Tomb Raider Underworld Review (Xbox 360)
The final part of the Legend trilogy, Lara goes on the hunt for her lost mother in Avalon uncovering Norse myths along the way.
Developer: Crystal Dynamics
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Release Date: 21st November 2008 (EU), 18th November 2008 (NA), 5th December 2008 (AU)
Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, PC, Nintendo DS, OS X, N-Gage
Lara’s reboot with Tomb Raider Legend was a greatly recieved success which was then followed by the prequel/remake Anniversary, a very much appreciated and successful update of Lara’s first adventure with modern controls and graphics. So of course we didn’t have to wait long until the followup Underworld would come along closing up the trilogy. But unfortunately that would mean the last time we would ever get to see classic Lara in action as she would get rebooted yet again 5 years later.
Taking place right after Legend and continuing events seeded from Anniversary, Lara is on the search for Avalon where she believes her missing mother to still be. So says Amanda at the end of Legend anyhow. Diving down into the depths of the Mediterranean sea, she uncovers ties to Norse myths such as Niflheim and one of Thor’s gauntlets. After her brief dip she encounters Amanda and her mecenaries and fighting through the horde she finds in the bowels of Amanda’s ship an imprisoned Natla from Anniversary. She tells Lara that Nifleheim and the Underworld of Arthurian myth are the same and that if she wants to knock loudly enough on the Underworld’s front door she’s going to need a mighty hammer to get in to save her mother. Adventuring across Mexico, Norway, Thailand, and the depths of her own destroyed manor, Lara finds Thor’s other gauntlet and his belt of power Megingjord to weild Mjolnir. Meeting back up in the Arctic sea, Lara slings Mjolnir around Natla and Amanda’s hapless mercenaries and faces off against Natla one last time before she can bring about Ragnarok.
On top of running all over the world to save it from destruction she is hounded by a perverse dopplganger of herself created by Natla and Amanda. First appearing in Atlantis in Anniversary, she’s back again making things more difficult for Lara by blowing up her manor, killing Alister, causing distrust between Lara and Zip, and trying to stop her getting a hold of Mjolnir. She is a huge pain in the ass. As great a villain as she was though, she was never used as a proper boss encounter, something this game seems to lack disappointingly, and only serviced the story. Until her Beanth the Ashes DLC which I’ll get to later.
Underworld takes a lot of different and interesting approaches to the Norse myths. Such as Jormungandr, the Midgard serpent, is not quite a planet-length dragon from tooth to tail but a network of tectonic ridges of the planet and on the weakest point is a doomsday machine that when activated would bring about the destruction of the world— Ragnarok. And then there’s the eitr in these Underworld locations that spawn thralls, undead vikings brought from Helheim.
And of Helheim, here is where Lara finally gets to find her mother again. Except she is no longer her mother but a thrall corrupted by the eitr… A heartbreaking discovery for Lara after hoping for so long that her mother was still alive, she has to convince herself that her mother died long ago in Nepal and this was not her mother just to deal with putting her down. A very unsettling end. But really, how else could it have gone after the fact?
Amanda sees a nice reluctant redemption after being betrayed by Natla, who then helps Lara’s final confrontation against the doppleganger knocking her over into a pool of eitr, and staves off hordes of thralls so that Lara can defeat Natla once and for all. Of course Amanda and Lara make it out alive, much to Amanda’s surprise that Lara would trust her enough to ask for her help to get out through the dais gateway together. Returning back to Nepal where Lara’s mother originally disappeared, they have one last face off before Lara questions Amanda if killing her would make them even before Amanda leaves in a huff.
But the plot is good! Lara’s character is still as strong and fantastically portrayed by Keeley Hawes as ever who keeps getting better the more she plays her, more devilish revelations arise as Natla was the one who killed Richard Croft long ago, Amanda gets redemption, the perilous doppleganger tearing Lara’s world apart, and diving into the Norse myths is fascinating. It does bare some resemblance again to Uncharted, considering Drake’s Fortune now came a year earlier here, but Lara has been diving into these mythical adventures with appropriate monstrous spawns first, so. Uncharted is the copycat. Otherwise it’s a great adventure thriller of a story and a fine conclusion to the trilogy. Just a shame it’s the end for classic Lara…
After Anniversary, Crystal Dynamics put a lot of effort to do something more with what Lara can do and build upon what they have already done before. First, they used motion capture, portrayed by Heidi Moneymaker and Helena Barrett, to add more to her movements and gymnastics so that each step she takes, every jump and flip she lands, every kick thrown and gun pointed is much, much more authentic. On the one hand, it is ambitiously and incredibly done and Lara has never moved better or looked good doing it. On the other, it does make for some problematic platforming as at times when you’re trying to jump from one ledge to another her grabs won’t register or she’ll fly off into a completely different direction from where you want to go. It can be quite tedious trying to redo parts because her platforming refused to work correctly. But when it does work it makes controlling Lara fantastic and so enjoyable. She feels much more precise and feels great to move around. You can press B to somersault off into a flourish of gymnastics much more genuine and fanciful, you can still do the overhang flip holding A though a little quicker this time now. I guess she’s gotten a little too experienced doing them. But the developers and performers put in a lot of effort here to make Lara feel more lifelike. I like it, they did good. Even the smallest things such as Lara jumping from one ledge to another, how she leaps and lands comes across much more human. It’s a great addition.
