As if you didn't notice, Lara Croft is back in the Crystal Dynamics-developed offering from Eidos, Tomb Raider: Underworld.  In case you're not sure how the series has gone so far, you've had Tomb Raiders one to three, The Last Revelation, Chronicles, Angel of Darkness, Legend, Anniversary and now Underworld.  I'm no Carol Vorderman, but that makes it Tomb Raider 9.

So, does the ninth game show that the series belongs in a museum, or are there plenty more sharks in the sea for Lady Croft's exploits?

Read more to find out...

The fans of the series first complained that when Crystal Dynamics took on the job of breathing life in the rather forlorn series of Tomb Raider games, that the development team had caused the game to become a globe-trotting Prince of Persia with a female lead and dual pistols, adding a huge number of acrobatic moves to her already-impressive repertoire, but sapping away at its demanding puzzle elements in exchange.  Legend, Crystal Dynamics' first effort, was seen to be much too linear.  Lara's penchant for exploration was dampened by straightforward gameplay and very limited paths to take.  Up in arms, the fans made their cases on various fora and Eidos listened, Anniversary was very well-recieved for being that much less linear, more luscious in its environments and very much a return to the roots of the series but it was not without its complaints from fans but then, you know what fans are like; they are the harshest of critics.

For me, Tomb Raider is fun and exciting, challenging and entertaining: exotic places, bizarre plot twists and expansive maps that are much too large to explore.  To my other half, however, Tomb Raider is the pinnacle of gaming.  The exotic scenes are intoxicating and every detail is to be savoured and every inch of the map is to be explored and verified with a scrutiny more becoming of a Russian immigration officer though, without the rubber gloves. 

Underworld begins with an indication of the efforts to make the game a lot less linear: the good old circular narrative.  With Lara's mansion on fire, the training level begins, teaching you all the relevant controls to safely navigate you into the main hall, where a cutscene shows Zip, one of Lara's researchers, shooting at the lady of the house before a white-out catapults you one week earlier where Lara is on her boat, bobbing around the Mediterranean Sea.

As the story unfolds, you are treated to a few flashbacks and recaps on the Crystal Dynamics story so far and your main task is to get hold of the mythical hammer of the Norse god, Thor, known as Mjolnir, in order to kill Natla who is a nasty piece of work from way back in the original Tomb Raider or later, Anniversary.   You've got to have a good goal, haven't you?

Underworld provides the player with a good few options to tailor the game to their desires.  You can make enemies easier to kill and thus bring the puzzle elements to the fore or, alternatively, you can elect to make the combat the focus of the game by increasing their health and such, then asking Lara herself how to solve the puzzles.  From that point of view, you can turn the game into either a classic Tomb Raider game or into Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.  The plus point is that in turning the game into a classic Tomb Raider, you are still left with the high definition lusciousness of the scenery.  It's an attempt to be all things to all people and there is truly nothing objectionable about that.

The look of the game is fantastic.  It really makes use of what the seventh generation consoles have to offer and the result is a much more realistic environment that pulls you in.  In Mexico, the rain-drenched plants' leaves shimmer and reflect the light, the mud behaves the same way and you can even see water draining away - the detail is immense and on an HD TV, your eyes are truly treated to a feast of slightly plasticcy-looking surroundings (they all look a bit plasticcy on the new consoles, don't they). 

The textures mostly stand up to close scrutiny and, while detailed, aren't so fussy that they cause disorientation with the rest of the scenery.  You can definitely tell the walls apart, or columns from walls, for example, which has been a problem - nay, a puzzle mechanic, in the PSOne titles.  Lighting, too, is rather well executed.  Whether it's the blanket illumination of the Mexican rainforest during a storm or the fuzzy shafts of light shining through the leafy Thai canopy, shadows and lighting are rich and accurate and a great way of immersing you into the game.

Lara herself is animated smoothly and is the most capable acrobat and gymnast than any of her previous incarnations.  Her moves are mostly smooth and fluid and she feels as though she has significant weight to her now.  Gone are the days of her gliding through the air as if on the moon, she now has a really substantial feeling to her, she's got some meat on her now. 

I said 'on'.  Though perhaps it could be said that she moves a little too quickly to be 100% realistic.  There is a slightly unnatural swiftness to her acrobatics.

Not only does Lara have some weight behind her, but the objects she moves around do too.  Large blocks, chests, metal cages and other Tomb Raider puzzle staples are pushed around slowly, with an awkwardness that you'd expect from such an unweidly object.  And speaking of objects that you have to move around, there are a couple of extra things that should be mentioned.  One is swing poles.  Swing poles have been around for a good few games and have been heavily relied-upon in the most recent three, Underworld included.  A new feature is being able to remove some poles from their housing and either use them to bash the brains of an endangered species from its housing, or to put it in a little hole somewhere else and use it to get somewhere else.  That's nice, isn't it?  What else is nice is that you can pick up weighty blocks, move them about and place them on that age-old puzzle device, the pressure pad.

