Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness (PC)

Overall a bit of a dissapointment, but still good to play if you have nothing better to do.

Both games in my opinion are excellent, but as this review is supposed to be about Lara's new game, I'd better concentrate on her. I'll not give any of the plot away. I'll let you discover that for yourself! First off, AOD doesn't require a computer with an immense amount of power at its disposal. Naturally the more powerful your machine, the better the game will run, but it will run on a 500 mhz pc with little difficulty. It's good to report that although the game is graphically superb, you won't need to shell out for a brand new system in order to enjoy it. As I say, the graphics are excellent, as you'd expect. This time round, the areas Lara explores are much more detailed, as indeed is Lara herself, with a much greater polygon count making her more realistic, as indeed are her adversaries, who are more intelligent too. Hand to hand combat also comes into play, which is a great addition. The ability to sneak up behind an enemie and choke them, without being seen, adds a great deal of stealth to the game, as opposed to the 'going in all guns blazing approach'.

There is another playable character in AOD; Kurtis Trent, and his inclusion is very welcome. It is a good idea, that Eidos have implemented into the game very well, and gives the game a perspective from another character's point of view. Now then, onto probably one of the biggest issues for many people - the controls. Let me point out here that Lara's latest adventure does not control in the same way as her previous games. The control system is now much advanced, and may take some people a little while to become accustomed to. The game plays at a slightly slower pace BUT (and I must emphasise this hence the capitals) they are very responsive. Imagine the controls in Resident evil, if you will, and you'll be pretty close to what is on offer here. To elaborate on that a bit more, moving the controller left or right doesn't immediately move Lara in that direction. This will rotate her character round and round. When you are in the direction you wish to go, pressing forward will make her move in that particular direction. I hope I've explained that ok. Anyway, give it a try yourself, and you'll see what I mean. The game comes on 2 cds, and is fairly lengthy too, giving good value for money. In summary, the many delays the game has experienced have been well worth it. For anybody who has their doubts on this last point, don't worry. I'm sure many patches will be available in the near future, so you can tweak the game to your liking. As for me, I'm very happy with Lara's latest adventure, and wouldn't hesitate in recommending it to anyone. Congratulations Eidos, on creating the 'definitive' Lara Croft experience!

So, the controls are bad but with effort become bearable. How about the rest of the game? Again, sticking at it is the key... Once you’ve got out of Paris (not the most impressive intro) then the good old Tomb Raider of old re-emerges, and it’s fantastic!! The graphics and music are first rate, though I gather you need a pretty up-to-date system to appreciate them – I’ve got a Pentium 2.66 with a GeForce Titanium 4800 3D card, Audigy 2 sound card plus 6.1 surround speakers and it’s glitchless on it.

Other "innovations" prove to be utterly superfluous. The decision-making sections aren’t much cop - all you have to do is play nice and you always get through them – in fact a couple of them play exactly the same way regardless of what you choose so seem a bit pointless really... The "Massively improved A.I." is nothing of the sort – enemies still get stuck trying to walk into walls and run around in circles while you easily shoot them dead. Oh, and the 'new' moves such as stealth (where Lara does a rather lame monkey impression!) or the ability to 'upgrade' is rubbish. You pull one block and find that you can’t. If you then pull another identical block, bingo! Now you’re strong enough to pull the first block!? Lame.

So, all in all. I WOULD give this gorgeous game a 5-star rating even though it plays like the older TR games as I love playing them (though admittedly wasn’t so keen on "The Last Revelation" as it became just one long hard slog with no real pay off). However I deduct one point from it for the incredibly bad controls (which I suspect will put off a lot of people from playing it at all) – and I’ll take off another point for Eidos once again promising so much, yet totally failing to deliver the truly groundbreaking experience that’s been delayed and hyped since last year.