Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

"The Poor Controls Just Ruin Everything"

A much awaited Tomb Raider installment, Angel of Darkness hardly lived up to the hype of being a next generation Tomb Raider game. You star as Lara Croft, who, at the start of the game, is running from the cops in Paris.

Gameplay: 2/10

This game is a 3rd person action game - that is, you can see Lara on the screen at all times; she jumps, shoots, runs, rolls, etc as you control her.

My main gripe is with the controls. Holy crap, you think a decade of the same type of game would let them fine-tune, if not perfect 3rd person action game controls. Not the case. You have to push pretty hard on the keyboard to get Lara to turn - but not too hard, or her turning speed accelerates to ridiculous proportions. And don't try to turn her with the mouse, as its even harder. Even walking around is annoying. She starts with a walk when you hold down the button, and speeds up to a run once you've held the button down for a few seconds - the thing is, the spaces are rather tight in this game, so you'll pretty much have Lara walking around annoyingly slowly the whole time.

Jumping isn't bad, but you'll get REALLY frustrated with some of the levels where you have to jump onto moving platforms.

The guns pretty much all do the same thing. There's no unlimited ammo anymore, so watch out for that.

You may also sometimes have to enter "Stealth mode", which is new for this series. It's pretty dumb, but it's not required too often, so I can live with it.

The camera angles - oh Lord these are terrible at times. I can't count the amount of times I've fell to my death because I COULDN'T SEE LARA ON SCREEN. They don't let you rotate angles either, I have no idea why.

Graphics: 7/10

They're not too bad at all. Lara's pretty detailed, at least for a game released at this time. The backgrounds aren't quite as good, but they're acceptable. The water effects are impressive.

Videos won't load unless you download the patch from Eidos's website. A minor annoyance, but geez, you'd think they'd pop in the disc before they released it...

Sound: 6/10

Eh. Weapon and weather effects are pretty standard, as those types of things go. Background music is pretty good; it usually fits the mood well.

Length: 12-15 hours

Easily. Even newbies at this genre of game will complete this game in 15 hours. That is if you don't quit before that.

Overall: 4/10
It was a good concept with good graphics, but poor controls just ruined most, if not all of the game's enjoyability.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 02/07/06