Not as good as Legend, but still a fine effort, with a great finish
Last we saw Lara, she claimed Excalibur and saw her mother in Avalon. Now she's off in search of another mythical artifact in hopes of actually finding her mother, in this case the mythical artifact is Thor's hammer. After the brief tutorial level where Lara's manor blows up, the first actual level takes place underwater in the Mediterranean Sea. From there you'll also visit Central American ruins, the Arctic Sea, as well as the fabled place known as Avalon.
In this regard, it sounds great, and although the story only progressed early on via pre & post mission cutscenes, it was pretty good. Its the gameplay where the disappointment stems. Where in Legend, Lara felt very good to control, almost Prince of Persia-like, here in Underworld, she doesn't have that fluid feel. Her platforming animations were pretty canned. Perhaps Uncharted spoiled me with its fluid and realistic animations, but Lara's platforming here was not that good. Seeing her shimmy along ledges and jump to another one, seeing her jumping in shimmy position just looks bad. And it doesn't help that there are a number of graphical glitches, where Lara will get stuck in the environment (happened to me in the tutorial level?!). Not what I was hoping for after the great return in Legend. Otherwise, most of the levels were just okay, they didn't really have a great feel to them that made them really memorable. Not until the last two levels.
The gameplay hasn't changed much at all compared to previous Tomb Raider entries. You'll still engage in some platforming, gunplay combat against random mercenaries or beasts, and puzzle solving. The puzzles here were pretty good (I think the giant Shiva statue was my favorite one), and not all that difficult. The combat was okay, but that's not a big part of the Tomb Raider formula. One other little thing that's missing from Legend is Lara can't pick up weapons anymore. In Legend she picked up guns from fallen enemies, but here in Underworld, she has her pistols like always, but you can just switch here alternate weapon at will, taking away that great realistic touch that Legend had. So while this and the animations are little things, seeing as the previous games had them in, their omissions here are bizarre and upsetting. Still, the gameplay is still the same, and its still fun, although the most fun I had came in the last two levels when you get to wield the mighty Thor's hammer, oh so much fun.
Graphically everything still looks nice. Lara spends alot of time underground here, hence Underworld. But also she spends a decent amount of time underwater, which was very cool. The levels all looked nice and had a good feel to them. Lara also still looks good, and you can still see everything on her digital self, which I really like, since it gives it that touch of reality. The other major characters that show up also look good, as that hasn't changed. On the audio end, the voices for Lara and characters that return from Legend and Anniversary are still voiced well by their respective voice actors. And they still do a fine job.
Honestly, I was disappointed with Underworld until I obtained Thor's Hammer. Being able to use it the last two levels earned Underworld that extra half point. It was still good throughout, but all those little details that were in Legend that are missing here, and were in last year's excellent Uncharted, detract enough for me that I was disappointed with Underworld.
Still, it was a pretty good game with some great moments throughout, especially the last two levels. And while those details annoyed me and took some of my enjoyment away, it may not for everyone. I was disappointed that Tomb Raider: Underworld was a step down from the superior Tomb Raider: Legend. If Lara returns, here's hoping its closer to Legend, as while Underworld was good, it could've been a lot better.