She’s the biggest female character in video gaming history, she’s been in drinks adverts car adverts, been put on t-shirts, posters, helmets, bikes and has her own graphic novel, she has been the fantasy of many a teenage boy for over a decade and now Miss Croft is back and better than ever. Crystal Dynamics has redesigned this famous heroine and the world in which she resides to be more reactive than ever.
The company went with a motto as they were creating this game “WCLD” or What Could Lara Do, basically designing on the basis of Lara Croft is an energetic, athletic, strong woman that has been doing this for years so what could someone do in real life with this experience. Lara can dual target, pick up and throw poles, prepare herself before leaping and more. Also the environment leaves it mark on Lara, if a bridge breaks you can’t leave the area and come back as it’s magically repaired. Its broken, that’s it, find another way round. Mud is transferred onto her knee or her back as she rolls and jumps but is washed away from rain or streams. This is all beautiful, absolutely incredible, the first time I played and just looked around everyone thought “wow!” (that doesn’t mean World of Warcraft, just for people who cant get their head out of that!). Crystal Dynamics have taken a working formula from Core Design and improved it, I’m tempted to say perfect it… but that would be going too far.
Let me tell you about the story though, I warn you this may contain spoilers!!!
The game begins in Lara’s mansion, the place is on fire and falling down around her. As you learn the controls in this short training mission you lead Lara to safety, but before you escape the game flashes back to a week earlier with Lara on her private yacht in the Mediterranean sea, as you fight sharks and dive in the depths you must solve the puzzle to get into an ancient temple. Which contains one of the Norse God Thor’s gauntlets. Lara needs to collect both gauntlets and Thor’s belt so she can get his hammer, Mjöllnir.
Thor’s hammer is legendary it could smash mountains into valleys, create powerful thunderstorms and was the only weapon capable of killing gods… something that comes in handy as its not too long into the game before you encounter Natla, the Alantean god you defeated in the first Tomb Raider all those years ago, or Anniversary if you’re a bit younger. You also meet Amanda the crazed former friend you defeated in Legend.
Amanda is keeping Natla imprisoned to get more information on how to get to Avalon. The believed resting place of King Arthur and believes the Norse legends of Valhalla are connected.
As you fight your way through the Mediterranean, the Peruvian jungle, a crypt under Croft manor and the Arctic Sea, you collect all of Thor’s belongings until you can wield his hammer and open the gates to Helheim (Hell).
Natla tricks you into opening the gates for you so she can use the Midgard serpent to bring Ragnarok and end the world. The serpent isn’t a giant snake that encircles the Earth like the Norse myths tell but a mechanical device that can trigger massive volcanic reactions on a weak point on the planets tectonic surface and cause Armageddon. Of course our heroin protects us all, saves the planet and escapes with another Excalibur.
This game isn’t for people new to the series, it’s for fans… I’m a fan and this concludes a three part story I didn’t even know existed. Tying together Crystal’s other Lara games, Anniversary and Legend. You have to remember a lot from both of these games to really appreciate Underworld which is sometimes confusing, I played all three close together and still had to read a lot of Wiki pages to understand. A lot of the Norse mythology isn’t really explained and I was lost as I quested for Mjöllnir.
This game has problems, problems a 3D action adventure plat former shouldn’t have that is twelve years old. The camera is incredibly unpredictable. I played this on PS3, PC and 360 and the PC was the easiest to control the camera with. I was thankful that the developers created it so Lara would look for possible routes and prepare herself if she thought she could make the jump because I was relying on her more than my own instincts. The camera would be focused on Lara, when I moved it, it would jump all over the place when it got near to a position where it could see what I wanted to see. I spotted Lara preparing herself and did a leap of faith… that added up to a lot of ‘leaps of faith’ which also meant a lot of deaths and repeated attempts.
Also Lara’s motorbike plays a bigger part in this game than in Legend. Instead of a chase scene and shooting at anyone you spotted, you need to use the bike to get to certain sections. This means timed traps, which is not good when the bike is as easy to control as a brick on ice. It doesn’t corner very well it doesn’t brake very well, doesn’t accelerate very quickly and comes to almost a complete stop but fly’s straight up twenty feet if you hit something. The bike needs work, the camera needs work, the dialogue needs work but it still looks good.
The game is still missing elements though, I would have liked more information on the Mythology, I would have liked more weapons and I would have liked a boss fight. The first Tomb Raider had three that I can think of at the moment, please correct me later. Legend had four I think. This has none, even the final confrontation with Natla is a cutscene. I could have taken her, I was ready to take her but I had to sit and watch a video. Good video, looked great but I wanted to fight. You can argue this is a questing game, look for treasures, solve puzzles but I wanted to get revenge on the people that tricked me into doing their dirty work.
This game is good, looks incredible, take screenshots and use them as your desktop but even for a fan it’s a chore to play through more than twice. If your new to the series get Anniversary and Legend, you can get them both for about £10 each and by the time you’ve completed them both Underworld will be the same price, if you’re a fan you probably already have a copy and if your smart you’ll be frustrated by the same things I was if your not your die-hard and have probably dreamt of tomb raiding yourself or changing your last name to Croft.
