I used to love the Tomb Raider series, but the modern reboot had convinced me that I just grew out of the series, that it was just an artifact of my undeveloped adolescent tastes. Having returned to the classic games, no, it turns out I love old Tomb Raider every bit as much as I remembered. While Legend has much shorter, simpler levels than the rest of the series, its brisk pace and breezy action sequences keep you running from one puzzle room to the next.

This iteration of Lara is endlessly cool, and her chatter with her boyfriends is very charming; one segment that just consisted of some light platforming and friendly clowning on one another convinced me I'd buy a game of nothing but that. The plot is the kind of lightly pulpy, mildly Indiana Jones-inspired fare that I wouldn't normally be very interested in, and yet it's exactly right to mix with the gameplay.