Tomb Raider: Underworld is another decent -if not outstanding -installment of the Lara Croft series. The game picks up sometime after the events of Legend, and makes an attempt to tie-up the story. The developers have made an attempt to make this the first Tomb Raider game for the current generation of consoles, and for the most part, they have delivered.
As a Tomb Raider experience, this showing is similar to past games. All of Lara's classic moves are in the game, and the controls are relatively familiar. There are some new moves, such as the adrenaline headshot, which requires you to build-up adrenaline through combat before executing the move. It is effective against humans and animals, but not so much against other enemies you encounter later in the game. There is also a new "adrenaline moment" move, in which the on-screen action slows and you must decide how you want to handle the situation -there's no sequence of buttons to press, and no right or wrong way of doing things. However, I found that these moves were scattered widely throughout the game, and weren't as plentiful or as exciting as the developers had hyped them. The wall climb is another new move, which is well designed and makes you think a little more about how to get to higher ground -you don't necessarily need to look for ledges. In fact, Lara can now climb rock faces as well, so this game tends to mix-it-up for long-time fans. Additionally, in order to find treasures, Lara must break open clay jars -which is somewhat new but also counter-intuitive if Lara values artifacts. Lara's movements are a little more acrobatic, and sometimes her stance just doesn't seem right.
The camera remains the biggest problem in this game, as it had been in both Legend and Anniversary. You simply learn to cope with it, and fortunately it is never a game-breaker. There are "invisible walls", which are areas of a map that Lara can't pass. There are moments when Lara can get stuck in a corner, or simply stuck in the scenery -I encountered several issues where her feet were apparently caught on a rock or a plant. By contrast, although enemies are persistent in this game when you kill them (bodies don't disappear), Lara's feet pass right through them -as if they're vapor. Enemies have no physics at all once they are dead. From an A.I. perspective, the enemies are fairly non-responsive and very easy to defeat.
The game shines in level design. Each level is huge. There are no annoying loading screens or loading delays -everything is loaded in the background, so play is non-stop. The game offers a sonar map on Lara's PDA, which I found totally useless since it did not provide points of interest or way-points. There are many puzzles -sometimes you'll be faced with 2 or 3 puzzles within a level. Puzzles are well-designed but not incredibly difficult. There are no bosses in this game, which is odd and disappointing, considering the number of bosses that appeared in Legend. In a way, however, the puzzles have become bosses because of the skill associated with them (Southern Mexico, as an example).
In addition to the graphics, the sound is superb. The musical score is present at the right moments, but can get extremely repetitive sometimes if you're stuck in a sequence trying to figure something out. CGI animations are smooth, with excellent voice-acting.
The game is fun to play, and the story is tightly-woven and entertaining. If you've played Legend, you'll be satisfied with the one or two twists thrown your way to close that storyline. However, if you didn't play Legend or Anniversary, you might not understand this story at all. I don't think the developers did a good job at making this a stand-alone game. The ending seems very final -there's nothing left to anticipate. I also thought that the game was entirely too short -much shorter than Legend while also much easier to complete. The only replay value is in the "achievements", many of which will be unlocked in the first play-through. It's a good game and worthy of play by fans, but certainly does not trump the previous games.
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If it weren't for the (relatively few) flaws, this game would be a masterpiece. I've been a fan of the tomb raider series for a long long time, but for whatever reason haven't played the last two. I'm glad I gave this one a go.
The pros:
Gorgeous and expansive levels
Great acrobatics
Puzzles are the perfect difficulty
Lots of puzzles
The cons:
Controls take some getting used to, especially the grappling hook
Lara gets "stuck" in the environments sometimes, especially if it's right on top of a terrain change. Can usually escape pretty easily, but it's annoying nonetheless
Invisible walls and "special" walls. I prefer delimiting the boundaries of where you can travel by walls that are simply just too high to jump on. Invisible walls feel cheap. "special" walls are walls that you can jump on and climb (as opposed to unspecial walls that look absolutely identical, but for some reason Lara refuses to grab it). In this sense the environment isn't totally autonomous, I would like to be able to do everything that the laws of physics allow me to do. If there's a wall that isn't any higher than my hands when I raise them straight up, I should sure as heck be able to climb it.
Axis inversion doesn't work on vehicles. This is a little weird, and really feels like a bug in the game, but when playing 3rd person games I really like axis inversion. It's broken on vehicles.
