Tomb Raider: Underworld

[Extra Terrestrial]

To start my first play impressions off, I have only played the game for an hour and I won?t have time to play it until Monday at the latest but I?ll kick start the thread anyway, so here goes.

I am a fairly ?casual? Tomb Raider fan. In other words, I have played every single (console based) Tomb Raider game; some to completion, some I stopped playing due to either the declining quality of the game or losing interest in Lara?s outing over time.

The introduction is quite cool - very unexpected too - but I shall not spoil it too much other than saying that

->Open Spoiler<-

Lara?s mansion explodes as soon as you start the game, and in style too.

After the prologue, you find Lara prepping for her deep sea dive. I kind of got an Uncharted vibe when you see all of this happening but instead of shooting pirates, you leap off the boat and plunge to the depths below.

The first puzzle is fairly straightforward where you will be asked to use a new piece of equipment, the sonar field thing-gummy. You jump, leap, shimmy and swim your way through the opening area - still a very linear path to follow - before entering the first ?puzzle room?, which is quite interesting to solve.

I have noticed the erratic camera more often than I hoped; you feel like you are tackling with the controls half the time - if you mistimed a jump, you will feel hard done by the camera more than your own movement.

Another glaring issue is the rather awful grab-less objects. If you see a flat rock, you are likely to jump towards it and expect to cling onto the edge or stand on top of it but no, Lara will clip and slide through the rock and fall back down to earth.

There is one area, not ten minutes into the opening level, where you see a dozen rocks and edges for you to play the guessing game as to what surface is grab-able or not. It is quite annoying to say at the least.



The visuals on the other hand is great, MUCH better than Legend and Anniversary but it is still a fair way off the beautiful Uncharted though; it is still solid and consistent enough to please.

The music is lovely - you will notice some old tunes in a haunting manner - and the sound effects are more clean and forceful than the others. Lara?s voice is suitable enough to carry on from the others however, the dialogue is as clich? as ever.

Not the best of starts - certainly not as memorable as past efforts go - but I?m sure it will step up a gear or two sooner or later.

[JP]

Played the first couple of levels so I'm not going to give up on it yet but what a bloody mess!!

I'd say pretty much everything that was said above but add that the collision detection is unbelievably bad. As has pretty much been standard in tomb Raider Games the world seems to be made up of blocks but the graphics seem to completely ignore that. There was one platform which protruded about 6 foot but around half of that had been broken off but due to the collision detection I was still able to walk out the whole 6 foot and seemingly float 50 foot above the ground.

I really hope that I'll change my feelings further into the game but all I'm doing at the moment is is comparing every part of it unfavourably with Uncharted. Quite rightly people were saying that Uncharted was somewhat of a rip off of this franchise but Uncharted is a world away from this and this really feels like a very poor substitute.

I really hope this improves later but at the moment I'd be really disappointed if it had only been a ?15 budget release.

[MarioMark]

Yeah got your message on online JP.

Had a quick bash and so far it seems just ok. It just doesn't feel as polished as the last Tomb Raider game but I'll still play through it.

The graphics seem good in parts but not in others. I'm on the PS3 version and it does suffer from some framerate issues.

I can't really give a good write-up yet as I've hardly touched it.

It's good, but not great.

[Largo]

Im really tempted to pick this up due to being a big tomb raider fan in my youth and not playing once since, perhaps i should try legend instead since its about 12quid

[ShadowDancer]

Im really tempted to pick this up due to being a big tomb raider fan in my youth and not playing once since, perhaps i should try legend instead since its about 12quid

Not played this yet, going to pick it up on a price drop. I would suggest to you to pick up Legend as its a fantastic game then get this at a price drop too. I am a massive fan of TRL..i thought it was a very good game.

[saturn-gamer]

I don't really understand the comparisons with Uncharted. Now, Uncharted is a great and fun game but it was more like a third person shooter with a little touch of adventure to me. The area's are pretty much closed and on-rails.

Tomb Raider, all except for Legend, were true adventure games with lots and lots of exploration, puzzles and they were also pretty damn difficult.

