Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

Published by Eidos Interactive
Developed by Core Design
Platform: PC CD-ROM/PlayStation 2
Released - Out Now
Price : £34.99 (PC) £39.99 (PS2)

Without a doubt one of the biggest titles on the PlayStation was Tomb Raider. The adventures of Lara Croft in all spawned five titles and with the release of the PlayStation 2, it was inevitable that Lara would be reappearing once more to grace Sony's more powerful machine. What wasn't expected though was the amount of time it would take for Lara to reappear. Core Design stated that this time around, Tomb Raider would be a different experience and as it turns out they are right, it has little in common with past Tomb Raider games, but does it still have the appeal of the past PlayStation games? On PC of course Tomb Raider was one of the first titles to make use of a 3D card. Anyone who remembers the first time they installed the Voodoo patch for the original Tomb Raider game will tell you it was a magical experience and one that initiated a new era in PC games history. Yes, there is no getting away from the fact that Tomb Raider has been a phenomenal series. Let's take a look at the latest, the sixth title, and see how it plays.

The game begins with Lara, in Paris, seemingly committing the murder of her mentor, Werner. The Police are certainly convinced of Lara's guilt and spend the beginning of the game chasing her. This initial phase, with Lara as a fugitive, serves as a tutorial and when Lara needs to make jumps and move items you are informed how to make her carry them out. The best news of all here is that it is fully subtitled. Only the introduction is unsubtitled (where she argues with Werner and he gets shot) so you'll be able to enjoy the games story. This time around you don't control Lara for the whole of the game, although to avoid ruining the surprise I'm not going to tell you who you do control, which might upset long standing fans of the series.

The developers always claimed that this game would be darker and this is exactly how it's turned out. Paris is terrified by the evil creature known as the Monstrum. Gruesome deaths have been occurring and this gives the game its dark tone. Lara's initial task is to find out who killed Werner and to do this she must seek out individuals and gather information. The original Tomb Raider was seen as causing the death of the traditional adventure game but The Angel of Darkness sees the Tomb Raider series becoming more like an adventure game rather than simply a platformer type game. Lara will frequently come across situations where she'll have to make dialogue choices in conversations. Most of the time the choices you make in a conversation will make no difference at all but it feels better than not being involved at all during the conversations.

Of course Lara has always been famous for her athleticism and The Angel of Darkness sees her with more moves than ever. However controlling Lara will alert you to one of the games major disappointments. All the previous control problems in past Tomb Raider games haven't been fixed and at times it feels worse. Lara feels awkward to move and as a result jumps feel more awkward than they ought to. Control is more of an issue with the PlayStation 2 version. The analogue sticks just don't feel right. Pressing the left analogue stick forward will cause Lara to walk and eventually run if held completely forward for long enough. The running isn't as instantaneous as it should be however and it can make long jumps a bit tricky at first. Thankfully you can save anywhere you like and it's a good thing because Lara will die a lot until you adjust to the controls. Lara should have immediately run when the left analogue stick was moved forward as this would have made things easier. If you press the L1 button Lara will walk so there is no need for a delay in making her run. Using the keys on the PC is a bit better and I found the jumps far easier to make and Lara was slightly easier to control when using the keyboard. Turning Lara round in tight spots also proved a challenge. For some reason she appears to turn in a staccato fashion and this makes it awkward on both the PC keyboard and the PS2 Dualshock pad.

There are a couple of new features that are worth mentioning. Lara's abilities can now be upgraded. Throughout the course of the game Lara will come across jumps, or other obstacles such as locked doors, that she can't negotiate and will remark that she 'isn't strong enough' or is a 'little rusty'. This means that there is a little puzzle to be solved and when you've solved it you'll get a message that Lara feels stronger. Although this initially seems like it's adding a role-playing element to the game it merely serves as a tool to make you solve simplistic puzzles and more often than not can become a hindrance. Lara also has a grip bar that appears when Lara is hanging or climbing (very similar to the breathe bar that appeared in past games when Lara was under water) if the bar should empty Lara will relinquish her grip and fall so you don't have time to hang about (if you'll excuse the pun) when it comes to climbing.

Graphically The Angel of Darkness is by far the best Tomb Raider game. The PlayStation 2 version wins here though. The PC version has a shoddy framerate and has more than it's fair share of glitches.

What you see above is the owner of the Cafe Metro. Yes it does look weird and no it doesn't look like that on the PlayStation version. It's not a driver problem either as various detonator drivers were tried and no difference was made. No other objects in the room were distorted either. Glitches like this occur a few times in the game and it's a real shame. I would imagine a patch would fix this. Glitches occur on the PlayStation 2 version but they are mainly concerned with peculiar looking shadows. Both versions exhibit clipping problems which is a shame but not altogether an uncommon problem in today's games. The games camera hasn't really improved from the last Tomb Raider game and still has a fit when in a tight corner. On the PlayStation 2 you can manually adjust the camera with the right analogue stick but the on the PC you can't do this. However, the camera movement does seem a little tighter on the PC version to compensate for this.

As we've already hinted at, The Angel of Darkness is fine for deaf gamers. Everything, apart from the introduction, is subtitled. The text is large and easy to read on both versions. The game uses icons to signify when an object can be picked up or when Lara has received an upgrade. Brief notes are kept in the log book that Lara has and this can be read at any time.

It's fair to say that Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness sees the Tomb Raider series in a transitional phase. It has its problems and it isn't the best Tomb Raider game ever but you can see what the developers have tried to do. Unfortunately the series former niggles still remain and the control system seems more fiddly than ever. However the games story does seem more substantial than in past episodes and is definitely more interesting. Still most fans will be disappointed with only a dozen hours of gameplay, especially after waiting so long for this next episode in the series.

PlayStation 2 version

Overall Game Rating: 7.0/10
Not the next generation Tomb Raider experience we all wanted but it's not a bad game at all once you've adjusted to the rather cumbersome control scheme.

PC version

Overall Game Rating: 6.0/10
Whilst the PC controls feel slightly better the graphical glitches and absolutely shocking framerate make the experience less enjoyable.

Deaf Gamers comment:
Apart from the lack of subtitles on the introduction the game is fine for deaf gamers.