Lack of keyboard mapping. On the Xbox 360 version anyway, there is no option to remap keys.
Autosave feature is a little weird. It uses 8 save slots, the same 8 save slots for if you do manual saves. So if you do a manual save, it will get overwritten later by an autosave.
There is also the obvious comparison to Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I would rate them about the same, each with its own cons, with Uncharted just having a different set of cons. There are obviously a lot of similarities between the two games, but if you liked Uncharted you won't necessarily like TR:U. For starters Uncharted is much more heavily focused on the combat. In Tomb Raider you might encounter a total of 10 enemies in a level which takes you 3 hours to beat. In Uncharted you would have encountered 100 enemies in that same level. Because of this, the combat system in TR is less refined. There's no "taking cover" for example.
All in all though TRU is a solid, if not the best, game in the Tomb Raider series to date. If you're a fan of Tomb Raider, you will love this game, no question about it.
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"Tomb Raider: Underworld" (TRU from now on) is easily Crystal Dynamics best effort since they took over the TR series from Core Design. It's obvious that the designers have been listening to the fans, and they addressed nearly all of the complaints that people had about their previous attempts.
Here's what they improved:
1. Level design.
Their first attempt, "Tomb Raider: Legend" had extremely linear levels, allowing for practically no exploration. This flew in the face of everything TR was supposed to be about. They improved on this with their second game, "TR: Anniversary," but that was a remake of the original TR game. TRU is the first time that Crystal Dynamics has created their own, original, open levels. They're not quite as open as, say, the levels in TR3, but even on those occasions when you are merely progressing along a predetermined path, the world just feels more open because of its clever design and the massive scale of it all (remember how big St. Francis' Folly in TR1 felt when you first played it back in the late 90s? Well, that's NOTHING compared to enormity of some areas you'll discover in TRU! There's a level towards the end of the game where you have to scale a rotating tower, and the massive scale of it is awe-inspiring. It really adds to the sense of vulnerability you'll feel.)
2. Combat
One of the common complaints about "Legend" was that you seemed to be in a firefight with a ton of mercs every few seconds. TRU scales back the combat drastically, returning the focus to exploring, platforming and puzzle solving, with just enough combat to keep you from ever getting too relaxed. And, if you find the combat too easy (or too difficult), you can adjust the amount of damaged Lara does to her enemies (and the amount of damage that enemies do to Lara.) There are separate sliders that you can move to tailor the gameplay to your preference.
3. Zip & Alistair
These two characters were a mixed blessing in Legend. They helped provide Lara with more personality by constantly chatting with her as she explored, but they also ruined the sense of isolation, and their comments often got a bit tedious (not to mention the fact that they sometimes told you how to solve puzzles when you'd rather figure it out on your own.) In TRU, they no longer to chat with Lara as she explores. They're still in the game, and they show up in cutscenes, but they don't intefere with the adventure. Instead, Lara now has a camcorder, and at key points in certain levels, she'll film certain things and comment on them. It's a good compromise-she still has a personality and we still get some background info on what we're exploring, but the sense of isolation that people enjoyed so much in the original games is back. Also, if you do find that you need a hint, you can ask Lara what to do. Her first response will be somewhat vague, but it might be enough. If you're still stuck, ask her again, and she'll be more specific. This is a very effective way to implement a hint system.
4. The Grapple
The grappling hook that Lara used in Legend and Anniversary is back, but it's implemented better this time around. Just like in Anniversary, Lara can use her grappling hook to run along walls, pull objects, etc. but the designers smartly avoided forcing you to use the grappling hook in situations where it's more frustrating than fun. In Anniversary, for example, there were certain wall runs that were only difficult because you were constantly battling with the controls to get Lara to do what you wanted. In TRU, the designers realized what works and doesn't work, and they seem to have kept this in mind (mostly) when designing levels. You'll still need to do wall runs, but because of the way they're set up, they're more often fun than frustrating.
5. Boss Battles (or the lack thereof...)
There are no boss battles in TRU. This could be seen as a con to some people, but I see it as an improvement. TR games, for me, are not fighting games, and always found boss battles to be more of a roadblock than entertainment. Also, unlike in Anniversary, you're never forced to pull off the tricky adrenaline headshots. If you want to do them, fine, have fun. But if you'd rather just shoot away until your enemy is dead, that's fine too.
