From gamenation.com.au
http://gamenation.com.au/news/?action=view&id=410Impressions from the finished version.
Tomb Raider: Angel Of Darkness for PlayStation 2 and PC has just rolled into the GameNation offices and we’ve had a brief run through with the game that’s set take Lara Croft to new heights.
As soon as you power up the PS2 with AOD you realise that this version of Tomb Raider is going to be different to the others. Lara starts her adventure in the offices of her mentor, Werner Von Croy, in the throws of a heated debate. Lara looses her temper and her Werner pulls a gun and Lara quickly knocks it from her hand – and then the lights cut and we see four or five shots and followed by Werner falling dead to the floor. Here the game starts and it’s up to you to quickly leave the scene of the crime before the police, who appear as if they were alerted to the impending death of Werner, capture Lara and throw here in jail for her mentor’s murder.
There’s no sign of Tombs, rock walls, manic grizzly bears or anything out of the last Indiana Jones movie; in fact this game initially looks like it’s aiming to be the next Metal Gear Solid. Your initial goal is to escape the authorities, so using your already renowned climbing abilities you make your way out to the rooftop via the drainpipes that run up the side of Werner’s building. When you’re outside it becomes quickly evident that Eidos have developed an extremely powerful graphic engine for AOD. Everything runs at a silky smooth 60 frames per second and this is while the game is rendering what looks like almost a block of houses that are lined around Werner’s building. All the buildings are littered with details including balconies, drainpipes running vertically and horizontally along them, and windows that you can see into. You actually can spend some time looking at all the places that Lara can explore – no more is Tomb Raider a simple cavernous experience, Eidos have developed huge open worlds that you will need to explore in order to complete the game. This becomes even more evident later in the game you arrive at a large town that you are free to wander around in. Like Sega’s Shenmue, there are people in café’s eating food, pawnbrokers set up selling stolen goods in their shops and even callgirls standing on the side of the street waiting for business.
One classic example is the interior of a nightclub, which has multiple levels and plenty of metal girders overhead that are used of support the many coloured lights that beam onto the dance floor. With multiple coloured light sources, and huge amounts of ambient detail scattered around the nightclub (a bar, and DJ setup with massive speakers and dual turntables) this level looks amazing and is easily some of the best looking visuals on the PS2 (not to mention Lara alone has 5000 polygons in her compared to the 500 from previous versions – her pouting lips are gorgeous!). It’s a new and totally enjoyable experience to scope the scenery to see how Lara can make it an area that looks seemingly unreachable as the path is never anywhere near as obvious as it was in previous games thanks to the vastly different and more realistic AOD environments.
Eidos have further expanded the Tomb Raider experience by allowing Lara to communicate with other people and chose the questions and responses that she makes. All conversation is perfectly lip synced with the characters in the game and adds to the immersive world in AOD. With the large world, and Lara’s new abilities, you are left to discover the mystery surrounding Werner’s death which is far more complicated then the ‘find key and unlock door’ scenario of previous games. Say the wrong thing to the wrong person, or if you don’t listen too carefully to what seems like trivial conversation then you could miss out on a clue that can be vital to your adventure.
Of course, there’ plenty of shooting action that earned Lara her tough, almost masculine reputation to be found in AOD. This time though, the graphic engine shows far more detail in the enemies and their behaviour. It’s possible to sneak up behind enemies and take them out using kick and punch attacks that look as though they have been taken right out of the Tomb Raider movie. Stealth moves include shimmying alongside walls and peaking around corners, as well as sneaking and walking slowly in a crouched position to avoid visual detection. If all else fails you can still revert to the large number of weapons including the classic colts for some awesome shooting action. Lara locks onto targets allowing you to dodge incoming attacks from other enemies and it’s all viewed in a close 3rd person perspective which looks and works extremely well with the new AOD graphic engine.
Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness is set to launch on the PlayStation 2 and PC at the end of June and although little has been seen of the game up to now, it’s almost guaranteed that it will successfully move Lara onto the next generation gaming platforms. Not only does it present fans of the series with the classic ‘Tomb Raider’ gameplay, it expands upon it with brilliant new elements including speech, stealth and unarmed combat. Add this to the vastly improved worlds Lara explores and the benefits of their advanced 3D modelling and you have a great action adventure title that revives the experience of gaming nirvana that people first had when Lara debuted on the PS1 all those years ago.
