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Tomb Raider: Underworld Review
November 28th 2008 00:12
Lara Croft is one of the most known game icons in the world. She is by far the most popular heroine that you will find, as she explores various ruins, fights human and supernatrual threats, and solves numerous puzzles while she becomes one of the best and greatest archeologies in gaming.
For the most part, you will find that Underworld is a continuation of the original storyline. There will be a quick summary and recap of the players as a refresher from Legend. But, Underworld will start as Lara Croft explores the coordinates that lead her to the Mediterranean Sea. She will investigates, she makes an interesting find.
The storyline of Underworld is pretty good, so if your a gamer that enjoys a good story, you'll find Tomb Raider: Underworld entertaining, to say the least. And, you'll find that the blend of cutscenes and exploration will keep the game moving fast.
The pace of the game is caused by a few adjustments and refinements in the game's mechanics. Where in Legend, you were given a large amound of flexibility with a lot of freedom for your agility and speed, it is pretty retained in Underworld. Althouth, you can still manipulate Lara's acrobatics and scale walls, the creators attempted to build on the basics with the gameplay.
The creators fof Tomb Raider Underwold removed the quick time elements and replaced them with Situational Adrenaline, that will give you the feeling that you need to react in order to avoid a particular threat.
They also made minor adjustments to combat. Where Lara Croft still retains her agility for tumbling and firing, she now has the ability to aim and fire at two enemies at the same time, which is rather useful if you are taking out swarms of bats or other creatures. But, at the same time this new ability hampers the progress of other enemies that attempt to close in on you and perform melee attacks.
In Underworld, Lara Croft has sticky grenades that go off in a specific location, which cuts down the frustration that was in Legend.
You are able to trigger the adrenaline at any time throughout the game, which will slow down the actions of your enemies and make your shots stronger. ou are able to store your adrenaline until you've maxed out your holding, to which you are then able to get close to any enemy and bounce off of them in attempts to a one-shot kill.
There is one main concern with the adrenaline system. It makes a large number of the battles way too easy because you are constantly refreshing your adrenaline, which allows you the ability to move quickly, giving you an edge over your opponent. You can still alter the game's difficulty.
Lara Croft comes with a sonar map that will guide you anywhere in the game, which allows you a 3D picture of everything at all times. This is pretty cool, I guess.
You will also find that Underworld has Field Assistance where if you find yourself stumed, you can access hints through your PDA. This is a nice feature for those who have problems visualizing where they need to go.
The game has slowdown and framerate drops that happen a lot throughout the game, which sucks as it is rather distracting. Although, the point is to be a little distracting to get you out of the visual and aural presentation, but the level of them just pop in and snap into place with odd shadows and flickers of light.
Another of the main concerns with the game is that there are a number of clipping and object detection issues. Lara Croft will frequently move into or through walls or blocks, which will sometimes force her into an animation loop as the game attempts to reconcile movements and areas that she shouldn't be in.
And of course the camera is a pain becuase as you move through the environment, the camera will zoom, pan, and tilt on its own accord without your instruction or direction. Normally, this wouldn't be that big of a concern, except the camera will stay in place making it hard to figure out the right jumping angle or location to move.
You will find taht the Xbox has downloadable ocntent, which you won't get with the Playstation 3, which gives the Xbox a slightly better edge.
Oh, and if you're wondering about the graphics and sound quality.... They are pretty good. The animations are well done, and the voices are pretty good.
The game is an average action game, that Lara Croft fans will probably get some good gameplay out of, but personally I find there are a good number of technical concerns with the game.
Check out just a few of the scenes that you will encounter.
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It's so different than sitting in your living room and watching however many cars race in a circle trying to win. All the drivers and cars blend together, and it can be hard to tell who's who and what's what, but when you're in the driver's seat, and you're the one in control, you get a whole new respect for racing. Granted, of course you're not in danger in your house racing in comparison to on the track, but you get the idea. 
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