Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

"Hmmm. That took an extra 8 months did it?"

For those of you new to the TR series, this game may come accross as a slightly inferior Indiana Jones knock-off, but will still provide you with many hours of, for the most part, enjoyable gameplay. For those of you who have waited and waited, waited some more, pre-ordered, cancelled due to massive and inexplicable delays, pre-ordered again, then cancelled and eventually bought one from the nearest store that was selling them the day before the official release date, you may be sadly disappointed. This is an unfortunate case of Eidos' mouth writing cheques the rest of it couldn't cash. They promised too much, but failed to deliver on the most part. I have played through all of the previous titles, and although I felt dirty after the demo disc they passed off as 'Chronicles', I was salivating like a rabid pitbull when I finally got a copy.

TR: AOD tells the story of events some time after the last TR where Lara was thought to have died in egypt. Her former mentor, Werner Von Croy, has been murdered and Lara is the prime suspect. From here we are taken through the seedy backstreets of Paris and then the underworld of Prague in pursuit of Von Croy's killer and an ancient cult intent on ressurecting a long-dead race of human/angel hybrids. The events before this game and after Egypt are to explored in a prequel, apparently. I'm 25 now, so I look forward to going to buy TR 7 with my grandchildren.

Playablity? I really, really wanted this to be the best game ever. I have thoroughly enjoyed the other TR games (not Chronicles) and this provides everything else that the other TRs had - there's Lara, there's guns (but sadly not the two-gun John Woo action), there's swimming, jumping, levers, and 'the voice'. There's also a new character - Kurtis Trent - who you can control through a part of the game, but his presence brings nothing to the gameplay - He runs, shoots, picks up medipacks, but has no special moves, and his 'psychic powers' amount to nothing more than the odd cut-scene.

The new control system is absolutely diabolical. A few teething problems are to be expected when introducing a completely new movement system into a game that is on it's 6th installment, but after reloading the same jump over & over again to watch Lara fall to her death, I thought I had developed Tourette's Syndrome. Lara moves like she is running through treacle when she does eventually decide that she will move, and most of the smaller, precise movements are painfully awkward. Gone are the days of accurate sidestepping where you held the walk button and moved the stick in confidence, replaced with an almost Run DMC-like shuffle. The introduction of a new system of 'power-ups' whereby Lara can develope extra strength by performing actions like pushing crates or statues to gain extra time to hang from ledges, etc or to increase the length of her jumping distance means that most of the jumps in the game can be performed from a standing position and you find yourself trying to widen the gap to prevent jumping over the target instead of trying to get as near as possible

The game itself is much more polished than it's predecessors, but that is to be expected given the new format and the ridiculous length of time it has taken. In this day and age I don't expect to see slowdown in a game when there are only 2 moving sprites on the screen, but this happened for no apparent reason while trying to go up some stairs 'chased' ( we were both going in the same direction ) by ONE, yes ONE enemy. There are a lot of nice touches in the game, but none of these are groundbreaking and after the hype, they fall woefully short of expectation.

The sound in the game is reminiscent of the first game in places but instantly forgettable in the most part, with the standard issue 'atmospheric' orchestra music when there is a cut scene, or the camera pans through the start of a level.

Persistent players will be rewarded with a trailer for the upcoming film Tomb Raider: Cradle Of Life, and a 'Making Of' sequence, which is short, but pointless.

Should you buy this game? Well, if you are a hardcore fan of the series, this is probably already in your collection. If not, it is at least worth a rental. It does provide something a bit different if you've never played any TR, or need a warm-up for the new Indy game. If you want something with a bit more action in it that will probably hold you interest more, try Primal - a fine example of what can be expected in games to come.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 07/16/03, Updated 07/16/03