Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

"Late, flawed and yet somehow still fun!"

I loved the original Tomb Raider. It was new, it was fresh, at the time it looked amazing and it brought us the cultural icon that is Lara Croft, love her or hate her. Single-handedly, TR managed to make gaming ''mainstream''.

And why? A number of reasons, not least of which was the fact it was cracking good fun to play. Taking the best bits from ageing classic Prince of Persia and translating them to a fluid 3D environment with a charismatic main character was a genius move on Core's part and kept many gamers happy for many, many hours. It didn't matter that the story made little to no sense, or that in the section called ''The Cistern'' the ambient sounds appeared to be that of a gent's lavatory in which someone was having a particularly difficult bowel evacuation. The game was good, and in Lara, Core had created a strong, mascot-worthy character which Sony quickly latched onto.

Then, later, came Tomb Raider II. It started well, with, err, raiding a tomb, something you spent the entirety of the first game doing. To be expected, really, given the title. However, beyond this, you ended up in Venice, with some frustrating puzzles which relied too much on trial and error and some ridiculously tough human baddies just waiting to pop caps in Lara's shapely behind. The main problem was the much-vaunted increased action - it sucked. The human baddies took far too many bullets to take down and as such combat became a chore to fill the space between the puzzles. The addition of vehicles and costume changes for Lara brought some welcome variety to the game but it was widely agreed that this wasn't a patch on the original.

Beyond this, the quality of the games continued to be a bit variable. Tomb Raider III ditched any pretence at having a coherent plotline, with several mini-adventures offering a mix of traditional tomb raiding and human-blasting. While entertaining, it offered absolutely nothing which hadn't been seen before in the previous two incarnations.

After this came The Last Revelation, supposedly Lara's final hoorah. The gaming world breathed a collective sigh of relief at this news. Perhaps Core could get on and try something a bit different after this? TLR went back to TR's roots by, well, involving a lot of tomb raiding, and less of the irritating ''real-world'' stuff which so blighted the others. The non-linear ''wander between levels'' game mechanic was interesting, too, though not entirely practical at times - finding a key and having to traipse back through three sprawling levels to shove it into the lock you encountered four hours ago did not necessarily make a particularly pleasurable experience. Still, it was a sound game, but again, provided nothing which hadn't been seen before.

With the now-legendary ending, with Lara being buried beneath a collapsing pyramid and left for dead by her former mentor Von Croy, the world thought it could rest easy. Finally, Lara was finished. For all her ''cultural icon'' status, everyone was getting a bit fed up of seeing her and her rapidly-inflating mammaries everywhere.

But it was not to be. Core flipped PSone and PC owners one last ''Ha-ha, we've made a lot of money out of this and some gullible fools will still buy it!'' V-sign at the games-buying public with Tomb Raider Chronicles. Released in the twilight of the PSone days, it passed largely unnoticed to a lot of people, since most just didn't care any more.

Enter the PS2. Core announce, unsurprisingly, that they are working on a new Tomb Raider, but that it will take something of a new direction. Initially, the world sits up and takes notice, perhaps foolishly. ''It'll be out soon,'' they say.

Now, a good five years or so into the PS2's life and Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness has finally seen the light of day. So where do we stand? Triumph or travesty? Well, you've already looked at the score so I'm sure you don't really need the answer to that question (which is ''somewhere in between'', for the curious)... but why?

First, let's talk about the graphics. The PS2 is entering a period where it's hard to stand out. The XBox's fabulous texture-mapping gubbins in particular make a lot of PS2 games look a tad washed-out in comparison. That said, TR is a nice enough looking game. There's nothing that will particularly blow your mind, but the graphics do their job well enough. It does, however, fall victim to some rather blurry textures, a sure sign of the long development time this game has had. The environments, on the whole, are well-constructed and functional, though nothing will make you sit up and go ''Ooooh!''. There's a nice sense of depth in high-up scenes, though.

Character animation, however, cannot be faulted. It's always been a particularly strong point of the TR games and this one is no exception. Lara is wonderfully fluidly animated, with a variety of moves (though disappointingly, the utterly pointless handstand-to-upright ledge climbing move appears to have been dropped) and entertainingly well-done death animations. TR vets will know that when it all gets too much, you just have to throw Lara off a cliff, and the realistic way her body crumples when it hits the deck makes it all the more therapeutic this time around.

Character modelling is decent enough, though rather lacking in detail compared to other decent released - though this is, in part, intentional. The in-game Lara looks identical to the earlier pre-rendered models used for the advertising of the earlier games, which is a bonus - but as many of you may remember, she never was the most detailed of characters. The excellent animation (and, lads will be pleased to know, realistically jiggling breasts) makes up for this, however.

For the most part, the game moves at a silky-smooth 60 frames per second. This is a Good Thing. However, at times, it occasionally inexplicably slows to an absolute crawl. This is a Bad Thing, and the first of many little niggles with the game, the remainder of which I shall come onto in a moment. In reality, the problem does not occur too often, however, and as such is not a major issue.

