Tomb Raider: Underworld

Tomb Raider: Underworld feels like it is made in rush and kinda like testing mechanics for the next era of TR.

Frustrating movement, camera too close to Lara, very bad fighting, even acrobatics are really not fun. Boring story, boring enemies (maybe except of spiders, which are on the other side the most frustrating). Boring and often stupidly put collectibles.

Good points of the game are: dubbing actress of Lara (as always), sometimes graphics (tropical levels) and also underwater segments are good (if not the best). Motorbike segments are better than in Legend imo.

It feels more like an expansion for Legend, as it follows it's plot and mechanics and it's (fortunately) short. Not recommended, but if you like Tomb Raider: Legend or Tomb Raider: Anniversary and you want more, this may give you some fun.

Probably the least consistent out of the LAU trilogy. Both Legend and Anniversary had a very clear idea of what they wanted to achieve; but it gets the job done, closes the story in a satisfying way and says goodbye beautifully.

The movement isn't fluid, the combat is frustrating... overall it feels unfinished, maybe they rushed it or ran out of time? It could have been polished a bit more. But the environments are great and the sound design is some of the best I've come across. It's a game to play with headphones, perhaps turning down the volume of the effects a bit. This comes through especially in the Thailand level. Elsewhere, too many caves, too much dark... less inspired, it gets dull, although I think it improves in the last third.

The climbing mechanics would stall soon, but here it's a real gameplay, some of these sections are tense. This trilogy took a lot from Prince of Persia, and even some presentation bits from the early God of War, but it was still trailblazing. There are similarities to Uncharted 2's Himalayan level, maybe even a seed of Uncharted 4's vehicle level; and it moved on to Norse mythology before the God of War reboot. These are small things, but I think Tomb Raider is often undervalued for what it brought to the industry.

Maybe these games lacked a bit of ambition but I think that's a better option than going overboard like the reboot would later on. Maybe Lara's sexiness got out of hand? I think her boobs got bigger in this game. I guess it was a good time for a reboot. Whatever, I hope they fix this wonderful franchise in the next games.

Crystal Dynamics modernised the series with Legend, and Underworld is a continuation of this. Legend’s story was based on the mythology of King Arthur. Even though this is a continuation of that story, they now use Nordic mythology involving Thor’s Hammer. It still sees Lara going on another globe-trotting adventure around the world, including the likes of: Thailand, Mexico, Norway, and a few sea locales. There's a video you can watch which claims to recap the story, but it is so brief and lacking key points in the story; I can’t see it being too helpful if you missed Legend, or even Anniversary. Lara wants to find out what happened to her mother, and yet again crosses paths with Amanda, but also Natla who featured in the original game (and Anniversary).

Legend featured free movement and it’s probably even smoother here, although some of the camera angles can be problematic in some sections. Legend featured quite a lot of climbing and I thought it seemed inspired by Prince of Persia; and this game feels even more so. You will be climbing/shimmying along ledges, climbing up handholds, grabbing onto poles, and performing wall-jumps.

Lara still has a magnetic grapple that she can attach to objects and pull them towards her but is rarely used for that. It is used in a few places for swinging across chasms, but often for rappelling up/down.

There’s a few instances of block pushing, or weighing down pressure plates, but I think the puzzles have mainly been reduced in favour of platforming and exploration.

The game is very linear, so there's no backtracking unless it is part of a story to do so. The linear design and agile movement means that you can progress fairly quickly through the game, but it will take around 10 hours compared to Legend’s 8 hours.

There’s a couple of times where it’s not quite obvious where to go, but there is a hint system which features a basic hint and then a stronger hint if you want it.

There are a few Quick Time Events (QTE) but instead of button presses, you now just need to perform a dodge, or a jump, and these sections are more forgiving, utilising slow-motion.

There’s some secrets to find, which are often placed in a vase surrounded by a few other vases. It’s a bit tedious to kick them all, especially when the button prompts are quite fussy with how you need to position yourself.

