Underworld is the eighth installment
in the Tomb Raider franchise and the third by
Crystal Dynamics after their reboot of the series
in 2006. Following Legend and Anniversary, Underworld
ties together the stories from those two games
in a complete trilogy.
I'll say right now, Anniversary
pissed me off more than any other game I can
remember. Lara's buggy movement, the rubbish
checkpoint system and irritating combat left
me giving the game only a 5/10. Sure it looked
good, but I simply got too frustrated with it..
Underworld is a completely
different playing field. I don't remember getting
frustrated at all, apart from when I forgot
how the checkpoints work early in the game and
just assumed I could manually load a checkpoint
(oh no that would be too easy, you can only
replay the level from the beginning if you happen
to quit and try to manually load a checkpoint).
But I think part of why I liked Underworld much
more than Anniversary is because I understood
all it's little quirks much better. Tomb Raider
has a bit of a learning curve in getting used
to controlling the ridiculous camera and knowing
exactly what Lara can and can't do.
So the camera. Everyone complained
about it. Just about every review you'll find
they'll kick up a storm about it. Understandably
so, because too many times in this game the
camera has either gone into a wall and you can't
see anything or you're against a wall and can't
see whether there's a new handhold you're about
to jump to. Too many times you're forced to
jump blindly into the unknown, hoping something
is within reach behind you. The camera is a
flaw in this game, but it's not a show-stopper
by any means.
Overall the difficulty of Underworld
simply isn't as punishing as Anniversary. The
insane running wall jumps are rare now, thank
god because they were terrible. Even the combat
is much easier this time around. And I'm certainly
not feeling let down that there was no proper
boss battle. I honestly don't think games NEED
a boss battle.
Ammunition is now unlimited
for the handguns, so I never had to worry about
that. The shotgun and machine guns are dominant
weapons, neither of which I ran out of ammo
for either. By the end of the game when you
get Thor's hammer, which rips through almost
every enemy with a single thrust, combat is
at it's most fun. Even earlier in the game where
you're taking on human enemies, Underworld actually
feels like a bit of a shooter! Not a bad thing
and definitely an improvement on constantly
being knocked off your feet by grisly bears
in the earlier games, and even Anniversary.
The problem with level design
of Anniversary is that the levels didn't feel
like they had a purpose, other than being gigantic
puzzles/traps. They felt like levels in a video
game, not a realistic location hidden on Earth.
Underworld fixes that issue with a variety of
different settings such as the Arctic and Mediterranean
Sea's (yes, you play underwater), Thailand and
Mexico. You still have level-wide puzzles, but
they're not quite as complex and littered with
random traps.
Overall, the game looks slightly
better as well, which would make it the best
looking Lara game to date. And the best looking
Lara! Prancing around in her jungle shorts or
skin tight wet suit with her ass cheeks poking
out for the world to see. She looks very hot
and is great fun to play at a third person perspective.
I wish she had a few more outfits though.
I didn't think I'd enjoy Underworld
much; it was almost a chore to begin it. But
as the game wore on I realised the levels are
much better than Anniversary and the puzzles
and difficulty setting is more forgiving, making
it a really enjoyable game. The camera and leaps
of faith need to be worked on, and it's still
a very linear game, but it is without a doubt
the best Tomb Raider to date (unless you like
more of a challenge then you may prefer Anniversary).
