After the Tomb Raider Series revolving around gamings boob-babe Nr.1 had already appeared dead, Crystal Dynamics managed to revitalize the franchise with Legend and its new and fresh control scheme two years ago.
Ending with a halfway cliff-hanger, the anticipation for the story to continue in Underworld was even bigger. Now we’ve finally been able to lay our hands on the sequel and according to the title, we'll get ourselves underground.
Those of you who missed Legend - don’t worry, there is a brief summary of the foregoing events within the Extras section of Underworld, although it’s not much of a help. In short: Lara’s Mum didn’t die in a plane crash as everyone thought, but instead spends her days now lurking in the underworld (Hence the title). Lara’s out to save her, but in order to do so she needs some worn out stuff from Thor, God of Thunder. Amanda, already known from the predecessor, apparently hasn't learned her lesson and wants to play with Lara again and to top it all of, Natla from Tomb Raider Anniversary is also thrown into the mix. Sounds confusing, and it is to a certain point. What’s even worse though is the fact that the game has a much darker tone to it than in the previous games. Sure, according to the title this could have been expected but in this presentation there is not a single likeable character left in the game, with Lara Croft as a man-eating, egoistic and ice-cold bitch leading the pack.
Around the world with 80DD
So once more it’s around the world back and forth. You visit the beautiful coasts of Thailand, the rainy southern Mexico, the rainy England and some other rainy locations full of ten-story-high mechanisms, old temples and deadly traps. The game begins rather linear much like Legend but opens up as you progress until southern Mexico is close to being called open world. Some stages are that big, the only way to traverse them in reasonable time is to use Laras motorbike. If you’re a fan of the original with its big stages like the coliseum, you’re going to find yourself right at home with Underworld’s new big environments. Finally you can satisfy your exploration needs again. However, bigger locations come along with a couple of problems, starting of with the good old backtracking. The bigger issue though is the ever lasting question of: What now? The game does a poor job - or say it does no job at all in leading your way throughout the game. Often there are not even the merest hints, what to do next. Sure, you can always check Lara’s PDA and ask our green lantern for tips. Those [] she provides are rarely helpful since the WHAT usually isn’t the problem. I got to climb both of these towers. Fine, but where to start? How do I get there? How do I reach this ledge? I need to check if there is another calendar like this on the other side. Fair enough, but how do I get there again? Where is the way? At least give me a general direction! This is a dead-end, what now? Don’t ask me, I’m just a girl, hihihi.
It's not much of a help that later stages are so dark and climbable surfaces are so poorly marked that it becomes real hard to spot them. Again there is no help. Well, there is a sonar-map in your PDA which might just be the most useless help-tool we’ve ever seen in a game. The stages are too big and too confusing. Exploration is all fine, but in Underworld it is totally possible to be stuck for hours in the same room because you just can’t find the one climbable hook hidden in the wall. The constant climbing on huge mountains can be annoying, especially since the game often forces restarts from the bottom if you fall once.
Moving…
Even if the level design were adequate, the controls are sure to ruin the fun. The controller layout in Underworlds is the worst we’ve come across in the series yet, second only to the 1996 Original. It is a miracle to us how this was even possible considering they had this great setup for Legend and basically only needed to copy-paste it. Instead the controls are unresponsive and slow. Lara does not always react the way you want her to, often mistimed a jump in spite of the automatic correction the game offers. She gets stuck on pieces of the environment constantly and sometimes needs tricks to free her of a stone or a ledge. The camera also freaks out on a regular basis, making some levels impossible to manoeuvre through. Getting Lara to move exactly where you want her to is next to impossible. You don’t see where to go, you don’t have a real chance on exploring the level and in spite of the game’s size it’s fairly linear. There is always only the one way, which you have to find. What’s the point of Lara’s Free-Climbing if you can only perform it where the game allows you to? Assassin’s Creed this ain’t. It is always about finding the one way or the one solution the designers had in mind. Mostly it doesn’t even have anything to do with logic or puzzle solving but rather with being lucky enough to find the hidden beginning of Lara’s next climbing orgy all the while hoping she doesn’t lose the fun in being alive half way up.
