In many ways this is Tomb Raider 1 to 3, but played out on a much larger, more beautiful stage.Ĭombat is the game’s weakest point. Lara can now ‘freeclimb’ but this freedom is restricted to clearly designated surfaces, and while there are a few more tricks with poles and beams these are nothing really to write home about. Nonetheless, this is very much a game of jumping from surface to surface, swinging from or clambering on poles and dangling from things by the very tips of Lara’s fingers. True, the grappling hook from Anniversary is more flexible and useful. Sure, Lara is now more responsive and controllable. While Legend’s physics-based puzzles make a welcome return, the core gameplay is classic Tomb Raider, played very straight. It’s built as if Crystal Dynamics had looked at what people loved about Anniversary (the old mix of platforming and puzzle solving) and loathed about Legend (the forced action scenes, boss battles and quick-time event sequences) and decided that it was better to look backwards for inspiration than move forwards. Yet beneath this surface gloss – beneath a modern interface and some genuinely useful in-game help functions – this is an oddly conservative Tomb Raider. At their best, the lighting and weather effects are impressive, and you have to love cinematic touches like startled parrots or the damp walls in ancient, dank crypts. These are huge, sprawling temples, offering spectacular vistas of crumbling stone and lush, green vegetation, matching the high standards set in this area by Uncharted. We’ll generously sweep past a woefully generic freighter and the interior of Croft Manor, and instead talk about the temples, tombs and ruins in Thailand and Mexico that follow. The environments, meanwhile, can be dazzling. This isn’t photorealism in the Crysis style, but it is a thoroughly convincing fantasy.
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This is also reflected in small, surface details, like the way Lara’s clothes and skin get covered with grime as she adventures in dirty or muddy places, or get wet when there’s rain or water involved. It’s easy to believe that the team motion-captured an Olympic gymnast for Lara’s movements every motion looks impressively natural and the animation seems to crib from Naughty Dog’s Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune in that her interaction with the environment, down to little trips and stumbles, seems more real. Where there has been effort to make Lara more lifelike, it’s all in the details and animation. Crystal Dynamics seems to have abandoned earlier efforts to make Lara look more realistic and gone instead for a style that brings the unfeasibly breasted model of old up to date. Visually, Underworld is a confident step on from Legend and Anniversary. The game still has its peaks and valleys in the hours that follow, but give it time and this is another fine adventure for our heroine.
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Subsequent levels are among the biggest, best and most ambitious in the series and that old Tomb Raider feeling is back in spades. Then the action moves to Thailand and things perk up considerably. This hideous thought springs up: they brought Lara back, only to blow it all now. The levels that come after – particularly a combat heavy section pitting Lara up against a crew of poorly modelled, pitifully stupid henchmen – are downright awful. What follows in an undersea temple is solid Tomb Raider fare, but hardly incredible. The opening tutorial is clumsy and the following underwater sequence in the Med unexciting. The opening hours of Tomb Raider: Underworld contain stretches that leave you wondering whether Lara’s fortunes really are in capable hands, or whether the game has been rushed out for release. Well, as with any good rollercoaster, the biggest, scariest drop is right at the start. With a few reservations, most of us saw Tomb Raider: Legend as a welcome return to form, while Tomb Raider: Anniversary – though intensely frustrating at times – proved that the team at Crystal Dynamics fully understood what made the series tick, and had what it took to take Lara forward. Croft’s reputation is higher than it’s been at any time since her late 90s heyday.
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”’Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, Wii, PC – Xbox 360 version reviewed.”’įor anyone who has followed Lara’s exploits since the original Tomb Raider made its debut, Underworld is going to be a bit of a rollercoaster ride.