So, now we are into June, its finally time I got a post done and this one will be on the action adventure game, Tomb Raider Underworld, which I recently finished playing. I also by the way have a playthrough of this game on my gaming channel right now, which is in the process of being uploaded and is six parts in so far, which is on SoulzGamer75 on Youtube if you want to check it out (shameless plug!).
So, with that said, let's take a look at the game and see how it holds up some 18 years on from its release.
And as I will mention a bit about the plot, the warning is coming up...
PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
STORY
So, the story begins with Lara (voiced by Keeley Hawes) who's manor has been set on fire and it explodes, with Lara desperately trying to escape, as she reaches the exit door, one of her team, Zip, shoots at her.
The story then moves back in time to a week before the explosion with Lara having traveled to the Mediterranean sea, in an effort to try and learn about the disappearance of her mother. Lara travels underneath the sea and finds an ancient temple of Norse legend, and within it she finds one of Thor's gauntlets. After Lara travels to the surface she intercepts the ship of one of her adversaries, Amanda Evert, and onboard she battles with her mercenary soldiers and finds an imprisoned Jacqueline Natla, another of Lara's old enemies. Natla tells Lara that she must locate Thor's hammer and by using it, Lara can then unlock the underworld and find her mother and Natla gives Lara a potential location for the hammer in Thailand, after which Lara escapes the sinking ship, as a result of her battle with Amanda's mercenaries.
Lara then travels to Coastal Thailand but she doesn't find the gauntlet but does find evidence that her father had been and moved it before he died and Lara soon deduces where he moved it, right back home at the Croft manor.
As Lara returns back to the manor she searches beneath her home and finds her father's secret office in a crypt and she also discovers the other gauntlet as well as tape recording from her father warning her that Helheim contains a potent weapon. However at this point the mansion is set on fire, which leads into the events at the start of the game, and Lara briefly encounters her doppelganger, who also fatally shoots one of Lara's team members, Alister. Zip who believes that Lara shot Alister, fires a few warning shots at her, but Lara convinces Zip that it wasn't her and after a brief fight with her doppelganger who escapes, Alister dies. Lara afterward then decides to continue her quest to find Thor's hammer, which takes her on a dangerous path to where she will eventually learn the truth about what happened to her mother.
THOUGHTS
Tomb Raider Underworld is another strong entry in the Lara Croft series
and it sees the continuation of what made Tomb Raider Legend work so
well with a good solid storyline as well as some excellent voice acting
from Keeley Hawes, who in many ways is the definitive voice for the character. The game also saw some subtle changes made to Lara's
character as she no longer wears her usual turquoise sleeveless top and
khaki shorts, but a dark brown top and and black shorts. Lara also like
she does in Legend, has a few costume changes throughout the game at
different levels, and her movement is now far more realistic as the
movement is now fully motion captured and was modeled by an Olympic gymnast, Heidi Moneymaker (sounds like a James Bond character!).
GAMEPLAY & NEW FEATURES
Gameplay wise Underworld is also where the game scores very well and there some enhancements to the game effects such as Lara can now be stained with mud when she runs through wet or mucky terrain, which is then washed off by the rain. Lara can also push foliage aside when she runs through environments such as jungles and her movements also feel that bit more immediate and dynamic than before given the motion capture. Lara can also open jugs or pots that contain medicine or valuable items, which she can kick open with her feet and these are spread throughout the game. Lara also uses a motorbike which features more prominently here than it has done in previous games such as Legend and she can use it to navigate traps and obstacles.
COMBAT
Another improvement to the game is in the combat system as Lara can now shoot her guns and aim while she is climbing or driving rather than just having to do just statically do it when she is running on the ground. There is also a change to the adrenaline moments where you can take control of Lara during the moments where time is slowed down and she can move out of the way of gunfire. Lara can also perform a melee kick to enemies at close range to finish them off if they are low enough on health.
MOVEMENT
Movement wise Lara can also now in addition to swinging from poles, she can also lift herself up and walk on them side to side as she prepares to jump onto another area. She can also climb up handhelds on walls and rock faces as well as perform acrobatics on the poles and jump from pole to pole in certain areas to reach other areas.