Lara’s primary weapon is the iconic dual pistols with unlimited ammo. She can also have an alternate weapon such as shotgun, uzis, assault rifle with limited ammo, in addition to a few grenades. You can choose one weapon at the start of the level, but yet you can switch using Lara’s PDA; so I didn’t get the point in choosing one. I think there’s far fewer combat sections overall, so didn’t utilise some of the combat mechanics, and mainly stuck with the pistols. I often forgot I had grenades, and I never used the special "adrenaline shot" mechanic. When you do acquire Thor’s Hammer, you can plough through enemies with ease; either bludgeoning them, or zapping them with electricity.

The game's primary enemies are humans, a couple of animals, plenty of spiders, then later some mythical creatures. Lara seems to have better aim this time around (Legend used an auto aim system like this game, but most bullets didn’t hit the target). The exploding barrels and destructible scenery doesn’t feature in this game either.

In Legend, I found the boss battles a bit confusing what the objective was. I don’t know if others hated those fights because now they have been removed. Early in the game there is a kraken-like beast but you defeat him with climbing and puzzles, rather than guns. The last boss is defeated in a similar fashion.

There’s a level where you need to ride your motorbike between sections, but the mindless bike combat sections from Legend don’t feature here. That’s a definite improvement.

While you can save manually, when you reload - you'll always start at a previous checkpoint. The checkpoints are frequent though. Since they were so frequent, I rarely felt the need to use a medpack because you would just reload at full health. Most of my deaths were due to bad camera, pressing the wrong button, or not quite getting the angle of the analogue stick correct, so she jumped to her death rather than to the next platform.

I found this game much less glitchy than Legend, although some of the climbing animations had awkwardly stretched legs, and on a few occasions - I was temporarily stuck on scenery for a few seconds until I wiggled free.

In terms of graphics, it still looks good today. There’s a nice level of detail like dirt appearing on Lara.

Tomb Raider Underworld refines the gameplay in Legend, with more focus on spelunking, and fewer combat sections.

Underworld to be honest is a competent enough platformer, but to be honest, it really didn't improve the series much and felt similar to Anniversary, it had the same feel and very similar controls and the same ancient ruins/forest location. This game does have a little more focus on underwater, where you actually dive underwater and explore in a few segments but these segments are pretty annoying and don't control that well. Now the problem with this is it came out after Uncharted which was so much better and had more interesting characters, better controls, better locations, better weapons and more variety. This game just felt pretty outdated by the time it released because of Uncharted. Anniversary was a good game in its own right, but Underworld didn't add anything and at best was a competent linear adventure/platformer with an average story and somewhat forgettable locations and bosses..

There wasn't a bigger heartbreaker in 08' than Tomb Raider: Underworld. Despite friends and critic's warnings, I fell for it only to get burned in the end. Its OK to see mediocrity and settle for mediocrity, but Underworld is much more complicated than this. Its hard to judge a game that goes from masterpiece to passable in 8 hours. Like all experiences, you have to weigh the good against the bad. Yet, I feel like I can split these sides evenly with Underworld and have a game of the year contender distanced from another sloppy franchise entry.

Starting off Underworld is a mixed bag. You are immediately thrown into the series' frustrating controls and camera. It leaves you wondering why you bother. Then about 5 minutes in you are completely invested in the setting, story, and gameplay. If you were ever a fan of the series (or similar games like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time) the following 4 hours are near perfection. I felt my jaw drop during the Thailand level, which has to be the most amazing visually, atmospheric level of the series. It's one of my favorite moments in the series and is worth playing the game alone. I've never been as immersed in a world as I did, climbing a giant mountain surrounded by a jungle as I look upon a flock of birds fly circles around a distant temple.

Once you get to the Mexico level, the game takes a turn for the worst and never comes back -- culminating in one of the worst levels in the series. There are some great moments spread between, such as jumping from giant swinging hammers and gaining access to an overpowered weapon. These highlights do little to fix the problems, however. An awful vehicle section, sloppy level design, and uninspired, gloomy temples cloud all memory of the first 4 hours of joy the game provided. Even worse, the combat, camera, and controls that were once forgivable soon become your worst enemy when there is no pretty vistas or fun platforming to distract.

If you want an adventure/platformer you're best bet is Anniversary (the highlight of the series), but Underworld is a good game for those wanting more. It's hard to find a game's place when it contains both your favorite and most loathed moments of the series. The upside is that the best 4 hours are the first and you can shut it off after and tell yourself you played the best game of 2008 and you wouldn't be that far from the truth.