Silicon Fusion >> Reviews >> Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

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Review:

1st August 2003:
Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness
Tomb Raiding is another term for grave robbing, is this game really robbing the Tomb Raider legacy of respect? Read on to find out, it's not pretty...
Posted by Chris Barnett - PlayStation 2,PC - UK and Europe

When a game is hyped up as much as Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness it is all to easy to get caught up in the hype and develop biased opinions of it before playing it. These opinions can either be favourable (such as how everyone wanted Black and White to live up to all the promises) or unfavourable (such as how Daikatana bored us so much that when it surfaced we already wanted it to fail) depending on the attitude of the player. And as a reviewer I should never admit it, but sometimes I have a biased preconception of a game I am about to review. And this is one of those cases.

So much of me wanted Angel of Darkness to be great that I can't explain it. Probably the main reason for this was the history of the Tomb Raider games. I still remember booting up a Sega Saturn to play the first game on the day it came out and of how amazed I was at the new and interesting things on offer. The other three 'proper' games in the series were simply cosmetic enhancements of the original concept, but so good a concept it was that these changes were all that was necessary to make the games appealing.

So when an update on a much more powerful machine was announced I was already contemplating all the potential new features and enhancements of it. As were many other gamers (the game was constantly touted as a PlayStation 2 console exclusive from the launch date of the console) and (due to media hype) non-gamers. But part of us all knew that no game could match the dreams of a gamer. The thing that never crossed minds was the prospect of the game doing the exact opposite, living up to nightmares.

When you list all the nightmares of a gamer (as far as a game goes) they would all be present in Angel of Darkness.

To begin with, the controls are truly awful, even from the first section of the game. The movement of Lara Croft feels as if it is motion captured as you are playing, it is that slow. As anyone familiar with the series will understand, the controls are always based on the rules of traditional platformers. That is, Lara moves in 'spaces', so she can take a step back or forwards a space and the spaces required to perform certain moves can be calculated. This method is very logical and satisfying as it allows all mistakes to be attributed to poor judgement on the part of the player. But for Angel of Darkness, Core has removed this control system completely and replaced it with one that has seemingly no rules.

To give an idea of how poor these controls work, when a running jump is required it is impossible to determine how much of a space Lara will require to run. Sometimes she can do it in two paces, other times it can take five. This also carries over to other traditional dynamics such as box pushing, where pushing against certain objects can align a box in a position that is useless for the action required. Grabbing ledges also carries problems, certain ledges can be grabbed, and others can't. But if you think it is easy to determine which is which you are wrong. It is trial and error, it really is that bad. The same problem applies to scalable surfaces where most of the time they don't appear such until Lara 'accidentally' grabs onto them.

Many stupid bugs do not help the controls though, mainly those due to predefined events. Such events are ladder climbing and location loading. The ladders that you must climb must be done so from the correct side, else Lara will not cling to them. But when you go anywhere near to the ladder on the correct side she will automatically cling to the ladder in an animation sequence that must take around 10 seconds to complete. This does not sound too bad, but if you consider that nearly every ladder Lara climbs results in her reattaching herself to it immediately after she looses, you can understand how tedious it becomes. Similar is the reload problem where certain areas require the game to load (sometimes taking around 30 seconds) when a certain point in a level is reached. There is not marker to warn where these load points are so you find yourself being forced to watch a load screen and then, realising that you have gone down the wrong alley, being forced to watch another load screen as you U-turn back.

The levels themselves are also very poorly designed with many requiring certain abilities to be acquired before events can be triggered. For example, certain doors and objects cannot be moved unless Lara has received the additional strength required for the action. That may sound logical in theory; you may have the impression that the strength progression follows that of an RPG whereby it is increased gradually over time. But it is not; instead it is increased by an individual 'trigger' event such as moving a rock. And there is no on screen prompt or indicator as to what will or will not increase strength, it is trial and error (notice that phrase is becoming common to this review?).

Some of the levels contain puzzles that are quite illogical; levers are pulled to trigger things that you do not even understand, such as a magnetic crane in one level. These puzzles are a far cry from the logical block organising of the earlier games, but those puzzles are here too. And it is in the aspects of the game that are similar to its predecessors that it succeeds.

The block puzzles are well thought out; the controls to move the blocks are awful (with Lara often pushing a block that you require her to pull), but the puzzles themselves are logical. The walk function also reminds you of how good the earlier games were as it is implemented well. When pressed (as a toggle button), the walk function ensures that Lara cannot fall over any ledges, no matter how small. This is a great feature that is sadly missing from most 3rd person games, and it allows careful manoeuvre on beams and ledges. But that's about it for the good points. All that is left are bad points.

The story is bad with the voice acting equally so (it's as if the dialogue in Vice City never happened). In fact, the sound is very disappointing as it is great in parts of the game (the Pro Logic II is well used in the rain sections) but poor in others (bugs when Lara speaks will drive you crazy, such as when she says 'I feel stronger now!" about 20 times when once would suffice). Likewise with the graphics - they are quite good in parts (and look good on screenshots) but let down on the whole by sloppy programming. In certain parts of the game ledges and crevices will appear as simple jagged and textured polygons whereas other times they will be gloriously textured with many polygon patterns on them. And of the increased polygon count of Lara herself (which has been the topic of at least one statement in every press release or interview)? She looks no better than other 3D platform game characters; she is no longer unique as she once was. And neither is the game. No, quash that, the game is unique in how poor it is. Not due to it being downright poor, but due to it showing glimpses of potential (certain puzzles) and then taking all hope away from us with trial and error mechanics (such as the shooting of enemies that requires an auto aim that locks on an enemy for ages after they are dead).

And on top of the game being so poor, it will take ages to complete, not due to difficulty but due to these very mechanics (certain sections may require close to 30 attempts before they are overcome). So you will have wasted your money and your time (if you decide to complete it that is. And I only did so for the sake of this review), but you will also have learnt two important lessons: the terms 'console exclusive' and 'hype' do not necessarily make a good game.

Chris Barnett

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Review Summary:

Poor gameplay, poor story and poor Lara. This confirms the Tomb Raider legacy as the Elvis of games: it got big and fat and then died (and to further the analogy, it continues to sell after its death).

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Tomb Raider: The Angel Of Darkness
for PlayStation 2

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