From what I played, Tomb Raider Underworld does actually expand on Legend.. but doesn't really best it. The controls and fighting are pretty much still the same but the thing is that Legend is almost 3 years old and developed mainly for last-gen systems and it shows nowadays. Underworld is bigger, less on-rails and more complicated but it seems that Crystal Dynamics couldn't do this without also adding much more bugs in the process. Underworld is also supposed to last only 10 hours, a far cry from older pre-Legend Tomb Raider games if i'm not mistaken.

I think Underworld is a good game, better than its prequel which was no slouch to begin with, but in 2008 one might expect more innovation and a bigger improvement over the last game.

[JP]

I'm on the PS3 version and it does suffer from some framerate issues.

To be fair, I've really not noticed any problems with the frame rate. That may just be due to the fact that camera is quite often pointing at wall instead of where things are moving around though.

Forget about Mirrors Edge, this has the most frustrating sections in any game this year!!!

I thought the fact that they made the ledges you can grab look exactly the same as the ledges you can't grab was annoying but the newly developed instinct that Lara has to just let go of something, even though she's happily been hanging onto it for a few seconds is far more annoying than that.

I've even had one occasion where she's decided to jump without me pressing anything at all.

A couple survival hints for people if you are ever faced by either a hungry shark or lion when you're on your travels.

1. Even though sharks are pretty much the perfect predator, they sometimes don't seem to be able to see people if they stick their head out of the water. Not sure why, never heard of it before but it's worth remembering just in case.
2. If you're ever attacked by a couple of tigers, even if you're heavily armed with automatic pistols. A nice kick in the face does more damage than shooting them in the brain. The downside of this is that on occasions your kicking foot may get stuck behind a blade of grass and you'll just vibrate on the spot for two minutes while the tigers eat your legs off.

Underworld is also supposed to last only 10 hours

That's the first positive thing I've heard about the game.

I think most of the time I've spent playing it so far is down to the bad design and not knowing which one of the 4 or 5 identical platforms in the room the game will allow you to grab hold of as the others mean instant death.

The music at times is terrible too. A lot of the time it's fine if unremarkable but I've just had a 20 minute section which repeatedly played the same 5 notes over and over.

I really want to like the game as I do feel that it could have been a good addition to the franchise but the complete lack reviews and how flawed the gameplay is really suggest to me that it's still a very early version of the game. Maybe another 6 months to sort out the controls, collision detection and to just tidy it up could have resulted in a really good game but at the moment I really can't think of anything to recommend the game apart from the fact that I'm happy to stick it up for sale on here right now and would happily recommend to everybody who may be interested in it that it is by far the best game of the year for me and well worth buying from or trading with me!

I still have the first Tomb Raider game and apart from the really obvious graphical upgrade I really don't think it improves on it. This reminds me more of the version that appeared on the PS2 (Can't remember the name) and the crappy controls that one was burdened with.

[MarioMark]

To be fair, I've really not noticed any problems with the frame rate. That may just be due to the fact that camera is quite often pointing at wall instead of where things are moving around though.

Sorry I didn't mean to make it sound as bad as I did, it's hardly that noticable and I've seen no screen tear which is all good. It was mainly the start with all the fire when you shift the camera it drops a bit. I'm not sure what the other version are like, just saying which version I'm on. Don't wanna turn it into a PS3 vs 360 thread.

Anyone been using the hints option? I have but I feel a bit guilty now, Tomb Raider is all about being stuck and getting p****d off isn't it?

[ezee ryder]

Been playing this for a few days and it really is a bit "meh" at the moment.

The puzzle and platforming sections are good enough even if at times they can be frustrating. Graphically the game is pretty good too, with Lara's character model looking quite good. Ironically though, maybe it should have taken a few notes from the wonderful Uncharted.

Combat in the game is quite bad, at times it is awful. As JP pointed out melee hits seems to do more damage than actual points blank shots with guns! The fact that there is no cover system also hurts the combat immensely. You basically just roll about hoping you don't get hit by enemies. Most of the times though you do get hit (even if you roll) and it results in frustrating deaths. Speaking of enemies, their AI ranges from bad to extremely awful! Quite a few times I have seen enemies just standing there looking at the ground while I pump then full of bullets, it is laughable that a well known game like this can have AI this bad.

