Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness (PC) - Review

[noel]

I'm guessing I'm about 1/4 of the way through TR:AOD. I picked it up late Saturday, and I played it off and on through the weekend. I may update this later, but I think I've played it enough to give a partial review.

I think the strongest aspects of the new game are the improved graphics, more detailed environments, and the story. The game starts out with Lara framed(?) for the murder of one of her former colleagues. Her memory is fuzzy, and she doesn't remember what happened. The French police are after her, and she's weaponless and actually wearing clothes for a change. At the same time her colleague is murdered, there's a serial-killer plaguing Paris referred to only as 'The Monstrum'. At this point it's unclear who or what this 'Monstrum' might be, but it apparently leaves a trail of grisly killings wherever it goes. The game does a good job of immersing you in some of the smaller environments. The music is excellent, and the pacing is relatively good. If you liked the previous games in the TR series, you'll likely enjoy this.

The new Lara model is incredibly detailed; boasting just over 3500 polygons. Sadly whoever modeled her face should be shot. It looks horrible. It's been too long since I studied art to put my finger on exactly what's wrong with it, but for starters her head looks too big for her body. Her eyes look too wide, and she lacks any meaningful expression. Core should have taken notes from the people who designed the popular 'No One Lives Forever' series. Kate Archer's model, though seen far less during the game, looks considerably better. The model used for the male character (I think his name is Kurt not that far yet) looks considerably better, and one of the bad guys looks almost exactly like Tim Robbins in the movie 'High Fidelity'.

As much as I like the story, and some of the characters, Lara's voice acting stands out as particularly bad. The voice sounds different than the one used in the past, and not for the better it's cold, and has more of an Australian accent than an English accent. Additionally, her dialogue so far seems to be the worst of all the speaking characters in the game.

By far the worst aspect of the game are the controls. I'm using a keyboard, but I'm told it's not much better with a gamepad even on the PS2. Lara is supposed to be agile, and dexterous, but she moves like a big rig. Even when you get used to the controls, they just don't seem fluid. Gone are the days where Lara has guns with unlimited ammo. I have maybe 5 guns at the moment, and it seems to take 4-6 bullets to take anyone down unless you use the equivalent of the Desert Eagle for which ammunition is very scarce. Additionally, you can't just 'hang around' forever like you used to. There's a new aspect of the game where Lara increases her arm and leg strength doing somewhat random things in the game. She'll need to move something that might be unrelated to the actual tasks at hand to increase her strength before she can proceed. So far this hasn't been annoying, but if I get stuck because I haven't moved 'random_box_0193' I'll probably be highly annoyed.

At this point I have to say I'm enjoying the game but I think it could be a lot better. I'd say if you enjoyed the other games in the series, the design choices made in this version are worth checking out. The soundtrack is very good, and the environments are interesting and detailed though the lack of random characters make the gameworld seem somewhat dead for lack of a better term.

[Deward]

she's weaponless and actually wearing clothes for a change.

Guess I won't be buying this game.

Deward