The amazing thing about pushing people out of the way for a hands-on play of the latest Tomb Raider was that no one seemed to mind. The crowds packed around the pods in the PlayStation Experience yesterday were huge, as is the effect of Lara Croft, but nobody appeared that busy to stick at playing the game. An ominous sense of foreboding washed over.
After many trips abroad, Lara is taking a well-earned break in gay Paris. As trouble seems to follow the crop-topped one around, in the new game she\'s accused of murdering her mentor and the French police are after her. Forget giant rats: Inspector Clouseau is on her tail.
The game starts in dingy Paris back streets, heads off to Prague and, naturally, things get murkier than weekend city breaks. New features in the game include moral choices and split game routes, and our heroine uncovers a plot involving a sinister alchemist, a dodgy Masonic-like alliance and five mysterious 14th Century doodles - the Obscura Paintings. Lara probably regrets ever getting on the Eurostar.
These early locations look crisp and the camera has a Resident Evil-feel, but there\'s no getting away from that Tomb Raider taste. Lara handles pretty much the same as she always has, jiggling around and pouting, with a couple of new gymnastic manoeuvres as expected. However, there doesn\'t appear to be a massive improvement in the visuals despite claims of 100 times more detail in her. Well she looks as chipper as anyone made up of 5000 polygons rather than 500 but, to be honest, she simply looks more cartoony.
The atmosphere of Lara\'s first next-gen adventure is already feeling taut, and the choice of putting Lara in towns and real buildings rather than mysterious temples works extremely well. There\'s a darker edge to Lara now, but a lot of it appears to come from the locations and plot twists. A big question from the short time on the game is whether this Tomb Raider will be ready for November this year. Don\'t hold your breath.
Those are ugly captures for thoses screens
Topic: Tomb Raider Impressions /w screens (Read 617 times)