6. Lara's moves
Lara finally feels like the character she was always meant to be because her move set has been expanded to give her more flexibility than ever. If you're hanging from a cliff, and a swarm of bats flies towards you, you know longer have to hitch yourself up to solid ground before you can start shooting at them. Just hang on with one hand and shoot with the other. There are plenty of other little new moves like this that really make the game flow better than ever, and all of the moves were motion-captured by an actual gymnast, so it feels more believable than it ever did in previous games.
7. Locales
After the first two TR games, the series started including more and more levels that took place in very non-TR-like locations, such as big cities, hi-tech towers, military bases, Paris streets, etc. TRU really brings the focus back to what TR was originally about-exploring ancient ruins. There are a couple of levels that take place on a ship, but other than that, it's all classic TR environments.
But, as I said in the title of this review, the game is "ALMOST" perfect, meaning not everything is as it should be.
The biggest problem is that in spite of how massive the levels are, it really won't take you very long to complete this game. Now, this is partly due to the fact that Lara simply moves faster than she did in the old games, so getting from point A to point B takes less time. It's also due to the fact that you're rarely left running around aimlessly in circles trying to figure out what to do next, as you often did in the old games. These are both good things, and if these were the only reasons the game took less time to complete, I couldn't fault it at all. But the truth is, there simply aren't enough levels. There are a small handful of massive levels, and a few mini levels in between. What's feels really cheap, though, is that some of the mini levels are actually repeated! (WARNING: If you want to be completely spoiler free, skip the rest of this paragraph) For example, there's a level that takes place on a ship near the start of the game (actually, it's just a small part of the enormous first level.) It's fun the first time around. But towards the end of the game, you have to replay it, and it's pretty much identical, with only the enemies being in different places. Similarly, there's a prologue level that takes place in Croft Manor. Later in the game, you replay the EXACT same sequence. This is a cheap way to pad an already fairly short game.
Another complaint-The game starts out a bit weak. The opening level (after the short prologue level) starts you off in a somewhat disorienting underwater sequence. It looks impressive, but it's not as much fun as it should be. And once you finally get inside, the level still doesn't make a great impression. Not to say it's bad, but it just seems a bit bland compared to the great stuff that comes later. All I can say is, stick with it and you'll be rewarded.
Some people have complained about the camera being uncooperative, so I feel I should mention it here. Honestly, I haven't had any major trouble with it. There are times when you won't be able to see something that you're supposed to jump to, but the game works around this by giving you visual clues. If you suspect that you might be able to jump safely in a certain direction, try pointing in that direction. Lara will prepare herself for the jump if it's do-able. If there isn't a safe way to jump in that direction, she'll either shake her head, or just do nothing. So although you can't always see everything, just pay attention to Lara's reactions, and you'll be fine. This is actually an improvement over previous games, where you often had to take blind leaps of faith with no indication from Lara about whether or not you'd be safe.
One other very minor complaint-The story. It's not that the story is bad at all, and it certainly has some great moments that'll stick with you, but the villains are too rarely seen, to the point where it's easy to forget about them. Legend, I feel, did a better job of keeping the main villain central in the plot. In TRU, you'll see the villains near the start of the game, and then they pretty much go away entirely until the end.
Still, all things considered, TRU is a great game, and now that it's cheaper, its short gameplay isn't really such a factor. If you value quality over quantity, you can't go wrong with this one.
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The graphics for this game are better than the previous generation as expected, the game play is smoother and climbing much easier than before. I was pleasantly surprised by this game.
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Fun game. Controls and moves are easy to learn, nice graphics, good story, length is fine. Where the game really shines is in its puzzles, environments, and level design. It seems a lot of thought went into these, especially in the Jan Mayen Island and Arctic Sea levels and the Lara's Shadow add-on (all of which are fantastic). Criticisms that the levels are confusing are overstated IMO. You do have to explore the area to figure out what to do next but that's part of the appeal of adventure games. My only complaint is that the camera angles fly here and there (I would like to give the game a 4.5 out of 5 for this reason) but it's not bad enough to be frustrating (just mildly annoying).
I paid full price for the game when it was released last year and don't regret it. At $20, it's a bargain for fans of the series or anyone who is looking for an alternative to first person shooters.
