This one really ISN’T a review, because I couldn’t even finish the game. I wanted so badly to enjoy Tomb Raider Underworld. I love a good puzzle, and to be 100% honest I love any game where I can stare at Lara Croft’s animated posterior. This game seemed to have it all for me. That is, until I actually played it…
Well some of it.Tomb Raider Underworld picks up the story as Lara searches for what really happened to her parents, attempting to retrace their steps through a variety of previously-unknown ruins that were created by an ancient civilization of mensa-natives with uncanny construction abilities. You’ll find yourself exploring underwater and fending off sharks from the get-go. The puzzles start right away with a door you have to open using some wheel things. Too bad I didn’t realize what I was supposed to do with it. I swam up to my yacht, thinking maybe I could store it there and it came out of my hands somehow, thus breaking the game within the first five minutes. All I could do was restart the game from the beginning, after consulting a (gasp) walkthrough to be sure I wasn’t missing something.
There are lots of little trinkets and objects you can collect if you’re in to that sort of thing. This engaging aspect of the game seems to offer no reward other than the prestige of knowing you did it. If you’re down with swimming around and exploring hundreds of little cavities and plants to find one stinkin diamond that does nothing for you, have at it. This might be your game.
Controls are simple, yet rewarding. We all know Lara is a gymnast and can pull off some pretty awesome aerial maneuvers with her bad self, and in that aspect alone, the game shines.
Tomb Raider Underworld is a very ambitious game, and seeks to do a LOT of different things to keep the game interesting. Maybe too many. Instead of being known for great AI, or solid camera angles it seems to half-ass everything leaving a mediocre footprint in the game-osphere.
AI in the game are the dumbest I have seen in a long time. Apparently, in the world in which Tomb Raider takes place, if you’re a bad guy, you can only see about 25 feet. I took out a ton of baddies on a cargo ship mission by simple keeping my distance, in plain sight of them, and knocking them around with an assault rifle. Apparently its also impossible for a bad guy to make any turn that isn’t a 90 degree flank. I am going to leave it at that. The AI suck hard.
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Thanks for the warning. My wife was semi-interested in the game, because she has a thing about “playing as a hot chick.” She got jealous when I joined her Fable 2 game as a Good Female henchman because she’d spent an hour going through clothing and hairstyles and makeup, and the OOB henchman was more attractive.
Tomb Raider has always had camera issues. Always. I haven’t played every single TR game start-to-finish, but I remember back in the old school days when Laura’s “curvy” figure was a couple of polygon-esque angles. Trying to ledge-hop like a spider monkey was about as fun being reminded just how much of a virgin you were as said polygons actually seemed sexy.
Underwold isn’t that bad. If you could still rent games in Belgium, I wouldn’t have bought it but I did have fun with it so whatever. I’d recommend it is a rent and I’ll leave you with 1 hint: make sure you do everything you can do in the room! You do not want to have to backtrack because you forgot one small thing!!
Hmm… It’s strange, I played it on PC and didn’t get any of those issues you mentioned…
That doesn’t tell the whole story though, because I got to enjoy MY OWN glitches…
Seriously though, uhm there’s a “throw” button in the game, dude… You pick up the box while standing on the pressure plate, and you hit “throw”… It works…
Anyway, I’ve played and finished this game a good while before I heard the podcast, which is why it confused me so much….
I get it now that I’ve read the review…