Conclusions

As the game goes on, the graphics start to matter less and less, to be honest. While the graphics are good Crystal Dynamics hasn’t tried to blow your socks off with them. Instead, the effort has gone into creating a cinematic presentation and resplendent story, manned by interesting characters with old ties.

The new Lara is starting to develop quite the history and how that past is affecting her future is an enticing and well-told tale. Crystal Dynamics doesn’t pad things out or slow things down either. On your quest for Thor’s hammer there’s no tedious exposition or faffing around. You know what you need to do – bloody well do it!

The desire to see if Lara will ever be reunited with her mother is so strong in fact that it means we kept playing the game even despite the problems and issues with the handling and the obtuse puzzles.

Make no mistake about it either; when we say the handling is often infuriating, we really mean it.


Tomb Raider: Underworld may be a good yarn about what family is and how important it can be, but it’s also one of the most frustrating damn games we’ve ever played. At times it can be about as much fun as putting two bottles of Tabasco in your mouth and having a boxing match with Mike Tyson.

The controls are occasionally flaky so that Lara often pounces the wrong way and ends up leaping more like an electrified slab of venison than a graceful gazelle, often falling to her doom. The default control set-up is a pain too and no matter how you assign it you’ll struggle with advanced combat at least a little. Hold G to lock on, press Caps Lock to throw a grenade and tap R to change weapons? All while dodging bullets? Um, no.

Worst of all though is the camera, especially when free-climbing. Yahtzee famously referred to it as a ‘leap-of-faith camera’ for the way it obscures the view when you need to make a jump, but we think a better title would be ‘porno-vision’ for the way it seems intent on getting closer to Lara than a short-sighted gynaecologist. Yes, Lara is an attractive lady – but we prefer our virtual vixens a little less ragdoll, thank you.

Well, we do most of the time anyway. Heh.


It really says a lot about how far the Tomb Raider series has come that it’s now the story that’s making us want to keep playing and not the glory of the gameplay. We remember when it used to be the absolute opposite for Lara and we’d sit through nonsense like Tomb Raider Chronicles purely because it was so much fun to clamber through Venice.

Crystal Dynamics has always seemed to have had issues with the camera in Tomb Raider and these problems are similar to the complaints we raised about both previous games, but much worse. It’s a shame. We could have tolerated a few camera issues and awkward jumps, but there are so many that it really starts to detract from the enjoyment factor after a while. Not enough to kill the game, true – but enough to thrash it to within an inch of its life.

Still an essential game for platformer fans, or those who just want to check in with Lara and see if she really has evolved from waterballoon saleswoman to something you can actually have on-screen in front of your girlfriend, Underworld is an ultimately worthwhile frustration despite the issues – but that doesn’t absolve them. The game is playable, but sometimes you’ll think it isn’t.

In the end what holds Lara back is that though she may have taken one step forward on the story front, she’s taken a step backwards on the control side. What we really need to do is get her to turn around on the spot three times, drop a flare and leap forwards to see if we can cheat our way straight onto the next game and see if that’s any more polished.

Score Guide