Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

Lara Croft is arguing with her old mentor Verner von Croy over something called the "Obscura Paintings". After some yelling, Lara is knocked down, we hear gunfire and when Lara regains her consciousness, von Croy lies dead on the floor. Not long after that, police sirens can be heard in the distance; Lara Croft is wanted for the murder of Verner von Croy.

Thus does a fast paced story telling in the 6th installment of the Tomb Raider series commence, and it is by far the most intriguing story of them all. Readers of The Da Vinci Code will see the obvious similarities here, since the game is told the exact same way; A murder, a chase, a secret, the Louvre... much inspiration has been borrowed here. Also, the pace of the famous book is equally fast; with Lara being hunted by French police helicopters, cops, villains and secret society special forces, it would seems that everything's set for a fantastic and enjoyable adventure; suffice to say, the story is certainly not where the film snaps.

The control, however, certainly does its part in ruining the little escapade. First off: Lara no longer runs instantly, she walks and THEN she runs, which can prove fatal when you haven't got a large plateau to jump from. Also, her acrobatic actions like jumping over railings and climbing drain pipes are not triggered by pushing Shift, or the X button, but simply by pointing the directional buttons in that direction. This can create some very frustrating and catastrophic situations, as Lara will be more than willing to jump over a railing and fall 70 meters down. However, the controls can be mastered and once they have been, they work.

Another thing that will cause many players to throw the controller into the TV screen is the absence of an Auto Save function. Since you'll die on a regular basis, saving is certainly necessary every 5 minutes. Every run and jump has to be executed with surgical precision, something that is destined to fail, especially with newbies behind the screen.

On a graphical side-note, AoD is a peculiar game. Lara's shadow is in high resolution, but doesn't match her surroundings, i.e. her shadow is pointing in another direction than other objects. The 3D environments have high polygon counts, but this can't be said for Lara or any other characters: they still look like dolls, with octagon eyes and square fingers. The tombs are fantastically rendered but low res textures (for the PS2 version at least) makes the experience a little dull and does not encourage one to explore.

The enemies in AoD are brain dead and uninteresting, they can run, bite, shoot, hit you... and that's pretty much it. Any unusual behaviour is usually programmed actions like soldiers roping themselves down the roof and so on. The stealth elements in the game quickly falls to the ground as it is ten times easier to just run forward and mash the action button to shoot your foes, since the auto-aim function takes care of the hard part. And once defeated, they will simply blink and disappear, arcade style. That is one of the things that makes AoD lose much of its realism. The new kung-fu elements looks cool, though albeit slower than Tom Cruise's moves in MI:2, they usually cause you to lose 50% health since the enemy can still hit/shoot you during the attack. RUBBISH! Also, AoD suffers from strange bugs, like the sound repeating itself over and over again when dying and Lara has a rare tendency to fall through the floor into blue, uncoded nothingness.

Conclusively, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness is a game that requires patience, tolerance and a pretty controlled temper if you like your TV. Although the graphics are decent in places and outright ugly in other, and although the controls take forever to master, it is a decent game that requires your attention, at least by a rental.

I am a born PC gamer, so I have played all subsequent Tomb Raider games on that particular medium. First and formost, I have always loved the game for the adventure and the action and the fact that Lara Croft is a great roll model. I started playing these games when I was thirteen, as that's a tough age for girls, seeing Lara do all the stuff she did, well, it was empowering. Anyway, I digress, the previous Tomb Raider games have been quite fun and enjoyable. On the PC. It has taken me a few years to get a PS2, and I decided in honor of that, I'll play the next TR game on my PS2. eh heh....Not exactly a good idea, but I wil get to that.

I like shiny and sparkly things that look good. I am not going to lie, I am a typical girl. I like pretty things. So, that's why I like the menus a whole bunch, They were quite pretty too look at. A huge improvement over those barfy menus of TR:Last Revalation and TR: Cronicles. The overall look of the game is amazing. Probably much better than what I would get on my craptacular PC. Lara's look is fantastic, very urban and slick. I miss the teal tank top though, but that's just me.

