Tomb Raider: Underworld
Our first ‘hands-on’ with the new Tomb Raider proves Lara’s newfound gymnastic prowess adds spectacle and drama to the whole experience.
Playing the Xbox 360 version of Tomb Raider Underworld on Friday was reassuring as much as it was genuinely exciting. You can watch all the trailers you like, enjoy live demonstrations, but until you take control you can’t be sure.
This morning we can tell you with confidence that Lara is back where she belongs: dwarfed by exotic and ancient structures, acrobatically trained and tooled up with a range of versatile new gizmos. Game development itself is evidently in capable hands: Crystal Dynamics have been innovating in the action-adventure field for over a decade giving Lara the best possible chance of a blockbuster comeback in November. Also they have Lara’s ‘Dad’ onboard for creative consultation – Toby Gard
Our hands-on session was brief at roughly 10 minutes total playtime; an appetiser of Underworld for yours truly to absorb. The section available to be explored was a remote location on the coast of Thailand, starting with Lara perched on her luxury yacht in a secluded bay; mainland an easy swim distance away in the crystal clear sea, in which it’s possible to dive and explore for treasure. However Lara needs scuba gear and a harpoon to make a serious stab at this. Our exercise would be entirely inland.
According to our Eidos tour guide for Underworld, the driving question behind Crystal’s newest Tomb Raider is ‘What would Lara do?’ If you were a brazen British girl capable of superhuman feats not unlike our Olympians in Beijing, how would you tackle, say, a sheer rock face that appears to be the only route to the starting point? You’d climb, but enjoy doing this with some style.
As personified by promo girl Alison Carroll, Lara has turned gymnast. Running, jumping and shooting is enhanced with exuberant back flips, balancing acts and swinging around poles to gain ground.
Much of our hands-on time was spent clambering around, observing Lara’s body language to judge whether or not a hand-hold was within reach or if bounding between ledges was possible. If Lara drops an arm while clinging to a surface it means she’s composed and prepared for a leap. If Lara positions her legs so as to spring while hanging beneath a ledge, it means she’s ready to leap upwards and make a grab for it.
To save time clambering awkwardly between narrow crevices or adjacent pillars, Lara has perfected a wall-jump technique – Super Mario style! Teetering as though walking a gymnasium beam is achieved by adjusting Lara’s weight via the left analogue stick. There will be sections later in the game where you need to have all of the above down pat to tackle obstacles at speed.
Our only outside threat for the demo occurred as we neared the Cambodian temple destination. Three tigers lurking around a river bed at the base of the ruins, all of them vicious and after Lara’s blood. Here we got to try out the new ability to target two enemies independently for Lara’s trademark twin Desert Eagles. Also to attempt an ‘adrenalin move’ – slowing time to manoeuvre out of harm’s way while taking the shot. If you’re good at this you can perform instant kills, sadly we needed more practice! Lara carries tranquilising rounds in case you don’t appreciate gunning down endangered species... or you can kick em unconscious!
Other enemies were less dramatic but still bothersome: Spiders and bats were easily stamped upon or round-housed into pieces. However the Spiders have a worrying habit of pursuing Lara up the walls…a trait that larger enemies will also demonstrate in the game later on.
Combat in Tomb Raider Underworld is fun, but not the main event – certainly not honed to the same degree as in Resident Evil or Drake’s Fortune. But in fairness it never has been. The best of Tomb Raider has always been about the ambience of the surroundings; backdrop to the supreme puzzle solving involved and within this Cambodian temple we were not disappointed.
Chambers and passageways leading up to the main atrium dedicated to Hindu god Shiva are festooned with carvings and statues. Highlighting this staggering attention to detail are striking lighting effects, combining real-time (e.g. Lara's pocket torch used to search the shadows) with ‘burned in’ (e.g. light through windows)techniques to serve an atmosphere so vivid you can almost smell the foliage and humid air. If Tomb Raider Underworld maintains this splendour throughout it’ll be astonishing.
The demo grand finale is the Hall of Shiva. Lara must find a route to an imposing statue far below depicting The Destroyer himself and what appears to be his lover. Lara must activate an elevator, controlled by ropes tethered to pulleys. Here is the best example of Lara’s new grapple technique – her rope can now be attached to a distant post and then pulled across objects to manipulate them. She can also yank the rope to pull away targets. This is one way to loosen the ropes. Another involves the multi-purpose tool featured in the demo from January – a pole that can slot into holes in the manner of a key, or hold place for Lara to step onto or swing from. Here she just needs to pull it free. It can be used as a weapon too, but not in this case.
Back to the elevator and the lever is given a good tug… plunging Lara to her doom!
To be continued we guess. But our hands-on has certainly left us hankering for more. On the evidence of this Lara has really matured at the hands of Crystal Dynamics in every possible respect. Eidos almost certainly has a hit on their hands when Tomb Raider Underworld is released for consoles and PC in November.