The grapple makes another reappearance on this game and as a result, large gold rings litter the entire game and all look exactly the same, despite the fact the game takes you to the Med, Thailand, Mexico, England and the Arctic Ocean, among other places.  It's quite unusual that these places all have the same little rings dotted throughout, (the same is true of the spiders, oddly) but still, they are, in essence, meant to be built by the same people.  The grapple now goes around things and can be used, when pulled to push things around, which makes for a few interesting puzzles. 

What else is new for Tomb Raider: Underworld?  How do climbable walls grab you?  They don't, do they, but you can grab them and adopt a rock-climbing-esque position on the side of the walls and make your way to wherever you need to be going.  It's a nice addition to the Tomb Raider movement collection and helps to break the monotony of ledges upon ledges.  Also, balance beams are back and also act as ledges but there's nothing new to report there. 

Different for motion, though, is the motorbike.  Sure, Lara has had a whole host of different vehicles at her disposal in the past and a motorbike appeared in Legend, but the levels that features that vehicle were slated because you weren't able to get off and explore, on top of that, they were repetitive, boring speed-fests where you just had to kill other vehicle-bound baddies.  Underworld gives you a large map and a motorbike and the ability to get off of it at will.  It's just the cure for those awful levels in Legend.  And there's no set path for you to go any more.  I should be careful with saying these things, really.  The main path of the game is still very linear.  You still have to complete things in a certain order to proceed, but instead of having a snaking level that prevents you from exploring, you're given a large area with puzzles situated all over the place and so you have pretty-much free roam of that level.

The non-linear nature of these levels is definitely a plus in this game and it really gives you the feeling of freedom that the older games had.  It means that you're in a strange-looking place with little or no idea of what to do or where to go and that is quite exciting.  It's what Tomb Raider has always been about.  Sure, those who want to know what to do next can 'ask Lara', but the classic games had none of that namby-pamby easiness, it was just that you had to go for it and figure out for yourself what you were meant to do.  Underworld has that in spades.  What it also has, is larger maps that you can explore and that have areas there for no real reason. 

Unfortunately, though, it also has areas where you can't go but looks as if you can.  There is little more annoying than wanting to go and see if you can get somewhere, only to find that for some reason, you're up against some invisible barrier.  And for some reason, some rocks and walls are unclimable and cause a few animation glitches.  Why not just have Lara be able to run around the top of some fire-breathing statues that flip up and down when they're down, instead of having her incapable of jumping on them?!  It's a shame that when you've got these beautifully rendered areas that invite exploration, you're stopped by mysterious unseen forces and just feel that the developers have been lazy in not making the area in quesiton accessible. 

Speaking of glitches, the PS3 version has some peculiar glitches where, say, it stops raining, despite the sound continuing, but it resumes again once you access a different part of the map.  Also, undead creatures in Croft's undercroft, known as thralls, regenerate and so, if you reload the game, having already killed them, it fails to register that they're dead and despite the fact that their dead bodies are clearly visible on the ground, they reappear, ready for you to kill them again!  In Thailand, you'll find a texture that comes down from nowhere and is only visible from certain angles, while in Mexico, a number of places are missing textures and are just plain black.  But it must be stressed that it's quite unlikely you'll notice these things unless you are examining every piece of the map, but that doesn't mean that the detail should be allowed to be missing!  The camera has its glitches as well.  It can be very awkward in tight spots and move in a most irritating fashion to a place where you can see neither Jack nor shit. 

All in all, the game doesn't suffer a great deal from glitches, not nearly so much as it suffers from its brevity.  It is most unfortunate that the technically most-accomplished of the next/now-gen Tomb Raider offerings is among its shortest.  It's such an enjoyable game due to how satisfying it is to solve puzzles while pulling off rather fancy acrobatics, that you don't want it to end.  You want it to continue for at least another two levels and love it throughout because, ladies and gentlemen, the game is thrilling.  It's epic and detailed, well-thought-out and rather grand, fairly linear, but not stiflingly so.  It holds amazing vistas and environments, even if some are a little rough around the edges and limited in their accessibility.  It has some very clever puzzles and some fun suspenseful monster-closet moments with various threatening animals (there are a lot of dangerous fauna in this game, fans of the classics will be pleased to hear!) and overall, the game is an absolute joy to play. 

We asked a community manager for Eidos whether Lara will be back and his answer was that she can never really go away now, can she?  And my reaction now is a lot different to what my reaction would have been to that answer around the time of Legend.  Back then I would say, "why?!  I mean, why?!  It's dead in the water, the series has reached such a low point that nobody will buy it any more because it's the same old crap rejigged again."  But now, I will say that I'm looking forward to the next Tomb Raider game, that my other half is not the only one who gives a shit about how the game looks or feels and life has, once again, been breathed back into Lara's adventures. 

It's not perfect, but it's moving in that direction.

8D
Stunning visual environments and sounds.
Engaging, clever puzzles
Fun combat, tailored to degrees of difficulty decided by you.

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Glitches (on the PS3 port and Wii version, at least)
Occasionally awkward camera
Too short, dammit!

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