The original Tomb Raider entered a largely 2D dominated genre and blew it wide apart with its dynamic 3 dimensional world, indeed platforming has never really been the same since.  Not only had the perspective been well and truly shifted but also the lead character was female (and quite obviously so), a brave move by Eidos and Core Design in a largely male dominated hobby.  As we all know Tomb Raider is now a very successful franchise and Lara Croft surely has to be the most famous video game heroine in history.  Whether it be down to some clever marketing bods recognising a new angle to entice adolescent boys, or just because it bucked the trend it has surely worked a treat.  Eidos has now employed developer Crystal Dynamics to take the Tomb Raider series into the next generation and hopefully re-ignite their early successes. 

So, some 12 years on it’s interesting to see how the universe has evolved around Lara, and indeed how Ms Croft herself performs in this generation of powerhouse consoles.  With this new age of gaming where the fairer gender is now a much more significant part of the market, has Lara sufficiently broadened her appeal? 

So to kick off, the story; it picks up after the recent Tomb Raider: Legend, which followed a plot based around the history of King Arthur and Excalibur.  Tomb Raider: Underground bases its excursions around all that Norse mythology malarkey and does so in a comparatively entertaining manner.  CGI cutscenes keep the story flowing nicely in between the action, as soon as you start the game you are greeted with Croft Manor exploding in a huge fireball and you find yourself in a burning corridor within the stately home.  What then ensues is a learn-along with Lara exercise to demonstrate her athletic capabilities and gadgets as you negotiate your escape from the inferno.  Various set pieces are required on your passage through the burning and broken mansion, from jumping across deadly precipices, traversing ledges hanging by only your fingertips, tight-rope walking and so on.  Lara can also move some objects to assist in reaching higher handholds or even place them on pressure pads to actuate doors and all sorts of mythical contraptions.  At her disposal Lara has a rather handy grapple device that can be used to swing over vast chasms or attach to moveable objects to remotely drag them.  Once you have successfully escaped the manor the story picks up with Lara in the Mediterranean Sea, a week prior to the destruction of her Stately home.  The adventure then proceeds to build on the events leading to the devastation of the Manor and thereafter.

Being the female equivalent of Indiana Jones, Lara Croft the daring archaeologist gets to go to lots of interesting far-off environments.  Lucky lady!  As with any good adventure though there are always things trying to kill you, eat you or consume your very soul.  Indeed, your first proper foray sees you jumping off a boat to discover ‘Avalon’ (hence the Arthurian link with Tomb Raider: Legend).  As soon as you step off the boat in your diving gear, hungry sharks meet you, obviously looking for a bite of those exposed thighs.  A steady swim toward the ocean floor finds a large rocky formation containing an ancient door within a cave.  Of course the door is locked and 2 of the handles used to actuate the door sections are missing.  Cue exploration of the seabed whilst avoiding becoming a tasty shark snack.  Once both handles are found and inserted into the door sections a comparatively easy puzzle must be solved to unlock the mechanism.   

There are a reasonable number of conundrums throughout Underworld, some are fairly straightforward and others are nearly diabolical.  The trickier puzzles aren’t challenging due to excessive complexity, it’s just that you aren’t presented with an immediately obvious solution.  Actuators are sometimes not the standard ‘pull me and I do something’ affair, they can be cunningly hidden to mimic the background scenery.  While this obviously extends the game, looking for the infernal device to open a door does nothing to aid your patience.  To compound matters, this method of trial and error puzzle solving often requires you to plummet to your death.  Now I can die and respawn with the best of them, but when you are greeted with a loading screen on each occurrence, well, need I say more? 

The other main element within the Tomb Raider games has always been exploration and Underworld is no exception.  However this isn’t your common or garden stroll round a country park, oh no!  What must be dealt with are treacherous landscapes both above and below the surface, a meandering walk followed by a picnic is not an option!  It is here that the old Tomb Raider magic is still present; climb up a series of handholds, leap to an adjacent ledge, walk a beam whilst maintaining balance, jump across to the top of a pillar then swing across several poles before leaping once again to terra firma. By and large Lara’s acrobatics are fantastic and very good fun, however the controls and camera on occasion prove to be very suspect.  It’s only when you’ve carried out one of the more protracted ascents that the few niggles become apparent.  In fact at the time it feels more than just a minor annoyance and I found myself wanting to feed my controller to the cat! 

I frequently died, and not due to my lack of skill, but because either the pigging camera wouldn’t allow me to see the next handhold, or just that Lara decided to jump in completely the opposite direction than I’d intended.  Unfortunately this is not just a one-off, and of course when Lara falls to her doom you are greeted by the all too familiar loading screen, and then have to start again.  Now, I’m usually a calm gamer but this really brought back the old Manic Miner ‘I want to smash the stupid rubber keys out of my Speccy’ syndrome’.

Interspersed within all this hop, skip and jumping action is a battle survival against all manner of foes.  Lara has to face sharks, tigers, spiders, evil poachers and even the undead, all of which want her gone.  Of course Lara has her trusty twin pistols to aid her in battle as well as some hefty melee attacks.  When things get a little hot in the action stakes there’s also an assault rifle, a shotgun, twin machine guns and even a spear gun to tip the odds in Lara’s favour.  Except for the pistols ammunition which is limited, so thrifty blasting is needed to conserve those shots.  Any one foe can be locked onto and remain targeted whilst Lara rolls and jumps around, peppering shots into her adversary.  For multiple or larger enemies there’s also a sticky grenade but this is a bit hit and miss.  Combat isn’t particularly challenging and is certainly not helped in any way by the enemy A.I.  The bad guys aren’t just stupid, they would make a chicken that’s undergone a frontal lobotomy look like Einstein!  But Tomb Raider has never been about combat and if you were expecting Gears of War then you’ve come to the wrong gig.

To give greater diversity to the action Lara also gets to do quite a bit of sightseeing on a chunky off-road bike.  The physics aren’t brilliant (it’s impossible to fall off the bike) but running over bad guys, leaping over ramps and performing timed runs is all fun enough.  Whilst not breaking any boundaries on the originality front it’s good to see Crystal Dynamics making an effort to cram in yet more variety, although purists may feel that the bike sections detract from the core mechanic.

Graphically Tomb Raider: Underworld delivers in the main, with some fairly impressive vistas to be found, particularly in the open-air environments.  Occasionally I witnessed some fairly severe cases of graphical clipping, which I would put down to the unruly camera.  Lighting and mist effects are used nicely and create a suitable atmosphere to accompany your exploration.  Lara herself looks very detailed with great animation and a huge number of moves.  In addition you can choose Lara’s costume at the start of most of the missions, I found this most amusing in that it generally ranges around the amount of rump showing.  Crystal Dynamics are obviously still trying to corner the adolescent male market then!  However the visual booby prize has to go to the poor old bad guys, unfortunately not only does this mean they’re stupid but ugly with it!

Sound is appropriate and inoffensive, with music and sound effects building tension where required. 

Tomb Raider: Underworld; a worthy sequel to those early classics?  Nearly, but not quite I would surmise.  The game has the old Tomb Raider charm and just like that even older ancestor ‘Manic Miner’, it keeps pulling you back for more.  Sure you will want to curse and spit at times due to the completely infuriating camera angle that leads to your repeated demise.  Or you may want to snap your disc in half when Lara has jumped the wrong way on that very same ledge for the seventeenth time.  I’m not saying this game is broken beyond repair; it’s just a little rough in places to make this the definitive Tomb Raider.  What you do get is a largely enjoyable, 12 to 15 hour adventure that really will only give die-hard fans or Achievement hunters a reason to return for more.

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