See our full review here.

Few videogame characters create quite so much of a buzz as Lara Croft. Her role as a strong, intelligent and successful female character is a rarity not just within videogames, but popular culture as a whole. And we at GamesAreEvil love her for it! While the mass global phenomenon that is ‘Tomb Raider’ has died down a little since the original first hit the Playstation, Ms. Croft herself remains as popular, and as recognisable, as ever.

With her latest adventure, Tomb Raider: Underworld (TRU), fast approaching we were lucky enough to travel to ‘Croft Manor’(seriously) to get a feel for how Lara is shaping up, and gauge what we can expect from the final game.

Whole lotta woman

Long-time fans of the series will immediately recognise that this iteration of Lara has more abilities than ever. For starters her basic jogging speed has been ramped up a notch allowing for shorter travel times and an increased ability to avoid enemies. She can also sprint, swing from grappling hooks, walk across narrow beams and aim at two different enemies at once (so long as you’re holding two guns). All of these abilities, amongst many more, have been beautifully animated with the aid of motion capture technology, to give Lara a graceful elegance in everything she does. Without doubt this is the most realistic looking, moving and acting Lara yet.

She has also received an upgrade in the gadgets department. You can now make use of ‘sticky’ grenades, which will attach themselves to anything from walls, trees and the enemies themselves allowing for some extremely satisfying explosive carnage. When it has stuck itself to the desired target you can either wait for the grenade to explode or shoot it for immediate devastation. One section we were shown involved being ambushed by a bunch of blood thirsty bats, which were difficult to take down using regular guns, but with the help of the grenades you’re able to take out virtually the whole horde with one well judged throw.

Many underwater areas are now free for you to explore at your leisure thanks to the scuba gear. Only available on certain levels the scuba gear rids you of the problem of having to resurface periodically for air, which has allowed for the inclusion of underwater puzzles and combat. If you’ve got the skills you can attempt to take on a shark with the spear gun or just avoid the danger and take a leisurely dip until your heart’s content.

Perhaps the most unusual of the new gadgets is Lara’s radar mapping tool. This allows you to view the landscape through a ‘Tron’-style 3D grid that becomes useful in maze-like areas in which the best route is not always so obvious. We were assured by the developers that this tool is completely optional and you’re not required/forced you make use of it in order to finish the game. However, it seems like a very nifty tool especially for those of us who are eager to explore every niche and secret location on offer.

Player driven experience

The radar is one example of Crystal Dynamics attempting to create “a player driven experience”, according to the TRU’s creative director Peter Lindstrom. It’s a mantra that shows its results immediately after starting the game up. Levels are loaded with areas that you don’t necessarily need to visit in order finish them, making the scope for ‘messing around’ seemingly enormous; especially given Lara’s new move set.

This exploration factor has been inscribed into that ever-present aspect of any Tomb Raider game, the puzzles. Some of the puzzles we got our hands on were truly epic in their scope and required you decipher several meta-puzzles in order to beat the overall goal. What was nice about the ones we saw was that the objective was obvious even though the solution often wasn’t, meaning you were never stuck at a location without knowing what you should be doing next, or at least what to be aiming to do next. Of course all the essential puzzling elements make an appearance including cogs, keys, pressure pads, light and mirrors and all the other good stuff.

If you do happen to find yourself lost and totally void of ideas as to what you should be doing you can hop into the menus and ask for a hint. Hints don’t tell you how to complete an objective they just give you a push in the direction, for example it might tell you that you need to find a certain key or you must trip a specific switch. The idea is to make the experience feel less of a chore for new players without diluting and interfering with the difficulty level for the hardcore Tomb Raider fan.

Living world

Despite the quality of all the aforementioned features, the biggest and most obvious improvement since Tomb Raider Legend is, without doubt, the visuals. Everything looks stunning, both in terms of technical achievement and artistic style. Fire effects are among the best seen on this generation of consoles, and the way light and shadow intertwine creates an intense atmosphere that is a joy to experience. The environments we got a look at were impressively diverse, ranging from a modern cargo ship to weather-worn ancient ruins to the bright sun bathed tropical Thai coastline. Areas felt very natural and ‘alive’, teeming with fauna and flora (some of which were less than friendly) with the sound effects to match.

As the environments are so crowded it can sometimes be a little difficult to know what you can, and can’t, grab on to or jump to. To combat this Lara, while clambering over surfaces, leans in certain directions to indicate to you that she grab that ledge or reach that surface across a gap. It’s all very subtle and you quickly learn to pick up on the ‘tells’ she’s giving you.

The in-game camera hasn’t escaped a little reworking either. As ever you can position the camera where you want using the RS which is essential if you hold any hope of getting through a level intact. What’s more interesting though is that at certain ‘cinematic moments’ the game will go into slow motion with the camera hugged up close to Lara, increasing the intensity and intimacy between the game and yourself. It’s unclear how often this technique will be employed (we only saw a single example which involved Lara diving past a set of exploding barrels that were about to cut off an escape route) but chances are, given the feel of the game, that it’s going to a case of less is more.

In all in Tomb Raider: Underworld is looking extremely promising and will hopefully catapult Lara back into the limelight once more. One thing’s for sure at least, Lara’s back and boy does she look good. See below for a whole bunch of screens that show excatly that.

Tomb Raider: Underworld is due for a UK release on November 21st  on Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, DS and PC so stay tuned for our review/s nearer the time.