WEAPONS AND AMMO
Guns and ammo wise
Underworld offers not much in the way of new weapons but you do get the
choice of your own weapon before the start of a level such as two
submachine guns, an assault rifle or a shotgun, but personally I always
go with the submachine guns! However unlike Lara's main dual guns, the
other weapons have limited ammo so you need to use them carefully
against the bigger more dangerous enemies in the game. You can however boost the amount of ammo Lara can carry for these secondary weapons in the tailoring section in the menu, where you can either select low, normal or max for ammo, so its a good idea to go for the max option to make it last longer.
GRAPHICS
Graphically speaking Underworld is easily the best looking game up to this point in the series so far as the graphics are stunning and the environments are rich and very well detailed, and the environments are once again quite varied. Lara's character model is also the best yet as she looks pretty sexy and they have gotten away from the ridiculous big polygon breasts of the original game but don't worry, Lara is still very well furnished in that department here! In fact this would really be the last game where Lara's chest is so accented so to speak! The graphics also have much improved environmental effects such as rain, lightning, sun, smoke and also snow effects. So, overall visually, this game for its time is very impressive looking and still holds up well today.
VOICE ACTING (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!)
As for the voice acting, Underworld is excellent and features a solid cast.
Starting with Keeley Hawes, who is great in her role as Lara Croft and she for me is still the definitive actress to have played the part in the video games. Keeley also provides plenty of dramatic moments but also does deliver the odd fun line here and there as well, such as the scene where Lara is about to enter the crypt under Croft manor and she says to Zip "I warned you that playing your music too loud would wake the dead!". Then there is the scene featuring in the intro and in the Croft manor level where Zip opens fire on Lara and she ducks and pulls her pistols on him and warns him "Drop it, Zip or I'll drop you!".
This is then followed by the scene where after (SPOILER!!) Alister is killed by Lara's doppelganger, she is vengeful and vows to go after Amanda and Natla. So, she tells Zip of Amanda and Natla's new partnership "They seem to be a team now, Amanda and Natla!". Zip then asks "So, what are we going to do now?" and Lara firmly says "After I deal with the authorities, I'm going to South Mexico to retrieve Thor's belt!" and Zip bemused asks "What?! So, Alister's dead and its business as usual?!" and Lara vengefully tells Zip "I need Thor's belt to get his hammer and I need a hammer to kill a god!".
Kath Soucie is also pretty good in her role as Amanda, Lara's rival, who is cahoots with Natla and she plays the part with Amanda almost as a malicious spoiled brat although she does somewhat change her tune later on in the game.
And I will mention one of her scenes where Amanda (SPOILER!!) decides to help Lara near the end of the game to prevent Natla's evil plan. So, Amanda says to Lara "After killing the Midgard serpent, Thor dies from its venom anyway" and Lara says "Not if you clear this corridor and get us out of here". So, Amanda tries to use her powers but its no use and she says "Out of juice, just like Bolivia. The good news is we saved the world. The bad news is we're going to die down here, just like your mother!" and Lara angrily threatens her with the hammer for a moment but relents.
Alex Desert is also very good as he returns in his role as Zip, one of Lara's tech team and he has some moments aswell, such as the one where in the intro, Zip opens fire on Lara as Lara's butler, Winston tries to stop him as he says "Its Lara!" and Zip says "I know!". So, as Lara warns him "Drop it, Zip or I'll drop you!" and Zip angrily says "What? So you can shoot me again??!" and Winston tells Zip "It wasn't Lara! Why would she set fire to her own home??!" and Zip says "She got into the vault, it had to be her" and Lara asks "Is that what happened here? Did someone blow open the vault?". Zip then pushes Winston aside and says "Alright, say it wasn't you, someone who looked a hell of a lot like you opened it using the retina scanner" and Lara says "Impossible!" and Zip says "Exacty!".