The soundtrack is fabulous and rich and full of what you would expect in such a game with all the ambiance. Speaking of that, a hallmark of a good game ( to me, at least) is if the enviroment you are in is good. If the ambiance makes you want to come back. I really found this particular enviroment engaging. I really liked it. Deus Ex was like that, there was an awesome enviroment to play in.

I kinda liked the realism about the game. Like, Lara has one gun in one hand. I have always thought that no matter how strong she was, it would pretty hard to fire twin guns in quick sucession and deal with the recoil. So, that was a plus. Also, the stength meter. Okay, I don't know WHO thought this up, but it's a pretty stupid idea. Yes, it's realistic, but come on...five past games and there was no need for it, so why now? Oh, and no vechicles. I dunno whether this is good or bad, so I'll just not put my opinion in on it.

Okay, the controlls. They bite. Pure and simple. They are really hard to get used to, especilly for someone who is fresh off the PC version. I can only hope that that the PC controlls stay true to the pervious versions of the game. Honestly, I love the D-Pad, and having to use the analog stick is a pain. It's painful. The controls are just bad. I think this has been said over and over adnausem, so I am just going to end my rant now.

I like being a TR purist, while I liked the first movie, I didn't like the fact that it was sans-teal tank top. Now, the second movie is deriving even more by getting rid of the braid. >.<...I didn't like how this game went so far away from the other games. I don't care about this "New Generation" crap. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Like I said, this game has it's merits and it's pitfalls (no pun intended ;D), it's not excellent, or really, really bad. I like the game. I don't love it, I don't hate it. I think what should really be done is just sit back and play, and enjoy it for what it really is, a game.

TheForlornJedi-

I have played the first two Tomb Raider games and loved them both. I'm also familiar with Chronicles which I've played a few times though I don't actually own it. A couple of years ago I saw this game and as it was so cheap I decided to buy it since I hadn't played a TR game in quite a while. When I started playing, I found myself enjoying it, but then after a while I started to become annoyed by the controls, and the story in general. The controls made it really difficult to complete even the easiest of levels. I'll admit that I liked this game at first, but after a while, it became a bore., I didn't even get to finish it because it started to crash midway into the game so I was forced to stop playing and uninstall it. Not that I'm complaining, though, since I was on the verge of quitting it already. This is a warning for fans of both Tomb Raider AND Lara: this game is very tedious and the controls are really annoying. Also, Lara is just.. blah. I hated her in this. I hate everything about this game. It's a real shame that the first few games were amazing and then AoD comes along and proves to be one of the worst games of all time. DO NOT buy this game ! You will regret it, I assure you. ** out of 10

Now I'm not an obsessive Tomb Raider fan, nor do I dislike the series (I like it, it's just not my favorite), but this was just lame. The controls were sloppy beyond belief, the plot holes were gaping and Lara was just plain unlikable in this game. Now I'll bite, I appreciate that they were trying to take the series in another direction, but they did it wrong. I know it was meant to be darker and Lara was grittier as a result, but it just went in too many wrong directions. Then there's Kurtis who would've been better had his story been more developed. But the worst of it all was the gameplay where Lara controls like circus clown balancing on a rolling ball. If there are any redeemable qualities, they are that the graphics are nice and the dialogue is well written. Other than that, just scrap this crap. It damn nearly killed the franchise, but thankfully Tomb Raider: Legend (a far more superior game) came out and reversed that.

I believe that Tom Raider: Angel of Darkness is an excellent game. The story line and graphics are great. Sure, there are many glitches and points where the camera angle goes into Lara's head, but overall it is very well done. The controls are not at all hard to pick up, of course there are moments you want to yell at the screen, or she just won't line up perfectly, but other than that the controls are fine. Fighting is easy, and there is no limit in the sprint bar. You must try particular parts over and over until you get it right, but that's the same with heaps of games in this kind of category. The new player Kurtis is a great addition, even if he is much heavier and harder to control than Lara. The game is a lot better than the last instalment, Tomb Raider Chronicles. Although many people say the battle against Boaz is hard, it isn't! You just need to jump around a lot and shoot whenever you can. I'll defiantly be playing Tomb Raider: Legend, even if I don't buy it. I'd give it a 9/10.