Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel Of Darkness Reviews

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In this day and age, are we as gamers really expected to put up with this level of crap? Possibly the biggest disappointment in the history of videogames since the Sega Saturn, 'Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness' is the first next-gen outing for the intrepid Ms. Croft.

Stuck in development hell for the best part of 2 years, Core and Eidos should be very, VERY ashamed of themselves for allowing such a bug-filled, poorly thought-out piece of software onto the shelves, much less a game with such a rich and popular reputation to live up to.

Put simply, 'Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness' is an absolute dog.

First: The graphics just do not cut the mustard. Granted, the human characters in the Tomb Raider series were never graphically astounding, but here they're just badly done. Textures are pixelated and the frame rate is low. Lara's animations are smooth and her new costumes are diverting, but that's it. Characters like Bouchard and Carvier are not good enough for the PS 2, being underdetailed and very badly animated.

Level design is very substandard for a TR game. And, horror of horrors, there's only one tomb, The rest of the game is like a horrible cross between Metal Gear Solid and a weak RPG, where Lara is forced to run about Parisian streets and warehouses with no real sense of raiding anything.

Second: The control system is an absolute abomination. Lara is just not meant to be analog. Gone is the intuitive quad-style floor layout and now jumps and falls are impossible to judge, the upshot of which is Core have created a game which is insanely easy to beat. Lining up the camera, controlled by the right analog stick, every time you want to make a jump, is just annoying, and the collision detection is ridiculous.

Third: This is such an easy game to beat. Although I should point out, you'd better get to like the phrases 'Overwrite Successful' and 'Load Successful', becuase you'll be seeing them a hell of a lot. Thanks to the ridiculous control system, Saving and Loading happens far more often than is acceptable, and when you do manage to make the jumps and climbs without the control system hampering your every move or the game crashing out (happens a lot, sound and event glitches abound) you wonder what happened to the rest of the level.

A horrible, horrible game that yields no rewards, and will cause great distress to fans of the TR series, 'Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness' is something we should all forget.

Core, never let this happen again.

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Despite all the hype and all the delays, "Tomb Raider: The Angel Of Darkness" turns out to be just a waste of plastic. The game would've been great had the designers taken the time to fix up the unacceptable amount of bugs and glitches, and come up with a new and different style of gameplay.

What do I mean by that? Every single movement Lara makes is animated and much slower than it ought to be. A three-legged dog with one eye could swim through a pool of molasses in less time than it takes Lara to run from one side of a room to another. Not only that, but simple actions like crouching take at least 3 seconds longer than they should. And don't get me started on jumping. Jumping from ledge to ledge is about the only task the developers could come up with for you to do. Apparently, it's the camera's job to make it seem a lot harder than it is. If the camera's turned just slightly to the wrong angle, you might end up doing a side flip to your doom instead of jumping forward.

The puzzles that you come across (rarely), are usually idiotic and unrealistic. At one point in the game, you're asked to get from one side of a room to another, unfortunately the only way the door on the other end will open is if the laser security system is activated. The first thing you should notice is that these lasers are very poorly placed and any real person could easily just step over them or duck under them. Of course, being the tomb raider she is, Lara must use a series of timed run-and-jump moves to get through them, making what would be an extremely easy sequence to get through into a much harder one.

You'll learn early to save all the time. The game is extremely glitchy and freezes up in certain areas, usually when there's lots of things going on at the same time (like when three lights are turned on and there's another guy in the room). Also, since Lara dies inconsistently, you'll never know if that jump to the floor below is too far or not. I found that in certain areas, a ten foot fall to the floor can result in death, while in other places, falling forty feet will only slightly hurt your life bar.

Then there's all those nagging questions. Why is it that setting yourself on fire will slowly drain Lara's health, but stepping into a laser can kill you instantly? How come it takes seven bullets to kill a guy with no body armor? What kind of dog dies after two kicks, but remains alive after being shot several times? What's the point in the stealth mode if you almost never have to use it? In the extras section, why do the game designers claim that '"Tomb Raider" has always set the benchmark for games'? Why does the "Cradle Of Life" movie trailer have such messed up audio? I could go on and on.

In conclusion, all I have to say is that "AOD" was not worth the wait and isn't worth your money. Save it. I hope Eidos decides to speed up the gameplay in the next "Tomb Raider" installment and gets some developers that aren't mental patients to work on it. If not, I won't be buying it.

