Something I had not seen before in
Tomb Raider Underworld are the ‘Adrenaline Moments’ that take place at crucial life-or-death situations. Normally these kinds of events are completed by specific button presses in past
Tomb Raider games, but in
Underworld you have complete control of Lara.
During Adrenaline Moments, the action immediately slows down to a bullet-time style event, the camera take a dynamic angle to give you a hint of what you must do, and you have but a short time window to perform whatever action it is that you need to survive.
I saw it being displayed in the Thailand level, immediately after the point where I stopped playing in
August’s demo; a lift that you need to get working suddenly collapses and drops, and during the slowdown sequence you notice a grapple hook that you can connect your rope to as you fall. Pressing [X] to grab onto the hook saves you a rather nasty mess of your legs.
After playing through the Thailand stage again, it’s clear that there’s something different about it since August. The graphics and controls have definitely been tweaked a little bit closer to perfection, and Lara’s context-sensitive animations make it a more immersive experience. The camera has been changed somewhat to be a bit more dynamic – there are specific points where it will change angle slightly to get the magnificent vistas in shot. Well, if you’re going to have an impressive draw distance, it only makes sense to Hollywood the camera a little bit so you can experience it.
Crystal Dynamics (in an interview you can see later) also told SPOnG of the dynamic soundtrack created for the game – which triggers certain parts of an action-packed or sombre theme depending on where you are in the level or what you’re doing. The most obvious use of this is during battle, in which the music switches seamlessly from serene to exciting and back again, but other uses include working in tandem with the dynamic camera mentioned earlier, building to a crescendo when you reach the top of a platform and see the vast sights around you.
It’s strange, but I walked away feeling more positive about
Tomb Raider Underworld than I did when I played it in August. It’s largely the same game, the same kinds of puzzles and scenarios that I saw – but half of the excitement today was learning more about just how much work has gone into the game. Stuff like the dynamic soundtrack and camera are things that usually go past the player on first play, but understanding its presence makes you realise just how much of a well-developed package this game is turning out to be.
Eric Lindstrom explained in his presentation that what they realised in developing this series is that
Tomb Raider, at its core, is a feeling. The feeling of exploration and adventure, the feeling of seeing those great locations and taking on rivals in your quest for treasure and lost artefacts. Learning how much Crystal Dynamics want to make this game as much of a personal ‘player-tailoring experience’ as possible and seeing the results so far, I’m inclined to agree.
