Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

"A bad taste joke with hardcore TR fans"

I believe AOD was one of the most highly anticipated and drooled over game to be released on PS2. When I got my hands on my copy I was almost trembling with excitement...but I was bitterly disappointed.

The very first thing that you notice is the absence of Tomb Raiders original musical score with which the series was associated. When you read the manual you are informed that you'll have 3 alternate configuration settings to choose from. When you load the game, u see NONE! The you start playing lara. Now a completely dysfunctional D-Pad wouldnt have bothered u much if controlling lara had the same TR feel, but unfortunately it is not so. Lara's previous fluid movements have inexplicably been substituted with that of a cement truck (borrowed). what was the philosophy behind Resident Evil type control, my tiny mind fails to comprehend.

The flip switch which used to be CIRCLE has been switched with SQURAE which used to be jump and that has totally ruined at least my game play. With the previous control settings u could flip in Mid-air! an extremely useful trick which proved its worth specially in TR2's flying Island level where u couldnt proceed without mastering it.

Lara takes -sometimes-10 to 15 goddamned seconds to start moving. The quick response has been annihilated.

Jumping has been an integral part of the Tomb Raider series. In previous games you just tap down and lara jumped three calculated steps back. Now when you try to do this, she turns around.

The extremely crappY control and absolutely frustrating camera has made even simplest tasks like arranging and climbing a box into excruciating mental torment.

The frame-rate drops as soon as there is some smoke or rain or cloud???sometimes even when there is nothing of the previous objects there.

And glitches...my lord they make a man wonder why did the game take SO MUCH TIME to be released? They are so many that counting would be a waste of time. You name it and AOD has got it...random freezing, automatic game reset, load fails, ghost effect, frame dropping....

There are some good elements like Lara's polygonal model, Very gripping story, conversation element, huge and expensive environments, good voice acting...but they all mean CRAP! when you cant play the GAME!

It was a huge huge dissappointment.Why couldnt eidos have given Lara the mechanics of Raziel??? Why in the name of Jesus Christ fix something that isn't BROKEN!!!???

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 06/30/03, Updated 06/30/03