Reviews// Tomb Raider: Underworld (PS3)

All of the above brings us to the combat. This has always been a touchy subject in Tomb Raider games. Lara has often been required to kill endangered species of animals, even supposedly extinct ones like dinosaurs. She has also been called upon to kill human opponents on many occasions, possibly to get away from the animal slaughter, but also perhaps because it's easier to throw a room full of bad guys in the player's way than to design a fiendish mechanism for them to make use of.

In Underworld, Lara faces off against sharks, tigers, bats, spiders, jaguars and some otherworldly creatures as well as a few human opponents. Unfortunately, the combat system suffers from both the awful camera and its own issues. There is no mileage in using cover, because Lara gets caught on it or it gets destroyed, possibly explosively. Also the human enemies are sack-of-hammers dumb and will stand around while you shoot at them from out of their field of vision.

As with Legend, enemies are highlighted with reticules that turn red when they are in range of Lara's guns. However, with higher definition comes more pixels to use and the chaps at Crystal Dynamics have seen fit to use those pixels to indicate an opponent's health. How Lara can know or guess the closeness to death of her assailants isn't explained, but sure enough, a series of squares counts down to an untimely demise for the objects of her attention.

Combat also includes some melee moves which seem to be more effective than many of the weapons Lara carries, especially against some of the later baddies to be found guarding the ancient relics she seeks.

Gone is the restraint of Legend where you could only pick up one extra weapon at a time. Right from the start, Lara carries huge numbers of weapons, from her trademark pistols to a shotgun, assault rifle, sub machine guns and even a tranquiliser dart gun. The latter seems to be a sop towards the animal rights lobby, you can play the game without killing a single animal should you wish. At least the guns, except of course Lara's pistols, are limited in their ammunition.

I may have made the game seem worse than it is with my nitpicking above, so let me spell this out clearly; Tomb Raider: Underworld is a good game with just a few rough edges that prevent it being a very good game. If you are a fan of the Tomb Raider series, especially if you liked Legend, then you will like Underworld. If nothing else, it's a tour-de-force of graphical excellence, really pushing the PS3 in ways that only (whisper it) Drake's Fortune has done so far.

Conclusion
Tomb Raider: Underworld, while by no means perfect is a true current generation entry in the Tomb Raider series, surpassing the 360 versions of Legend and Anniversary. It just needed a little more corner smoothing before it was released into the wild.

SPOnG Score: 77%

^{Disclosure: This review is based on retail code purchased by the reviewer.}