Editor's Say - "Decent" "The first lady of gaming returns... again" Find out what i thought...
Tomb Raider Underworld review by Simon a.k.a. [TheDevilDweller]
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*****Introduction*****
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The Good:
The Visuals
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The Bad:
Bad Camera - Controls - Too Easy - Brushed to the side
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Well, Eidos did it again, and that's not meant in a good way. Lara Croft, the first lady of gaming returns "again" in Tomb Raider Underworld. While the graphics and Lara Croft herself, one of the most well known game characters of all time, may look great, Underworld suffers from lots of problems that make the game more frustrating than it should have been. Poor controls and awful camera views that make Underworld less appealing then it could have been.
While Underworld may be the worst in the series (not including "The Angel of Darkness"), you'll probably find yourself thinking, how could Underworld be less more appealing than Legend, and Anniversary, both in which where good titles. Underworld falls somewhat out of track to the original Tomb Raider greatness, but it's still a good game… in some aspects.
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*****The Plot*****
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Story:
The story continues form Tomb Raider Legend, but as the game starts you'll find yourself running for you're life as your home (Lara's Mansion) has been attacked and engulfed in flames, and you're companions have less trust in you. Before you know what the hell is going on, you are taken one week back into the pass, where in which the game really begins. Much like other Tomb Raider games, Lara travels to different locations in search of artefacts, which later leads to her saving the world from someone trying to use the specific "artefact" for evil. The story in Underworld does start so really well, but as it near the end (or even the middle) the story gets uninteresting and just loses it's appeal.
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*****The Graphics*****
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Overall Design:
The visual designs are great, but the two main aspects of the graphics are the environments and Lara herself. While everything else does look great, Lara and the overall environments steal the show. There are three different environment themes, underwater, jungle and temples, each beautifully modelled and rendered. Some textures and lighting effects can be slightly of when up close but the overall look of the game is great. The main focus in Tomb Raider (including the environments) is the way Lara looks. Lara is just a beautiful and as attractive as always, but you can help but think that Lara much show her age by now? Great facial expressions both in cut scenes and game-play, great animation and great skin manipulation Just like in Tomb Raider Legend and Anniversary where Lara's skin textures will change from ether being wet, sweaty and or muddy, both on her actually skin and on her cloth, which works very well and looks great. While everything does look great, that can't be said for most of the enemies in the game who suffer from poor animation and overall modelling and texturing, but it's not too big a deal to hold back the visuals in anyway.
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*****The Game-Play*****
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Game-Play:
Underworld's biggest problem is not so much the game-play itself, but rather with the controls, camera views, mechanics and physics. Tomb Raider is an adventure platforming game and always has been, which has worked well for the series to a certain aspect and has the potential to be great, but sadly not with Underworld. Unlike in previous Tomb Raider games where you hold a button while you jump, which causes Lara to grab hold of a ledge, in Underworld Lara automatically grabs the ledge for you, which does sound good but sometime you'll have problems with her actually grabbing a specific ledge. Lara can be one frustrating character to control. Sometimes she'll grab, climb and jump with easy and other times, she's completely unresponsive, which will probably cause half of your death counts in the game. Most of the time, Lara may get stuck on objects for a brief moment, which can be a real nuisance.
The most annoying and frustrating aspect of Tomb Raider Underworld is the camera views. Unlike previous Tomb Raider titles, the camera views in Underworld can be very annoying particularly when your on a ledge and can't move the camera round far enough to see if there's a ledge behind you that you can grab, causing you to ether backtrack on yourself and them finding out that yes, there is a ledge there, or taking a lucky guess, which may cause you to fall to your death. That kind of thing does happen in previous Tomb Raider games, but not as bad. The camera views may also make you feel nauseous sometimes, due to the camera occasionally spinning out of control, jerking, stuttering and changing its position once to often that can cause disruption to the game-play, which happens a lot especially when in linear areas. Sometimes the camera will zoom out for you to get a better look at your surrounding and show you the way your supposed to be going, but other time the camera tends to zoom really close to Lara making it hard to see and navigate. While Lara is very attractive and it is great in seeing "parts" of her up close, it can be very annoying when in linear area and when fighting enemies. Another problem with the camera view is, due to the camera changing it's views and constantly getting stuck and rotating around, it can sometime put you of your track, especially with the environment looking so much the same, that sometime you'll find yourself heading back the way you came thinking your going the right way, which is irritating. While the environments in Underworld do look great, it can be very misleading and inconsistent, which make it quite hard to see what Lara can grab on to and what she can't. Some ledges can be grabbed and others can't which can also make the game and the environments confusing, and may cause frustration.
