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Tomb Raider - Angel of Darkness
Retail Price: S$55 (PC)
A few years have passed since we last saw Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, The Last Revelation. After such an extended absence, the femme fatale’s finally back to revive the highly acclaimed series – which sold close to 30 million copies internationally on almost every conceivable video-game platform – with her 6th instalment, Angel of Darkness. The timing couldn’t be better
with the second movie playing on big screens now, and fortunately for
Tomb Raider devotees, Angel of Darkness is not merely a graphically
enhanced version of previous games in the series. As Adrian Smith, cofounder
and operations director of Core Designs, the company behind Lara Croft,
admits in a Gamespot
interview, "It would have been so easy for us to do a better-looking
Tomb Raider…But in the end, we would have been massacred by our
fans." But isn’t Lara dead after The Last Revelation, you might ask? The storyline in Angel of Darkness does not continue seamlessly after its prequel to answer that question. Instead, it begins some time after, with Lara framed for the murder of her mentor. It has an intriguing plot set in a much darker atmosphere with a dose of the occult. Throughout the game, there are flashes of what happens directly after The Last Revelation, gradually filling up blanks from the story that was not immediately revealed in the sequel. The game is broken up into 3 components.
The first, intended to inject variety into a series that has been running
for 6 years already, is set in an RPG mode. Incorporating RPG elements
into 3rd-person shooters was never done before in past Tomb Raider games
and is also an unprecedented concept within the genre of 3rd-person
shooters. Now, with increased player interactivity and the inclusion
of a new RPG component, the latest version of Tomb Raider has finally
developed a much needed non-linear plot requested by the fans. There’s also a new character, Kurtis, whom you will get to control as the game develops. This breaks the monotony of having to stick to a single character throughout the game. The most noteworthy progress in Angel of Darkness is the game’s audio and video improvements. But that’s to be expected given the huge leap in processor speeds since Lara Croft was last seen in The Last Revelation released towards the end of 1999. With such immersive graphics and an equally compelling audio treatment, it would prove a daunting task for game critics to judge between the game’s graphics and its sound. You know that it’s a tie; when we have Gamespy.com declaring, “…AOD's graphics are, without a doubt, its biggest selling point”, while Gamespot.com simultaneously arguing, “The audio is probably the single best aspect of Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, as it features excellent ambient effects, a perfectly suited musical score, and first-rate voice acting”. Those who have played the older versions will be relieved to know that the controls remain relatively similar. You can still get Lara to execute basic moves of running, jumping, swimming, climbing and shooting, in an assortment of acrobatic variations as before. This also means that players using Lara for the first time will experience difficulty controlling the astounding 150 moves available at the heroine’s disposal. Consequently, until you attain mastery
over the controls, there is a high likelihood of plunging into imminent
death when you jump and miscalculate a leap or climb and lose grip.
You have to give it to them for realism, because after all these years
since The last Revelation, age seems to have caught up with Lara, as
she is no more able to climb indefinitely. Now, her ability to hang
is limited by a ‘grip bar’ that determines her stamina that
decreases until she falls off. The effect of this might either introduce
more challenge for well-versed players, or frustration for novices. Yet along with age, Lara appears to have developed a certain wisdom which is reflected in a new set of stealth moves available in Angel of Death enabling Lara to sneak up on enemies from behind, creep along walls and perform other Metal Gear style moves like Solid Snake. Another new inclusion is Lara’s ability to ‘buff-up’. Midway through the game, after accomplishing a certain move, she will gain her second wind and suddenly feel stronger and be able to leap further, run faster, and kick harder. There will be times when you reach a hiatus at a particularly difficult scenario after enjoying a period of progress in the game – probably one of the main aspects that cause this game to fall short of its potential. Fortunately, you will be able to save at any point in the game and it is advised that you do so immediately after getting past such barriers – unless you wish to relive the morbid series of deja vus in the most gruesome way. dying over and again. In all fairness there are some particularly thrilling scenarios. And aside from the occasional bottleneck stages, you should be able to progress fairly smoothly in the game. Like its predecessors, Angel of Darkness wouldn’t be complete without puzzles that require you to climb and leap across various obstacles, this part can be quite fun as well.
Tomb Raider v42 patch, fixes a few minor problems with the game System requirements: Operating system: Windows 98/2000/ME/XP Recommended: Processor: Pentium® III 800 MHz or AthlonTM
800 MHz |
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The second component follows the regular Tomb Raider format of a 3rd-person’s
perspective from a position-sensitive shifting camera view, while the
third, is best kept a mystery until you play it, so that you’ll
be in for a pleasant surprise.
In
summary, the game’s excellent audio and graphics complement this
3rd-person perspective game play by injecting new aesthetics into the
characters and surroundings that never existed early in the series.
Its changes are radical, yet well balanced, managing to incorporate
RPG elements while maintaining the integrity of the original Tomb Raider.
A must buy for Lara Croft diehards who have been waiting for ages. But
for such a long overdue game, it could have improved even further. 
