Video Games : Tomb Raider: Underworld

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from: Eidos Interactive

: Tomb Raider: Underworld
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List Price: $59.99
Amazon.com's Price: $49.99
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Amazon Maximum Age: 20 years
Amazon Minimum Age: 144 months
Binding: Video Game
Brand: Eidos
EAN: 0788687200585
ESRB Age Rating: Teen
Label: Eidos Interactive
Manufacturer: Eidos Interactive
Model: 1000044578
Platform: Xbox 360
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Release Date: November 18, 2008
Sales Rank: 757
Studio: Eidos Interactive

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Amazon.com Product Description:
Tomb Raider: Underworld for Xbox 360 by Eidos resumes where Tomb Raider: Legend left off. This installment introduces a new, interactive playing environment that gives players a chance to immerse themselves more fully into the game. Players once again take the role of Lara Croft as she explores such wide-ranging places as the Arctic, Mexico, and beneath the Mediterranean Sea.



Lara's environment is now much more realistic and interactive. View larger.


And now she can hold onto a ledge with one hand and fire a gun with the other. View larger.
Interactive Worlds Introduces Realistic gameplay
Unlike the previous games in the series, Lara's environment is now much more realistic and interactive. Footprints will be left in mud, for example, but only until it rains and then they will wash away. Lara's shirt will also get wet, and she's more likely to lose her grip if she is standing on a slippery, rain-soaked ledge. When the sun comes out, her shirt will dry and the slippery surfaces regain their friction.

In Underworld, Lara also has a lot more flexibility in how she makes her way through a level, as there is often more than one way to get from here to there. She can now climb walls with texture and rocky outcroppings to reach areas she previously wouldn't have been able to access.

All of these additions have been made to give the game a non-linear, open feel. Players can interactive with the environment by doing things they find to be intuitive, and the game will respond in an appropriate way. When Lara interacts with trees, for example, she will push aside leaves using either one or two hands depending on whether or not she's holding something. These details give a lifelike, immersive sensation to the game.

New Melee Combat System
Underworld introduces a new melee combat system that requires players to strategically strike with offensive, defensive, and evasive maneuvers. Lara can now attack enemies with different punches, kicks, knees, and other acrobatic onslaughts. Items lying on the ground, such as poles that were previously walked on, can be picked up and swung at enemies. Players can also perform a greater variety of actions with weapons; for example, Lara can now hold onto a ledge with one hand and fire a gun with the other.

Realistic Enemy and Animal AI
The AI in Tomb Raider: Underworld has also taken a big step forward--both enemies and animals now make independent decisions based on their surroundings, employ ambush and squad tactics when fighting, and will retreat if deemed necessary.

With updated graphics and a more immersive and realistic gameplay, Tomb Raider: Underworld will have both fans and newcomers excited about the newest installment in this popular video game-pinup franchise.




Tomb Raider: Underworld is loaded with a new melee combat system, various weapons, and smarter AI for both enemies and animals.





Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - Good Game
I've enjoyed older Tomb Raider games more than this one but this is solid. It's most of the stuff you'd expect from TR games -- looking for things to climb on, getting the three or four pieces of something to make a door open, etc. I do like that they're offering you some tools to complete the tasks like sonar and some other things that I found helpful.


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Almost a masterpiece
If it weren't for the (relatively few) flaws, this game would be a masterpiece. I've been a fan of the tomb raider series for a long long time, but for whatever reason haven't played the last two. I'm glad I gave this one a go.

The pros:
- Gorgeous and expansive levels
- Great acrobatics
- Puzzles are the perfect difficulty
- Lots of puzzles
The cons:
- Controls take some getting used to, especially the grappling hook
- Lara gets "stuck" in the environments sometimes, especially if it's right on top of a terrain change. Can usually escape pretty easily, but it's annoying nonetheless
- Invisible walls and "special" walls. I prefer delimiting the boundaries of where you can travel by walls that are simply just too high to jump on. Invisible walls feel cheap. "special" walls are walls that you can jump on and climb (as opposed to unspecial walls that look absolutely identical, but for some reason Lara refuses to grab it). In this sense the environment isn't totally autonomous, I would like to be able to do everything that the laws of physics allow me to do. If there's a wall that isn't any higher than my hands when I raise them straight up, I should sure as heck be able to climb it.
- Axis inversion doesn't work on vehicles. This is a little weird, and really feels like a bug in the game, but when playing 3rd person games I really like axis inversion. It's broken on vehicles.
- Lack of keyboard mapping. On the Xbox 360 version anyway, there is no option to remap keys.
- Autosave feature is a little weird. It uses 8 save slots, the same 8 save slots for if you do manual saves. So if you do a manual save, it will get overwritten later by an autosave.

