Not a very fun game at all
posted by Ivellias (HIGHLAND FALLS, NY) Sep 14, 2009
Member since May 2005
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I remember playing the original Tomb Raider games for the playstation fondly, back when analog sticks were still the big, hip new thing, and 3d graphics were coming into full swing. I picked up Tom Raider: Underworld to see if the game held any of that nostalgia, and unfortunately all it did was make me remember what I -didn't- like about the games in the first place.
Graphics - The graphics on the 360 version of the game are servicable, but not overwhelming. The first level, a burning mansion,is done up rather well,and look pretty. Unfortunately the levels are still designed like the original resident evil, i.e., you can only move down certain paths, and there's very little interaction with the environment that aren't pre-scripted. Lara herself is quite well done(to cater to tastes like mine, hur hur hur), but the enemies(starting with sharks) are horribly rendered and look like plastic toy models.
Gameplay - The gameplay stumbles right from the get-go. Instead of a nonlinear, open environment(which just begs to be created with all the visible things you encounter), the differing levels all more or less run you a relatively straight path, with confusing or otherwise annoying ways to activate objectives and puzzles. Most of the time you can simply throw yourself off a ledge,or die at a particular objective, and magically appear past it.
The camera controls are simply horrendous, slow, and unwieldy, as is Lara herself. They crammed so many action moves to a scant three or four buttons that sometimes you end up doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, and the way it happens endlessly does not inspire one to continue.
Still, the objectives are fun(in one part, you dive underwater, and slip into an abandoned temple, where you have to kill a massive, but blind squid), but even the thrill of a LAra Croft Story(and her tight bikini-clad pixels of course), can't help shore up an otherwise frustrating, and boring game.
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