Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

"Lionheart reviews Tomb Raider AOD. Is it Lara's return to glory?"

6/23/03.

As I sat down to play Tomb Raider, Angel of Darkness 3 days ago, I guarantee you it was one of the most exciting moments of my gaming life. There are only 4 series in which every game I have enjoyed, those series being the WWE Smackdown series, the Final Fantasy series, the Tekken series, and the Tomb Raider series. I've been an avid player of the Tomb Raider series since the game shook not only the action adventure genre, but changed video games as a whole back in 1996, and I've never looked back, finishing every game in the series with the exception of Last Revelation, which came at a point in my life where I just didn't have time for it (One of these days I'll pull it out of my gaming library and finish it). With this in mind, I had a gamer geek hard on (Not literally speaking of course, who'd get a hard on for Lara Croft or Tomb Raider? ^_^) as I turned it on, and I could've sworn I was in heaven. Then the game started. After watching the opening cinema, I pressed new game, and was treated to the beginning of the game. Then during the scene where Lara kicked the doors open, the game froze, and I was shaken back to reality. Tomb Raider this was, but a perfect game this was not going to be. In the following paragraphs, I'm going to outline the good, the bad, and the unbearably ugly of Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness, and hopefully you guys (and gals) can decide for yourselves if PGX's first reviewed game is worth your 50 dollars.

Graphics:

The graphics shine. They aren't the best graphics in the world, (I'd be lying if I told you they were in fact) but the stages shine with detail, and while the amazing looking cities and whatnot are a tad under populated, far too much so in fact, they look great, and the environments are massive, just like the traditional Tomb Raider games. You're constantly asking yourself, ''Where should I go next'', and the environments are beautiful and massive, as they should be. Gone for the most part are the tombs of old however, and in their place are cities and buildings. Full of detail, and occasionally pushing the PS2 to it's limits, (The roof top at the beginning of the game gives the PS2 noticeable trouble for instance, with some serious slowdown) and the game struggles on more than a few occasions to maintain a solid 60 FPS. Admittedly, this game may have done better on X Box or Game cube (provided Core is more familiar with the systems), and this is coming from Sony's biggest fan boy. The game is simply too massive for either the PS2 to handle, or for Core to program for the system. It was more than likely the fault of Core, as the PS2 should be able to handle this game, due to the fact that the PS2 has handled games such as GTA Vice City and The Getaway. Regardless, this game looks great, and its biggest graphical fault is that it appears that Core was not familiar with the technology, and couldn’t capture the effect they wanted to with the game. It (Frame rate drops and load times) truly hinders the game play at some points, and for this I can't give the graphics a ten, coupled with the fact that some of the characters you talk with look less than amazing. Lara however, has never looked better. She's easily 3 times as detailed (if not more) as she was on the PS2 version of the game. Overall, while not the best, the graphics look sharp. There are games (such as the Getaway) that have managed to have better looking character models, and more going on at once and maintain a high frame rate and have minimal load times thru a few simple tricks. Overall, Core/Eidos should spend a lot more time with the system before they try and make the next Tomb Raider game, since they clearly were not very experienced with the system. Like I said, over all this game is graphically beautiful, but if could have been so much more if Core had not tried to make the game while learning the technology, something they obviously did, as is evidenced by the unnecessary frame rate drops and long load times that the PS2 should easily have been able to overcome.

Sound:

It’s your standard fare here. Grunts, groans, footsteps and a plethora of other sound effects are in this game. Interestingly enough, the previously sensual sounds that Lara made when beings hot and what not are gone now, and it appears that while Core wanted Lara to retain her sexual image, it has no longer made it the selling point of the game. The music is good, and fits the mood when present, but is by no means memorable. The character voices are strong, and at no time during the game did I feel that the voice acting was anything less than professional. Actually, looking back, there are a few classics Tomb Raider tunes in there that made me smile. It was nothing Final Fantasy brilliant, but it made me happy to hear them again after all these years for nostalgic purposes. For a Tomb Raider fan, for this reason the games sound is a 9, while for someone else that had never played Tomb Raider it would get a 7 or so. It’s not that the sound is bad it’s just average.

Game play: (Overall)

Yes, this is what it’s all about. If the game had piss poor graphics, horrible sound, and not much replay value (Which it doesn’t), if it was unbelievable fun for a day I’d rate this part very high in any situation. In any event, I have found that there is only one way to rate this part of the game. I’ve rated the good, the bad, and the damn unbelievably ugly. Tomb Raider has a lot of good, a little bad, and a little ugly. But when you add the bad and the ugly, does it outweigh the good? Lets find out.

The Good:

Yes, Lara is back with tons of weapons, more moves, and more opportunities to use them than ever before. The game feels very much like Tomb Raider, while finally attaining the next generation feel and freshness that the game has lacked for years, and what caused fans to become angrier and angrier with each installment to the series since Tomb Raider 2. You have to be more creative this time to figure out what to do next; although the game is more newbie friendly, and less difficult than previous installments and most of the time you have the feeling that you can do whatever you like, with game is non linear as hell to boot, which is never a bad thing. Also, it’s worth mentioning that story is far and away the best story yet in a Tomb Raider game, and sometimes I felt like I was in an RPG, for Core did a marvelous job here. Only MGS has a better story in terms of action games, and while this games story is not as epic as most RPG’s it is far and away one of the best for it’s own genre. Plus, we have 2 more games with an equally amazing story to look forward too. Did I mention Lara has more moves, just as many weapons, and a new control scheme to boot? And this is what brings me to:

The Bad: The controls hurt the game on a variety of different levels. Lara is clunkier and more difficult to move. Core tried to make her move more like a character in a next generation console game “should”, and in the process made her so difficult to the control that while doable, it sometimes will annoy you to no end, occasionally making the game un enjoyable after some frustrating moments. The fans wanted a control scheme change Core, but not like this. The control should never make the game less fun to play than one of the previous installments. It should improve, or at least stay the same, but never should it get worse. Sometimes I fee like I’m playing with the nightmarish control scheme known as Resident Evil. However, those controls were designed that way to make the game scarier as you tried to escape zombies (Or at least I think so o_O) while in this game it just feels out of place. There is only one thing in the entire game that is worse, which brings me to:

The Ugly: Glitches galore, annoying load times, and even parts where the game randomly freezes, yes I did say it, the game freezes at random points in the game, and if you haven’t just saved, you are forced to start all over. This is by far the worst part in the game, and coupled with the frequent glitches in the game such as a certain sound effect part on the roof top, as well as frequent slow down, and I had to detract a full point from the game play because of these mishaps in an otherwise tight game play experience.

Overall: Not an average (7.9)

The best Tomb Raider so far? Not quite. Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness takes chances the series has never taken before, and while as a whole it succeeds, in the end it doesn't polish the new game play elements enough, and some part hurt the game more than hurt it. Strange as it may seem considering this game took 4 years to make, a few more months in development would’ve worked wonders for this game
In conclusion, while a solid game, Tomb Raider angel of darkness falls just short of beating out the all time greatest game in the series Tomb Raider 2. While it eclipses it graphically, and in some areas of game play, the core engine is somehow clunkier now, and the freedom found in previous tomb raider games is somehow less than it was before. All in all however, this game is an easy 7, and an 8 for Tomb Raider fans. Definitely rent this one if you don’t want to buy it.

Graphics: 8.0/10.0
Sound: 7.0/10.0
Game play: 7.5/10.0
Presentation: 7.0/10.0
Replay value: 7.5/10.0
Controls: 4.5/10.0
Reader Tilt: 8.0/10.0
Overall: 7.8/10.0

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/24/03, Updated 06/24/03