. Or any action movie.

Brian was in the chair and I was on the couch -- our normal positions when we're both hanging in the living room -- and he woke up while I was just starting Bolivia Redux, the last level. I actually played a bit of that level on my feet, moving from the couch (where Brian sleep) to the chair, lol. :D

Luckily for me, the last level is mostly cut-scenes, and the fighting is very instinctive. I don't know if I could have survived another long, drawn-out, trap-filled level, lol.

And then the game was over and I had WON!!!

:D

YAY ME!!!

I think it will be a while before I get back into TR Anniversary, though, lol.

I think I'll just savor my triumph for a while. ;)

Not that the medium really makes a difference, but it does kind of FEEL different. You know?