GameSpy Preview of Tomb Raider Underworld

Eidos stopped by the other day to show off a new level of the upcoming Tomb Raider Underworld, as well as a handful of new gadgetry for star heroine Lara Croft. While the focus of Underworld seems largely geared towards providing Lara with some handy new moves and even handier new equipment to satisfy long-time fans of the series, there are also some new features aimed at getting newcomers into the game quickly. The underlying puzzle-solving plus platform-jumping play mechanics still apply, but this time out Lara's new gymnastic tricks make her even more closely resembles a capricious spider monkey than before. All of these new features seem to point at a freer and more adventurous Lara than has appeared in past games.





WCLD





Cheesy though it may sound, developer Crystal Dynamics has created a new mantra to help guide the design of the first Tomb Raider game developed from the ground up for HD consoles. That mantra is "what could Lara do?" and the idea is that she should be capable of doing everything that you would expect her to do given her rarified skill set, from using poles as weapons to balancing on traditionally swing-only bars. In practice, this appears to give Lara some unique new tools for solving puzzles tuned to interact with her new abilities.





The demo began at a point roughly ten minutes into Tomb Raider Underworld, after Lara had been given the coordinates for yet another tomb ripe for raiding by one of her friends (or, more specifically, her friend's treasure-seeking father's estate). Of course, she immediately discovers why her friend's dad hasn't gone chasing after the precious relics himself, as the location is actually submerged beneath the Mediterranean Sea. Ordinarily, this would present some problems, but the newly-capable Underworld Lara has a special trick up her sleeve: SCUBA gear. Lara no longer has to seek out oxygen from air vents or overhead cavern pockets because she carries a tank full of the stuff strapped to her back (though swim fins were noticeably absent from her feet).





Outfitted with her new self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, Lara can descend into the depths among wavering shafts of light that penetrate the shifting surface of the ocean all the way down to a kelp-encrusted ancient temple. Her entry to this underwater fortress is of course blocked by a devious puzzle and so Lara is left to pick through the surrounding undersea paradise for rogue rods that can be inserted into what appear to be a waterlogged Venn diagram.










Under more traditional circumstances, seeking out these wayward puzzle pieces would involve a comprehensive search of the local environment, but Lara has a new device to help her get a better lay of the land. The Sonar Map sends out sound waves which are reflected off of solid surfaces to build a 3D picture of the environment within her line of sight; this is the first appearance of a 3D map in any of Croft's adventures. A quick peek at the Sonar Map indicated an entrance to a cave obscured by wafting seaweed within which Lara could find the last rod necessary to solve the puzzle.





For those unfamiliar with Lara's usual modus operandi for puzzle busting, a new hint system has been added that provides two levels of suggestions. If you're just hung up on what to do next, you can opt to get a hint to direct you in your search, but if you really want to cheap out and skip the puzzle altogether, a complete solution of the puzzle can be displayed. Using these hints will likely have an impact on the acquisition of treasured achievement points (or trophies on PS3), so there is a price to pay for this extra intel.











Behold the Mighty Kraken





Once through the initial gate puzzle, Lara proceeded down a submerged hallway using luminescent yet poisonous jelly fish to light her way. These jelly fish are not nearly as aggressive as the sharks gliding through the depths surrounding the undersea temple, so Lara's new spear gun isn't necessary here, though the aforementioned sharks found it rather disheartening.





The hallway gave way to a cistern that lead into a giant room full of briny waterfalls, ancient runed columns eroded by years of trickling seawater, and a giant octopus blocking the way ahead. Huge tentacles lashed about the enormous room, threatening to drag Lara to a soggy demise, so it seemed most prudent to stick to the walls and avoid the places within reach of the grasping tentacles. As in Lara's previous raids, there are several paths around the room made up of handholds, ledges, jutting poles and narrow platforms, so staying clear of the octopus's thrashing appendages doesn't appear to be too difficult, but because the creature stubbornly stood in the way of Lara's progress, she was going to have to tangle with it at some point.





Sure enough, dangling just above the bad-tempered kraken, a platform sporting spikes twice the length of a human hung supported by two thick chains. Clearly, Lara would need to drop the spiked platform onto the bulbous head of the beastie, so she continued around the edge of the room, swinging from bars to clefts in the wall like a gymnast.










Along the way, Lara displayed a surprising nimbleness that can be attributed to the extensive motion-capture work that has gone into her aerial animations. Fueled by the acrobatic grace of professional gymnast and stunt person Heidi Moneymaker, Underworld marks Lara's first use of mo-cap technology and although slightly marred by the performance issues that typically appear in early beta builds (like occasional minor frame-rate hitches), Lara's mid-air pirouettes and twisting somersaults did appear more fluid than they have in the past.





Along Lara's precarious traversal of the walls and ledges of the room, there were a few close-calls with the octopus's gigantic tentacles. No sooner had Lara scaled a tentacle-wrapped column than the huge creature began to squeeze it, resulting in an Adrenaline Moment. In these sepia-hued quick timer events, time slows to give Lara a few extra seconds to assess her rapidly degenerating situation and execute a solution... in this case, she had to quickly vault from the crumbling column onto a nearby stone outcropping. While these events typically flash different buttons on the screen, the Adrenaline Moments in Underworld focus more on utilizing Lara's standard control library in order to solve them, so getting out of the kraken's trap involves jumping in the same way that Lara would jump in any other part of the game.





After discovering some gear contraptions that elevated the platform, she navigated to a position just above and behind the massive cephalopod, conveniently located next to the two chains holding the spiked platform aloft. Two quick reports from Lara's trusty hand-cannons and the weakest of the links snapped, sinking the spikes deep into the octopus's brain case and releasing the hold of its tentacles from the door that lead further into the temple.





With another puzzle handily solved, the demo came to a close. It's clear that Crystal Dynamics is putting in the hours on Underworld, as Lara's enhanced acrobatic technique and larger collection of gadgets suggests. While the first lady of treasure hunting is as beautifully rendered as ever, she now has an elegance to her movements that demonstrates the difference that motion capture technology has made in her intricately animated acrobatics. Due out in November of this year, Tomb Raider Underworld represents a technological leap forward for Lara that is evident even at these early stages.

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