Crystal Dynamics known for Legacy of Kain and Gex series brought us their third Tomb Raider creation called Underworld. The studio was entrusted as the new developers for Tomb Raider series in 2003, when Eidos decided that their popular franchise goes in underground after Core Design (the creators of Lara) have failed to gain commercial success. A very smart decision, as Crystal Dynamics' experience with adventure games has been automatically ported into the new Lara and her adventures. After Tomb Raider: Legend who brought back to life the series with 2.6 million units sold worldwide and after the remake of the first game from 1996 (called Anniversary), the studio won its rights to develop further games starring Lara Croft. Underworld is the newest one and is probably the most coherent and balanced episode in Tomb Raider franchise.

I can definitely say that this time Lara and her actions are part of an interactive environment without feeling any artificial approach regarding the dynamics of the game. It's the first time when I felt that Lara can move natural, Crystal Dynamics giving up that robotic set of movements, and instead hiring Olympic gymnast and NCAA Women's Gymnastics champion Heidi Moneymaker for the motion capture sessions. The result is a Lara with almost 2000 animations, that will not stumble at a wall, but a Lara that can do lots of action movements so naturally that you can feel like being part of the game. You can actually perform the movements that you won't without being forced by the scripted physics to do only a limited set of actions. Of course there are limitations and even bugs (when Lara is blocked by imaginary textures, or jumping in other directions because of camera which sometimes is chaotic) but I have never seen a much more dynamic character since Prince of Persia series. And Lara has a lot of similarities in her acrobatic style with the Prince. Lot of the ideas from the Ubisoft's popular series, regarding environment exploitation and dynamics, have been borrowed and modified in order to fit Lara's needs. And I don't thing it was a terrible thing to do, as long as the result is very good and suites the new version of the series, making from the already old character a new and mature one, with much more perspective for future installments.

From the story point of view, Underworld is the continuation of Legend, Lara being again in search of her dead mother and for her father's secret destiny. The game begins in the Croft Manor corridors where Lara runs to escape a fire. No one known at that time what is the reason of this destruction. After some tutorial explanations comes the first cinematic in which she meets Zip and Winston. Zip tries to shoot her, while Winston succeeds in restraining him. Then suddenly the story jumps back in time for a week, when we find Lara in the Mediterranean Sea on a luxurious yacht, searching for a secret path to Avalon. For this you will conduct Lara in an underwater exploration in which you will realize for the first time the quality of the new graphical engine (which will be used also for the upcoming Deus Ex 3). Marine vegetation and sharks will stay in your path until you will find the secret gate to Avalon.

Here is where the first mechanical puzzles appear and this time without any hint icons regarding interactivity. A PDA will stay at your disposal giving you journal access, a sonar map, and limited monologue hints. You have to pay attention as Lara now can perform much more movements, so you will be surprised what she is capable to do even underwater. She can pull and carry heavy objects or shoot with both hands at the same time in different directions. Down in the cave she discovers a temple which is even older than what she suspected to find here. She finds out that Avalon is the same with Norse underworld of Niflheim, but when she finds a gauntlet supposedly belonging to the Norse god Thor she is caught by mercenaries working for Amanda (the negative character from Legend).

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Besides the graphics which look photo -realistic in some places, the physics it's also totally new. As I already mentioned, Lara can now use her both hands doing different things at the same time, She can carry objects with one hand, while with the other she can shoot enemies. You can now shoot even while hanging on the rocks, or ladders. There were discussions before the release of the game regarding the weather changes in the game. Although there were quite amazing the commentaries of the developers, in the game it doesn't look so spectacular. There is a minimal impact to the whole environment while raining, and for an unexperienced player it will remain unnoticed. I'm talking about how Lara reacts to this weather changes. If you perform some exaggerated moves, there might a chance of almost losing grip from a wet ledge. But this happens rarely and a simple 'Use" key button will help her regaining the control. For the first time dead bodies will remain visually active until you will end the level, unlike previous versions when every dead opponent or monster would have disappeared after a while.

