Drakan: The Ancient's Gate (PS2)

It took a while, but we may finally have the game that Tomb Raider should have evolved into. Drakan, a sequel to a PC game from a few years back, is about a tough warrior chick and her partner in medieval crime fighting. The catch is that her partner is a giant dragon.

You'll travel all over the planet on various sword & sorcery quests, and even have a chance to follow up on tons of optional side-missions. Combat and control is very Tomb Raider like, but for a 3rd-person action adventure game, that's not a bad model to follow.

One of the highlights of the game is the absolutely vast environments you'll travel through. For the most part, you can go almost anywhere and interact with a lot of people and objects. When you're riding your dragon, you can even fly up and reach areas that are inaccessible on foot. However, with all this freedom, you can sometimes get stuck trying to figure out where to go next. Occasionally, you'll end up hunting around on dragon-back trying to find the correct cave to enter.

After a while, the exploration gives way to somewhat repetitive dungeon crawls, but you'll find yourself muddling through just to see the next land you travel to, giving you several new square miles of land to explore. Rynn's a no-nonsense heroine, who manages to fight evil without dressing like a hoochie-mamma. Good for her! --SV

SCORE: 8.5