They must think we're stupid
User Rating: 3 | Tomb Raider: Underworld PS2
I have played and beat every Tomb Raider game, and played the first three complete at least a dozen times.. I am writing this review as a message of disappointment. I don't own a PS3 and playing TR:Underworld makes you feel really bad for owning a PS2. Why spend money and time releasing a practically unplayable, bland and ugly port for the PS2 when more work could have gone into the PS3 and Microsoft versions. Well.. Lets go through it then. First I cant believe how shortsighted and simplified this game has become. They should have released the PS2 version with no guns, Enemies do less then ever before, and they've actually made shooting less amusing than the Angel of Darkness release. They even have lara do this supermario jump-flip-crush move so idiots dont get bored. Why the grenades? What are they for? I hope the person whom decided picking up ammo, health-packs, save-points and such was too hard for us already lost their job. The infinite ammo, health and empty running in the game is mind-blowingly dumb. The only thing that really hurts you are mistakes.. Like jumping into green glowing death for the first time or the cr.@p control scheme screwing you over and over and over. The lag in this game is so bad you'd think you were playing on a PS1; No, PS1 games were better.. Everything from the frame-rate jumping down to those stuttering 10-15 fps moments, (the game becomes unplayable under the widescreen setting), welcome back the Angel of Darkness - like lack of control of lara, *all* of your controller actions happen with lag, dont try to do anything fancy like jump in a direction, because she wont do it. Remember how Pre-rendered cut scenes used to make in-game PS1 graphics look bad? Well, the look is back. Way back.. I dont even want to talk about it. Horrible.. All the objects in the game are horribly placed, starting with the secrets.. More than half of them are right in your path, like right there, no secret. There are a few keys, but the maps are so simple that they aren't interesting. Then you have the enemies, static detached from the.. Oh, its bad. The motorcycle sucks. L1 go, L2 Sudden reverse? No. Play some Gran Turismo.. Or any other game with vehicles. And those linear paths artificially cut through maps just for the bike? Makes you stop wanting to play videogames. The Maps and Environments.. Why are the maps so simple? What happened to mazes and complex puzzles and Maps with multiple paths? they must think we're stupid. All of those people who hate Tomb Raider because you get lost in it? Finally got their wish.. You can't leave the path of the game at all, you can't fall more than twenty feet without dying, Lara doesnt jump *up* anymore, she wont grab or land or get to anything outside of the paths and ledges proposed by the game. Don't worry, they didn't create much to explore anyway. The maps are damn empty, and any chance you see outside of the map its back to more empty. The Environments and textures are blander than any game I have ever seen for the PS2.. Very TR1 like.. Thats not good. They were able to add a select few high resolution textures throughout the game, but it clashes with the pixelation of the lower res textures, and viola.. Also glowing plasma and an attempt at anti-aliasing? Or maybe its fog fuzz.. Yep. *fog fuzz*.. They got lara down.. Oh yea.. Sure did.. Already had though.. Still with that doll model death sprawl though.. And they turned her model actions from sexy sure woman to sexy ditz? Why? She was too smart and science anthropologist type before? Bored? They released it for the PS2 (half a year late?) and its really bad. Anniversary was one of the best ideas the people running TR ever had, I wish more companies had the vision for ideas like that, and as far as PS2 as a platform TR:Legend was great. I enjoyed the idea of playing another TR game but for some reason TR:Underworld is for dummys.. Or TR 101? No, there is nothing to learn in this one, it doesnt allow you to.. Worse than Angel of Darkness because it never should have been that bad in the first place.