Lara can throw objects, pick up poles, ride the bike and shoot the enemy. But this time she can also melee attack. Several moves have been recorded for this ability, but somehow the game looks poor at this point. This is sure a step forward in making Lara extremely pro-active, but probably all the melee attacks features have been implemented in the last steps of development making it feel unfinished. But at least she can again ride bikes. And this time even better. Unfortunately she has no more that expensive Ducati, but a futuristic two wheels vehicle that can run on almost any surface. In this way the developers could give it a much more important meaning in the whole gameplay, even as a key object for puzzles.

Without it, Lara has no chance in completely some of them. Even the grapling hook has a much more important meaning than just helping you escalate high walls, but it can also be used as an interaction tool providing new methods in moving objects aside. The interactive cutscenes have been replaced by slow motion moments when the player has the freedom to make the right decision in order to evade the situation. So instead of that annoying instant actions, you get total freedom in making the right decision.

Coming to the most prolific and most loved side of the Tomb Raider series puzzles. This time Crystal Dynamics decided to a more casual puzzles system, but not necessarily easy, but a system that tends to be more natural. You feel that the solution to the puzzles cannot be more logical than that. Forget about hard-core puzzles where most of the time the solution was forced to be more difficult by using long distanced from one objective point to another or by using low-end textures that would have no visual hint to whatsoever use. Everything is smooth and clear and funny. And it creates that atmosphere that makes the gameplay flow, like a Sunday movie, but extremely catchy. You wake up actually ending the game without knowing it. It doesn't have dead moments, where you can feel like reaching a dead end, or an endless loop.

Probably the fighting moments with the thralls makes you thing that it would have been much better if there weren't there spoiling your pleasure of exploring the environment. The levels architecture in some places is quite huge especially on the vertical, and even if you fall for three or four times, the fifth time you will try to climb that objective with the same pleasure. I felt in some places a sense of virtual freedom because of the liberty you have in getting almost everywhere, even in the most unnatural places.

Conclusion

Tomb Raider: Underworld is a complete adventure experience. While older Tomb Raider games were providing either puzzles, or shooting, or exploring, now Underworld offers all of these features, perfectly balanced to provide the best Lara game.

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Gameplay: 90

It's fast, spectacular and well balanced. You get huge exploring environments with lots of ways to choose from, melee fighting moments, shooting moments in Angelina Jolie's Wanted style, and logical puzzles with interesting solutions. Probably without the not so inspired fighting moments with huge spiders and thralls, the game would probably be noted much higher. Those are the only moments when you feel like the game was unpolished. Otherwise the gameplay is a Tomb Raider masterpiece, probably the best.

Graphics: 89

This is the first game featuring the new graphical engine which also will be used in Deus Ex 3, the fact being confirmed by Senior Producer and External Designer of the game. An engine that provides photo-realistic images in some instances and a high-end physics system. The diversity and hugeness of the environment suites perfectly the capabilities of the engine, altogether creating a beautiful visual feeling. The developers went even further in terms of environment, and besides the popular exotic sites, we get also an up-side-down level. At the end of the first chapter you will have to escape a wrecked ship, while it sinks at 90 degree angle. Several changes have been made to the so emblematic Lara character. Her costume has been redesigned and her hair is worn in a ponytail. Plus her body measures are look much more real than previous installments.

Sound: 89

Keeley Hawes provides again the voice of Lara, as she did in Legend and Anniversary. Troels Brun Folmann composed the main theme of the game, while O'Malley did most of the remaining music. This time the soundtrack is not so repetitive anymore, many musical fragments appearing only once in the game.  

Hardware: 82

Normally we got around 40 - 50 fps on medium to high PC machine, but the new engine definitely requires more than previous installments. The framerate falls sometimes in the cutscenes.