The combat is varied throughout Underworld but they may not really be as satisfying as they where in previous Tomb Raider games. There really isn't much with the combat system in Underworld, and is not really exciting. There are only a handful of different types of enemies in the game and they're varied depending where you are. Underwater you'll fight sharks. In the jungle you'll fight tigers, bats and so on. There are also mercenaries and ancient creatures to fight as well. Enemies come from all angles and most of the time attack together. While Lara does automatically aim at any enemy in the game, more often than none she'll aim at enemies furthest away, rather than the ones attacking or closest to you. Lara can shoot her enemies with perfect aiming even when she's jumping all over the place. Lara will not stop shooting, no matter what acrobatic move your doing unless you take your finger on the fire button, which makes the game quite easy. Most of the enemies in the game can be rather easy to kill, for instance animals. Hanging of a ledge will make most of your enemies unable to reach you, and easy for you to shoot them, which can make the combat game-play less fun. Bats can be really annoying, especially when platforming. You may find yourself somewhere high minding your own business looking around to find the next ledge you can jump at, when you get attacked by bats sending you falling to your death. Most of the enemies in the game take way to many bullets to kill i.e. mercenaries and human enemies. Lara can perform one hit kill by using her adrenaline attack much like in Anniversary, where Lara will jump of a specific enemy in slow motion giving you the chance to move the crosshair and perform a headshot.
At the start of every level you have a selection of weapons, which stay with you the entire game, and there is no additional weapons to use and find. You start with a considerable amount of ammunition for each weapon and that's all you get for each level. You cannot pick up more ammo throughout the game, but the amount of ammunition you get at the start of every level is by far more than enough for you to go through the level against your enemies with ease. Once you finish the level and move on to the next, you are granted with full ammunition again, which make the game even easier. Items you gain, i.e. health packs for some reason do not carry on to the next level, which can be misleading.
You will die a lot in Underworld, not because its difficult, not because the enemies take so many bullets to kill, but because most of your deaths will be caused by self continuation of attempting to jump somewhere only to discover that… no, Lara can grab that ledge, which happens a lot more than it should. Lara dies way to easy in the game as well. More than a few times you'll find yourself dieing or losing a considerable amount of health from drops and jumps that your grandmother could easily do, i.e. purposely dropping down or jumping down to get to a lower platform.
Throughout the game, you'll get the opportunity to riding Lara's motorbike, which is probably one of the most looked forward things in Tomb Raider, but in underworld, it's not as satisfying. Her bike can be cowered to control, especially when you're diving in narrow linear areas and turning corners.
Naturally like other Tomb Raider games, they are puzzles to solve. The puzzles in Underworld are good and most in which can be challenging, but some are obvious.
The overall game-play is good and in time you'll get used to the problems with it, but if you can, your first playthrough could very well be unsatisfying.
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*****The Sound*****
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Sound Design:
The sound-effect are not bad and the voice acting is pretty good, much like in Legend and Anniversary.
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*****Life Value*****
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Lifespan / Replay Value:
Tomb Raider Underworld is perhaps the shortest game in the series. It will probably take you about 8 hours to finish the game on your first playthrough, but after you finish the game and you get used to the controls and you know what your doing, Tomb Raider Underworld can be finished in about 4 to 5 hours.
The replay value is poor for a Tomb Raider game. After finishing the game, you'll unlock treasures hunt, which allows you to play through a selected level and hunt for treasures and relics, plus there are trophies to collect for all you trophy whores out there, which are rather easy.
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*****Editor's Final Thought*****
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Overall, Tomb Raider Underworld may be an easy game, but it is a good game. Not the best in the series, but it's way better than Angel of Darkness, which is good enough for me. The only problem with the game is the camera views, and controls. Underworld could have been a great game if it was not due to the problems with the game-play aspects. My favourite and most memorable moments in the game are underwater. The first level consists of you swimming underwater, which is nicely done and being underwater is the only time the controls actually feel quite good. Camera views still get in the way a few time, but not as much as on land. I'm a fan of the Tomb Raider series and I myself found the game quite good, putting aside the problems the game suffered from. I would recommend Underworld to any Tomb Raider fan. If you are new to Tomb Raider and for whatever reason you don't want to play the classic old Tomb Raider's, I would recommend that you start with Anniversary, and then work your way through Legend, then Underworld. If you're looking for a great adventure game, again… Tomb Raider Anniversary, or Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, which is far superior.
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*****FINAL OVERALL SCORE*****
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Story - 5.5/10
Online Multiplayer - N/A
Life Value - 6.5/10
Presentation - 5/10
Graphics - 8/10
Atmosphere - 8/10
Game-Play - 7.5/10
Controls - 6/10
Sound Effects - 6.5/10
Concept - 6/10
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***** EDITOR'S OVERALL THOUGHT SCROE: 7/10 *****
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Tomb Raider Underworld review by Simon a.k.a. [TheDevilDweller]
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