Sound-wise, the game is excellent. A stirring score, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, no less, complements the on-screen action nicely, with a variety of themes to fit the circumstances. Voice acting is variable - Lara herself is excellent, but some of the incidental characters are dreadful. There's an obnoxious guy near the start of the game as Lara enters the Parisian streets who is supposed to be leering and leching at Lara, but he delivers his lines with about as much emotion as a spoon, and so he simply sounds like he's reading his cheesy lines from an auto-cue. Major characters, however, are acted well and the sound quality is excellent. The game is also presented in Pro Logic II, which gives PS2 owners surroundy goodness for the first time in a while. XBox owners will still be laughing with their in-game Dolby Digital, however, of course, but just ignore them (or beat them around the head with their behemoth of a console, it can probably cause some damage... there's enough warnings to that effect in the manual!).

So, onto the gameplay. Is it the next big thing? Is it the most essential purchase for the PS2 since Silent Hill 3?

Well, umm, no. That's not to say it's bad, however. The best bits of the previous Tomb Raiders have been kept, and combined with a more intuitive control system (push a direction to go a direction, rather than the previous turny-rotatey Resident Evil style controls which used to cause such a headache) to make running around and doing basic actions simple enough. There are times when Lara seems a little unresponsive, however, though these are down to little idiosyncracies in the game engine rather than a control mechanism which is sluggish overall. For example, when you want to take a running jump off a platform, occasionally Lara will not start running as soon as you press the analog stick. When you learn that she will only start running when it's obvious you're going for a big jump, you learn to adapt your play style around it and things become a little more intuitive. It's a little disorientating at first, however.

As for the actual game mechanics, there's a pleasant mix of styles, ranging from the pixel-perfect leaping and hanging of the previous games, some Metal Gear style sneaking around and neck-breaking and even the gratifying appearance of options of what to say in conversations. This was a pleasant surprise to find, and gave some sections of the game a positive old-school adventure-game feel.

The Paris sections are handled much better than TRII's treatment of Venice. While on the streets, gameplay takes on a more adventure/RPG kind of turn, with Lara being able to talk to people, enter buildings and generally explore. Puzzles and action tend to be found within the larger buildings, but it's not until a good few hours into the game that you get to raid your first tomb.

The adventure-like sections are a welcome addition to the game, and break up the action nicely. The puzzly bits are well-designed and satisfying to solve, apart from one bizarre gameplay addition - Lara's ability to ''get stronger''. At certain points in the game, Lara will announce that she's unable to push a switch, kick open a door or shove a block around because she's ''not strong enough''. The game manual suggests that over time, Lara becomes stronger and ''levels up'' in an RPG style. In practice, however, this tends to mean that there is a smaller object nearby which Lara can push/pull/break/whatever, and after this, she will proudly announce that she ''feels stronger'' and will then perform the action you originally wanted her to do without any difficulty whatsoever. While it's an interesting way of hiding a linear route through some of the levels (rather than, for example, Lara just saying ''I don't think I should do that yet''), it's a little frustrating and... well, just weird, okay?

The much-vaunted ''other character'' Kurtis Trent plays less of a role in the game than previously thought. The majority of the game is spent as Lara, with Kurtis taking over at certain key moments when there needs to be a little more blasting done. Kurtis has less moves than Lara, being a big beefy man instead of a lithe young woman, and his sections are less puzzle, more action. Still, it adds a bit of variety to the game, which is always a plus.

There are problems. Little bugs seem to have slipped through the net in places and while none of them appear to destroy the gaming experience (apart from some reports of a save game corrupting bug at some point during the game, though I have had no troubles) they do detract from the atmosphere. When falling from a high ledge to her certain death, Lara has been known to fall through the floor. The inexplicable slowdown occasionally rears its ugly head. And the loading times are a pain in the posterior. Fortunately, the gameplay is enjoyable enough to mean that these problems become something else you just deal with.

The story is worthy of note. Unlike previous Tomb Raider instalments, the story here is coherent, makes sense and is handled well. There aren't endless cutscenes, but when you do get one it is normally as a reward for having completed a difficult section and therefore satisfying to see. The conversations are scripted nicely, though I would have preferred it if the screen and music didn't fade out before every little chat Lara has. A minor point, I know, but it detracts from the atmosphere somewhat.

So, in summary then? Tomb Raider vets will have a blast here, as will newcomers to the series. The game provides sound entertainment (and a lot of it too... Core assure us there are over 60 hours of gameplay in this one, though quite how much of this is dying, swearing and reloading is not clear), a compelling plot and the return of Lara who, despite everything, is still an appealing character to be controlling. People who hate Lara and her adventures, however, will find little to convince them otherwise here. Solving puzzles still relies on an obsessive observation of the environment around you (though Lara occasionally pipes up with helpful comments like ''I think I could probably climb on that'' in early stages of the game to ease beginners into the mindset of the level designers) and it's still a frustrating, difficult game.

But it's a lot of fun. While it's by no means the next evolution in gaming (being 8 months late doesn't help), it represents sound entertainment value and a worthy waste of time for anyone who plays it. It won't be to everyone's taste, but those who do enjoy it will enjoy it a lot, despite the little niggles.

It's good to see you back, Lara. Maybe next time you show up you can show us what you're really capable of and blow our minds once more, like you did when we first met...

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/05/03, Updated 07/05/03