Thursday 12 Mar 2009

If Anniversary marked Lara Croft’s comeback, then Underworld is her way of sending a very serious message to the videogame industry that not only is she back, but she plans on staying.

The story is told through a series of cutscenes, mostly consisting of Lara dictating her findings into a tape recorder. Even though we are told that the story picks up from where Legend and Anniversary left off, I think it’s possible to follow even if you haven’t played the previous games. With that being said, as with previous installments, the story is still lacking and could have been more compelling.

Briefly, the story revolves around Lara uncovering proof that the Norse underworld and mythical hammer of the Norse God Thor exist. So begins her archeological journey to discover the ancient mysteries of the underworld hidden within the Mediterranean, Thailand, Mexico and the Arctic Sea, determined to find Avalon and find out the truth about her mother.

Graphically the game cannot be faulted, it’s just plain beautiful. Whether you stop to look at the sun filtering softly through the shade of a large tree, or stare up into the dust or leaves that fall as you walk through ancient hallways, you cannot help but to marvel at the level of detail that has gone into creating this game.

Like previous Tomb Raider games, Underworld is filled to the brim with puzzles to challenge your mind from the get go. However, what sets this game apart is that the puzzles are exceptionally well thought out and easier to solve than previous installments, without being any less impressive. What I mean is that the puzzles are more logical if you apply your mind to the task, so you won’t find yourself repeating steps time and time again very often.

Should you find yourself stuck and wanting a bit of help, you can access the field assistance in Lara’s PDA. Here you can choose how much information you want to receive, if you want a clue select the Hint option but if you are completely lost then select Task and Lara will tell you what to do. This goes a long way to giving you a little push in the right direction to solve a puzzle yourself but be warned that it is not 100% helpful for all of the puzzles.

Another new thing that you will notice is the way in which Lara interacts with her environment, something which adds a touch more realism to the game. You will see Lara shielding her face from fire, or brushing a fern out of her face, all of which really helps to immerse you deeper into the game.

While you will still want to explore the environments, you will rarely find yourself wondering where to go next in the game. Taking into account the large scale of the maps, it’s good to know that you will not often find yourself getting lost or back-tracking in a bid to find out where to go next. You will also discover treasures and relics freely across your journey, something which I believe is a step forward from the previous installments when you had to search high and low to discover secrets.

Lara will face various enemies through her journey, ranging from sharks in the first underwater level to bats, spiders, tigers and even large monitor lizards. She will also face some larger foes along the way but I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise so you will have to content yourself with the knowledge that they do get bigger, badder and more challenging as the story progresses. She also faces the normal array of human foes, intent on stealing her archaeological finds and claiming the glory for themselves.

She is equipped with various guns, ranging from her characteristic dual pistols to a shotgun and semi automatic rifle, so you can personalize your gun fights. She can use her grappling hook to swing and pull objects and is also equipped with grenades to make a gun party a bit more explosive. At the start of each stage all the weapons will be fully loaded but there is only a set amount of ammo in each gun which means you will run out of ammo and have to change guns at some point. This forces you to try out new weapons because there is no option to collect ammo and also helps you to identify that some enemies are easier to slay using, for example, the shotgun whereas you might never have tried this weapon had you not run out of ammo. If you do find yourself in a corner with no ammo and the enemy attacking so fiercely that you stumble to change weapons, don’t despair, just give him a good kick in the teeth because Lara’s kicking abilities are very effective.

Another great new addition to the game is the ability to target two enemies at once, especially handy if you are facing multiple enemies in a small area. It also adds a touch of realism to a gun fight when you are trying to exterminate both threats that are shooting you, rather than trying to take down one at a time. It’s also handy since most enemies, like tigers, always seem to hunt in pairs and tiger number two certainly doesn’t wait around for you to shoot tiger number one before he goes in for the kill.

Be warned that the game also features destructible environments so don’t content yourself with hiding behind a box for cover in a gun fight. After taking some fire, pretty soon the box will splinter and you will be left running to find another piece of cover, taking heavy fire as you do.

Another positive move forward for the series is the removal of quick time events in favour of adrenaline moments. Instead of having to press a specific button to avoid a certain event, time slows down and players have the chance to escape harm while still being in control of Lara. While some gamers do enjoy quick time events, the majority of us feel they are too difficult and leave too much to chance. I would be happy to see more developers moving away from QTE in favour of adrenaline moments.

Another thing that I appreciate developers including is a run option. Call me impatient, but sometimes I want to just get on with the job. When you are underwater you can simply push a button to make Lara swim faster and similarly on land she can run quite quickly. To aid you even further in this quest, and particularly helpful if not essential on larger levels, is the inclusion of the all terrain motorbike. The motorbike is easy to control, fun to drive and even more fun to run enemies over with! It’s also essential to overcome certain obstacles and progress in the game.

The levels are impressively large, big enough to give you a feeling of the vastness of the area but not too overwhelming. Another thing I enjoyed about the levels is the diversity of each one, you begin the game swimming in the Mediterranean Sea but soon move on to the lush jungles in Thailand before heading back to Croft Manor and then on to other regions that I won’t divulge in this review. Each level is so vastly different, with different enemies and weather conditions (not to mention the choice of different outfits at the start of each level, if you are into that type of thing), that you will never get bored.

The sound compliments the game well, whether it be fast paced music when facing an enemy or the jungle sounds of birds twittering and insects buzzing in Thailand, it always adds to the experience rather than detracting from it or dominating it as some other games do. In some levels the music is truly epic, adding to the ambience of the scene but also often giving clues, like the ominous growl of a tiger lurking just around the corner or the creaking sound of a ledge giving way beneath you.

The game saves automatically at set checkpoints which is really convenient should you die because you will only find yourself repeating from the last checkpoint. Another convenient thing is the short load screens, always a positive feature in my books! Last but not least, the control mechanism is intuitive and easy to pick up and play.

Tomb Raider: Underworld left me with the distinct feeling that Lara has begun to move away from the role of “popular female videogame pin-up character” that she had begun to slip into to a more serious role. This new role demands she be taken seriously as an adventurer that is not only here to stay, but threatens to give other adventurers like Nathan Drake a serious run for their money. Let’s hope that Eidos uses this momentum to take the Tomb Raider franchise on to even bigger and better things in the next installment.

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Contributor:	Lisa

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