There is also the obvious comparison to Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I would rate them about the same, each with its own cons, with Uncharted just having a different set of cons. There are obviously a lot of similarities between the two games, but if you liked Uncharted you won't necessarily like TR:U. For starters Uncharted is much more heavily focused on the combat. In Tomb Raider you might encounter a total of 10 enemies in a level which takes you 3 hours to beat. In Uncharted you would have encountered 100 enemies in that same level. Because of this, the combat system in TR is less refined. There's no "taking cover" for example.

All in all though TRU is a solid, if not the best, game in the Tomb Raider series to date. If you're a fan of Tomb Raider, you will love this game, no question about it.


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Lara by
Ever since Crystal Dynamics took the tomb raider franchise thingss have changed a lot for Lady Croft, no longer you'll find yourself chasing treasures without sense, it is all about her parents now and that has been Lara's motive ever since, which is great. Enviroments are more open here, underwater stages are huge and I mean HUGE, with water flows to keep you in the stage limits, enemy IA is not that fluid but it does it work. The new motion capture moves make Lara to look more realistic than ever, glitches around the corners and some places in thee stage are there and some other little things. To make this short the game is a solid Tomb Raaider adventure which is fully enjoyable even with little issues in the technical areas, I highly recommend it but, if you are a Lara Fan it's a must!


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Good Incremental Improvements, No Revolution
What I like about the Tomb Raider games I've played so far (Anniversary and Underworld) is that the shooting sits alongside (modest) tests of dexterity and intelligence. So yes, there's plenty of action but it doesn't feel like the other components were just tacked on (see: Halo 3 in single-player mode).

Underworld seems to be the product of a working-out of inconsistencies in Anniversary, although it introduces several of its own, most notably the clear evidence that Lara is the world's *worst* archaeologist: since the treasure is now hidden in jars (for no obvious reason) Lara happily breaks 'priceless artifacts' in search for loot.

Aaaanyway, the changes that stood out for me:

1. Graphics: Anniversary graphics were ok, but the Underworld graphics are, frankly, amazing. For the first time I feel like I understand why the 360 was sold as a 'next gen' console (though I should confess that I only own four games so perhaps GoW2 is equally impressive). There are clever distance distortion-effects (such as when diving) and fogging and blurring from rain or mist.

2. Adrenaline: formerly the 'rage attack' this has been more logically reworked so that it is Lara who has to do the work to get the slow-mo shots. I found this change a lot harder to work with (because you no longer slide into it automatically) but it is at least sensible and you can do 'concentrated' attacks that don't require a full adrenaline meter.

3. Rock climbing: the nice start of a move away from "Oh, there's the white-edge ledge I guess I go that way..." Basically, more and more of the environment is becoming 'explore-able' and I can't help but see that as a good thing.

4. Grapple: can now be used to climb up and down cliff faces (and it no longer seems to unceremoniously drop you when you reach the 'end' of the line). Since this is the way that a normal human being would use a magic grappling hook that can snare anything first go, again, I can't help but see this as a good thing.

5. Melee: you can kick attackers, jump off of them, and do a variety of other combat manoeuvres that are easy to use and have sensible effects (such as stunning or knocking down an opponent).

6. AI: marginally more intelligent, but since Lara seems to take more damage from attacks these days I'm glad that it's not too much more intelligent even though the challenge would be worthwhile.

7. Sonar: utterly useless. I'm unclear how it works on land (unless it has a handy high-frequency switch unlike any other sonar I'm aware of), but either way it is of minimal use since it provides no clues about your environment other than a wireframe 3d layout of your immediate area. Thanks, it's faster for me to look using the right stick. Now, if they were to use it to reveal features of interest (hmmm, this 'wall' is giving me a different reading from the rest of the room) then we might be on to something.

8. Equipment/PDA: apparently, Lara needs a PDA to switch guns these days, but at least you don't have to go searching for them on the levels any more and if you use up the ammo for one gun in a firefight there's not any more squirrelled away in a tomb that hasn't been opened in 2,000 years. So more logical because you need to think more about your ammo situation for anything except the pistols, but also slightly irritating. It would be interesting to me to see what would happen if they set things up so that you actually needed to pick your equipment before starting each mission and could only get extra ammo/resources by scavenging them from the poachers/evil-doers/whatever...

So to return to my review title: Underworld as a very good incremental improvement over previous releases, and while it's no revolution in terms of game play I'm thoroughly enjoying myself.


Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - ACTION
same tomb raider game with update graphic's. same control problems same frustration puzzle's. animation on lara are the best in this game . but still not worth of full price.

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