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Had Eidos bothered to finish Angel of Darkness before they released it, they might've had a halfway decent game. It's certainly lengthy and offers a variety of challenges, even if the gameplay hasn't really advanced much beyond old-school Tomb Raider object-manipulation and shooting really dumb bad guys. (Yes, I know there's a stealth mode. It adds nothing. There's no penalty for being spotted, a la MGS or Splinter Cell, so why not just go ahead and shoot everything in sight?) But even with all the delays, Eidos never managed to fix this game's considerable flaws. Two major areas stand out: control and graphics.

First, the controls. They're terrible. Lining up jumps is awkward, as the game offers only walk and run speeds instead of true gradated analog control. The button layout is confusing-even a simple act like holstering your weapon is difficult, since it's not mapped to an intuitive button-and the manual actually identifies the target-switching button incorrectly (not a small gaffe, since one boss battle requires you to utilize this feature). The inventory screen is a mess, and once again makes simple tasks (say, reloading your weapon) way too complicated. And even when you figure out how to move and fight properly, Lara still seems to move too slow... and that's without the game-crippling slowdown you'll periodically encounter.

And that brings me to the matter of the graphics. First, those who consider these graphics "good" simply haven't played any real state-of-the-art PS2 games. The textures are repetitive and drab, character motion lacks smoothness, and there's little use of lighting to speak of. The cut-scenes are even worse-just compare with Silent Hill 3 (yes, the full game's not out, but all you need is the demo to get the picture), with its phenomenally expressive characters, to see how badly Eidos has mangled AoD's story sequences. But the in-game graphics are just blah; it's the slowdown that's inexcusable. It occurs even when there shouldn't be anywhere enough on screen to cause it-such as the end of the first level, where all you've got is rain falling and a door to enter. Never mind that no console game should experience slowdown anyway, if the designers truly know the hardware; why does it happen with so little going on?

There's simply no excuse for Eidos to release such an obviously unfinished product, after so many release date changes, and charge full price for it. It's glitch-ridden, it controls badly, and its gameplay is about three years out of date (at least). Rent it if you're curious, or believe it can't possibly be that bad; but save your purchasing cash for a game that truly deserves it. With Silent Hill 3 only a month away, there's no reason to waste money on AoD.

Honest reviews on Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel Of Darkness

I've played all of the Tomb Raider games but Chronicles. AOD should satisfy any fan, despite all of the criticism that you read. It takes a little while to get used to the looks and feel of the new game, which kicks into high gear once you get out of the Paris Ghetto. As for the controls, yes they do take a while to get used to, but you do get used to them. Some people mention that they cannot step sideways or back to set-up a running jump: read the instructions, it's there, stop whinning.

Here is a list of the positives and negatives that I have encountered, and some things that I would have liked to see in AOD.

Positives:

1) The graphics are great, including Lara herself, with even some jiggling you-know-where.

2) The story line is a great combination of the first movie and the previous games, mixing murder plot and traditional site exploring.

3) New moves like peaking around the corner and sneaking up on people.

Negatives:

1) The game slows down in certain places. Really annoying.

2) The controls are not responsive enough.

Some things I miss:

1) The mansion.

2) Lara saying 'u-huh' when she finds something.

3) She loses some of her English accent. It's there, but it's really light.

4) I would have preferred a greater variety of sites to explore, including outdoors. Instead, it's really Paris and Prague (so far).

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Quite a few players out there rate the games on the graphics and pixels and grids... whatever. I am a gamer in it to get lost. Tomb Raider was always a fun series to play and that is what I enjoyed. The scenery was cool in past games with the suspense hidden in the walls themselves, not in evil underworld-serial-killers-with-a-secret. She used to fight against the past, not current bad guys hinged on the promise of past treasures.

Alright, basically Lara has gone to the dark side (sorry Anakin) and it makes you cringe to go around corners. She's lost her edge and has fallen into the role of a victim running from someone in her quest for the truth, instead of the quest simply being the drive itself. I miss the rainforest and the underground tombs. I miss walking into a movie sequence that unleashes a broad new visual that is haunting yet intriguing. Lara is smart, sassy, and strong. Eidos and Core don't need mutilated "angels" to bring Lara back to life. Remember her purpose and let that be their guide. As for now, skip this one. She is not the Lara she used to be.