Greg Ellis is also very good again in his role as Alister, the other member of Lara's tech team, who helps her out. So, I will mention the one scene where (SPOILER AGAIN!) Alister is fatally shot by Lara's doppelganger. So, after he is shot, Lara tries to help him and Alister weakly says "I feel bloody awful!" and with his dying breath says "I'll see you..." and Lara desperately shouts "Alister, hold on!" and Alister finally says "I'll see you...in Avalon..." and he dies and Lara angrily shouts "Damn it!!".
Last of all is Grey DeLisle as the main villain, Natla, who plans to destroy the Earth from the underworld in order to reshape the world to her liking.
So, I will quote one of her scenes and its the one where Natla is about to set her plan into action in the underworld and Lara threatens her with Thor's hammer. So, Lara shouts "Natla, shut it down!" and Natla says "Lara! Unexpected but I'm glad your here!". Lara then asks "That's the Midgard Serpent?" and Natla tells her "Of course not. Jörmungandr is the network of the tectonic ridges that encircles the earth on the ocean floor. And we stand now on its weakest point, where the ancient supercontinent Pangaea first broke in two. When this relic unleashes its fury below, the very seems of the planet will burst. "The Midgard Serpent will rise up and spew poison into the air, and all the world will be consumed by fire and ash." Ragnarök! The seventh age is upon us!".
MUSIC
Music wise the game is also excellent and it features a fine score, which was composed mainly by American composer, Colin O'Malley and it has many passages which are dramatic and atmospheric and suit the game perfectly well. The score was also partly composed by Troels Brun Folmann, who supervised the music as well and created the main theme of the game.
FLAWS
Getting onto the flaws and niggles of the game....yes, Underworld does
have a few problems.
For starters I would say the combat system, while its good that Lara can fire her guns while she climbs, the auto-aim aspect is a bit unnatural looking in practice as Lara her guns in every direction at ridiculous speed! The adrenaline moments, whilst you no longer need to press a specific button at a given moment, don't feel like they really add anything valuable to the gameplay, and they also feel a bit awkward when you try and move Lara in slow motion.
Another issue lies with Lara's movement at certain points in the game where she seems to get stuck when she stops running and hits a wall and you have to make her do a roll to get her unstuck or some such action, which highlights some of the flaws in the game's movement. I also found some issues in the PC version, where Lara failed to use her grapple effectively and pull down some statues, which involved reducing the frame rate to 60fps to correct this. So, given its almost 20 years old, there are still some technical issues with this game.
I also think the game's climactic battle sequence is a bit frustrating where Lara has to use Thor's hammer to knock out the doomsday device, which involves a lot of jumping about over a large area, which can easily lead to Lara loosing her footing or jumping off the wrong way and falling to her death, which in short is a real pain in the ass!
Some of the game's puzzles are also a little frustrating such as the one where Lara needs to open an underground passage in the Mexican jungle, which is timed and she has to ride her motorbike to get there before it closes on her, and its easy to get lost in the jungle and get there after it has closed! To be fair, its best to park Lara's bike nearer the exit of this area to give her the best chance of getting to the passage before it closes.
The game also lacks any actual game bosses as such, which can be more fun to deal with (albeit frustrating as well!) when you do and the actual enemies in the game don't really pose much threat to Lara in the end, which makes for a rather disappointing combat experience. However to be fair, I think they were trying to prioritise exploration in this game over the action orientated ways of Tomb Raider Legend.
Last of all, I did have one or two issues with the game's tone being that bit darker and the sidelining of Zip and Alister, who provided some welcome comic relief in Legend and their banter with Lara was great in that game. However here, Lara spends most of her time on herself with no contact with Zip or Alister, which makes the game feel a bit less personal and lacks the humour that Legend had and did so well.
So, that's it for the flaws.
SUM UP
So to sum up, Underworld is still a very good addition to the
Tomb Raider series and it remains a solid entry in the franchise with
its good storyline, terrific graphics, largely excellent gameplay and
good voice acting cast lead by Keeley Hawes, which makes it still worth playing.
So, I will rate Tomb Raider Underworld:
8.5 out of 10
So, that's it for now I will be back soon with another post.
Until then its bye for now!
