Deutsche VersionTomb Raider Underworld Demo
First of all, completely unrelatedly: [Wohoo, new Star Trek trailer][startrek]!
Now, to Underworld. If you don’t already know it, Tomb Raider Underworld is the newest Tomb Raider game, which will come out soonish. It’s the ninth in the series, eighth if you don’t count Anniversary, though I’m not sure why people insist on not counting that one. Either way, there is a demo for Underworld out right now, so let’s take a look. And please ignore the mouse cursor on all the images. It wasn’t there when I took them, I blame IrfanView.
To start, I like the new take on the classic ring menu they’ve shown here. It’s also far easier to navigate with a gamepad than anything else, since you just tilt the analogue stick in the direction you want to. Sure, we’ve already seen something like it in Sims, but it wasn’t bad there and it’s good here as well.
Sadly, the other menus remain as they were in Legend, which means you have both “Gamepad” and “Control” settings, along with the ominous “View Axis Inversion”. Not what I’d call great. While we’re at it, what is this font? I do get a Futura-like vibe from it, but I think I’m wrong there. Either way, let’s jump into the game.
It looks pretty. Well, it better had, seeing how this manages to have occasional framerate issues on my neither-old-nor-cheap laptop. Nothing major and you have to pay a lot of attention, but at certain times there’s a little skip. But either way, I wouldn’t have played through Tomb Raiders 1 through 5 if pretty had been what I was after. It’s the gameplay that counts.
Now, to put this into context, I recently found a pack with all three games of the Prince of Persia - Sands of Time trilogy for 10€, and I had just finished the first one (Sands of Time) when I started the demo. Everybody says Tomb Raider Legend’s gameplay was, in large parts, a rip-off from PoP. Well, they were right, and Underworld has done nothing to change that. In fact, it even rips it off more, by introducing jumps between boards you balance on and zig-zag-jumping between walls.
Of course, that wouldn’t necessarily be bad, I loved Sands of Time, but the issue is that Underworld isn’t actually good at being a clone of the 2003 game. Controls don’t work as well, the zig-zag-jump really only works for me if I just press “Jump” in rapid succession until Lara reaches the top. Also, the animations are more jerky. Sure, most of the time they flow nicely, but every now and then you happen on an ugly edge case, especially when transitioning (like balancing on a board and then starting to shoot). This never was a problem in Prince of Persia, and maybe more notably, it never was a problem in the Core-made Tomb Raider games, not even the unbelievably buggy and horribly-thought-out Angel of Darkness.
Speaking of shooting, let’s talk about that. Frankly, the gameplay is adequate, the same as it always was in Tomb Raider. You shoot long enough, hop around a little, and the enemy dies. You can now target two enemies at once, but in practice, this does not make any difference. There also is a “headshot” system, similar to Anniversary, that I didn’t manage to understand, and that I seriously hope I’ll not be required to use anywhere, because it seems to suck. The main issue I have with combat is again the user interface. I have a weapon that I have “equipped”, as well as pistols. Pressing the button to change between the two lights up the “pistols” icon. Another icon, the one that actually indicates what weapon you are using at the top, changes, but doesn’t light up, leading to non-trivial confusion at first. You can also change the “equipped” weapon with your PDA, a design decision that doesn’t make any sense to me. Why not just choose the weapon freely, as it used to be?
User Interface is also the big issue with health. So there is a Lara in front, and a smaller behind her, and they have different colors, and I have no idea what it all means. My guess is that when the entire things is more greenish, that’s good, and when it’s more reddish, that’s bad. There’ll be probably an explanation in the manual, but frankly, if I can’t figure it out directly, the game already fails. To restore health, in the old games, you used Medipacs that were scattered liberally around, full of surgical equipment, and available in the most unlikely of locations. Obviously, this was unrealistic. Now you use pots of some mixture of local plants that have been thoughtfully prepared and left for you in the most unlikely of locations. Frankly, no part of this screams “better idea” to me at all.
Let’s wrap this up. Will I buy the game? Of course! In fact, it’s already ordered via Amazon, so it should arrive any day now. Despite all what I’ve written, the game is still fun, as were all other Tomb Raider games. Not every game has to spark a revolution, and let’s be honest, Underworld won’t, but as long as I can enjoy the ride, I’m happy. For revolution-sparking, I’ve pre-ordered Mirror’s Edge instead.
Written on November 18th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Lara ist die beste