Another notable point is that the game doesn't hold your hand at all, infact it encourages you to explore the environment to achieve your goals. This can be a bit hit and miss because sometimes it is not that clear where you have to go and even the in-game "hint" system doesn't help.

I will probably play on as the game is not annoying me enough yet for me to stop playing but, unfortunately, I can probably see that happening more than me actually truly enjoying the game.

[JP]

Sorry I didn't mean to make it sound as bad as I did, it's hardly that noticable and I've seen no screen tear which is all good.

Lol, to be honest I was only joking, there is slight jerkiness in the game but I wouldn't have been able to have my dig about how bad the camera was if I'd just agreed with you.

I imagine the 360 wouldn't really be that different as the problems seem to be due to bad design and lack of polish rather than anything technical.

I used the hints option at one point due to not having any obvious way to escape the area I was in. It didn't really help as it just told me I needed to escape the area I was in.

I will probably play on as the game is not annoying me enough yet for me to stop playing but, unfortunately, I can probably see that happening more than me actually truly enjoying the game.

I'm really not sure if I can be bothered to go through it for much longer. I don't like the idea of just giving up on it due to the frustration but I seem to have about 10 games on the go at the moment which I'd rather spend time on.

Hopefully it'll get a decent price next weekend though as I wouldn't mind getting R2.

There's something else which annoys me in this game but this more of a complaint about games in general that use it rather than a complaint about this game. I know it's only a game but why do developers insist on giving characters some sort of bullet time ability? There's no need for it if it doesn't exist in the game world for a genuine reason other than overcoming bad design or because the developers feel that they want it because so many other games have it.

It made sense in The Matrix because of the setting of the story but sticking it in this and calling it adrenaline makes no sense at all.

[Extra Terrestrial]

You know, once you get to New Mexico, that Tomb Raider feeling is kind of back to its past glory.

It is a shame that it takes the best part of two or three hours - depending on your pacing - to get to that point.

John is right about the ‘adrenaline’ move; it doesn’t fit in the Tomb Raider world and proves to be more of a frustration than a helping hand.

The combat, as ezee ryder points out, is outdated and clumsy.

When you are up against three or four of those lizard-like creatures in the Thailand chapter, not only does the camera decide to hindrance your view - why Crystal Dynamics didn’t offer a wide or panning view of the gun fights is beyond me - but the combat is messy, frustrating and awkward.

You are always glad it is over even if the AI is about as intelligent as a goldfish.

Doesn’t anybody find Lara’s bouncing death rag-doll animation unintentionally ridiculous? It spoils the illusion of the character; Lara is no different to watching jelly wobble when you watch her die - whether it is yours or the cameras fault, of course!

Speaking of Lara, her animations and modelling of the character is great - I personally cannot fault. Perhaps not as smooth as Altair in Assassins Creed or Nathan in Uncharted but it is the best effort the developers - past and present - have achieved.

I will complete it but this game could have easily gone from merely being ‘good’ to ‘excellent and well recommended’ if the game have been given another 3 or 4 months of extra development time to polish and fine tune the experience. Some gameplay mechanics feel broken and incomplete in places, which is a shame.

Still, I will push on and see how the story concludes.

[Salsa Party Animal]

I alway love the story and game of Tomb Raider but I have not found one which I can control very well similar to Uncharted. I never complete it.

I got 28 pounds voucher left from hmv ? So I use it for this or keep it for resistance 2.

[chopemon]

I hate this game so much.

I really enjoyed Anniversary and Legend but this is awful.

My main problem are dodgy controls and iffy collision that sends you plummeting to your death completely unfairly. Hate it.

The level design is really lacklustre as well. It feels really phoned in.

I'm completing the Thailand level and then never touching it again.

[Shozuki]

I like it quite a bit, its TR albeit a bit buggy. Not gamebreaking in my opinion.

[Prophet Hero]

I wouldn't say I'm having an allergic reaction to the game but it is causing me some discomfort of sorts.

It's just not capturing my attention in the same way the other TR games did (this might have something more to do with me but then again I thought Anniversary was superb). I kind of feel I can just stop playing and never start again.

Also, killing those all those spiders is getting on my bloody nerves.