They’ve added more to what you can do with the grappling hook this time around. Before it was magnetized so you could only attach it to shining context sensitive structures but here you can throw it onto stone rings. They’ve also implemented more use for it into puzzles making it more physics based. As before where you could pull on the rope, here in places you can use it to activate certain mechanics. For example, where you pick up Megingjord there is a rotating pylon with rings on. Attach your hook onto the ring, walk around the pylon a couple of times wrapping the rope around it and pull you’ll be able to rotate the pylon activating the statue of Thor causing him to move his arm. There’s many other situations where the grappling hook comes into play rather cleverly for puzzles, I love the enhancements they put to it. You can climb, wall run, and lower yourself down into large openings too, making you feel like a real spelunker.
For combat they added some melee capabilities for Lara. Which it’s about time really, I mean if you look at her carefully she’s actually pretty buff so of course she could swing a punch against a merc and win, easily. Though here you can kick a goon with Y a good distance back and stomp on thralls into pieces before they get back up. As for her shooting they added an adrenaline meter and dual targeting allowing you to lock onto multiple enemies if there’s more than one ahead of you. While locking on if you press A toward an enemy you can springboard off them, wait for your reticles to allign, press X and you can instantly kill them using your adrenaline meter, something carried over from Anniversary, if altered a little here. Very useful when facing off against tigers and panthers later. Clicking both thumbsticks puts you into focus mode using adrenaline. The combat can be a touch clunky in places but otherwise it’s great. You get an array of guns to choose from with an assault rifle, shotgun, uzis and even a harpoon gun. You can even fight sharks in the underwater segments.
But the best part with combat has to be with Mjolnir when you get a hold of it. Once you get that hammer you can slam it into the ground knocking enemies back and sling lightning at enemies and destroy thralls with ease. Because I love Norse mythology and Thor is one of my favourite superheroes, I was having just a little too much fun with Mjolnir in this the first time around. But it’s a video game, I’m supposed to be having all the fun I can possibly have with it. So Lara + Mjolnir = ridiculous amounts of joy. I love it. Easily one of my favourite things out of all of the Tomb Raider games.
There’s also a couple of bike driving sections again which are alright once you get the hang of how it moves but it’s not the strongest point of the game I feel, much like in Legend. Sometimes controlling the bike can be a little temperamental especially when trying to avoid a spike trap of death. It looks cool though.
And speaking of looks, the whole game is incredible to look at. Fucking gorgeous. The tropical settings of Thailand and Mexico, the cold bitterness of Norway, the incredible undersea ruins. It’s fantastic. And the way they designed the levels is they tried to implement more naturally what you can climb on. So if you see a ledge or collumn and think you can climb it, chances are you can. Just be careful when climbing though because you might naturally go falling off to your death. And these visuals help with puzzles as well, as the pieces seemlessly blend with the environment. Mostly. You can pick up and hurl blocks for weight puzzles on pressure plates and they’re quite obvious, but there is one in the depths of Croft Manor where you have to arrange objects to create the right shadows on a stained glass window to open up a door. That’s very nicely done.
To navigate around these levels easier, you have your trusty flashlight still and pressing back to your PDA you can unlock a hint and objective if you truly get lost, which sort of help but mostly try to get you to figure it out. There are enough clues in the level to do so and you’re smart enough to suss it out. There is also a sonar map laying out the surrounding area which sort of works? It’s alright. In the PDA you can switch out your weapons too and later once you’ve completed the game you can select what level you want to revisit. However, there are some parts of levels you cannot revisit, such as in Mexico once you open the gates you can only visit the underworld through your first playthrough. Going back later those doors stay locked which makes for collecting relics and artefacts tricky.
The characters themselves took an updated design as well. Everyone looks more of the same as they did in Legend but with a lot more refinement and detail to match the art direction of the game. They look less like they exist within some weird shared Crystal Dynamics world and more its own. Amanda gets a new look as does Natla pulling her best Magneto in a suspended plastic prison in X-Men 2 ensemble. The thralls look monstrously mythical, skeletal vikings glowing with eitr. And Lara herself looks even better than she did in Legend and Anniversary. They’ve made her look a little less cartoony and even gave her a little more muscle definition as well, which makes sense considering all the climbing she does, and I swear they made her quite tall as well. Like at least 5’9”-5’11” she feels like. At the start of a mission you also get to choose whatever outfit you like from wetsuits, to jungle outfits (with optional trousers!), to even a bikini (included with a bunch of free DLC add-ons) because why the hell not. Either way it’s great you get a variety of outfits to pick out from, makes things more playful. But the whole game is another visual treat to look at.
It sounds amazing too with a strong cinematic soundtrack by Troels Brun Folmann with Colin O’Malley. Underworld took a more cinematic approach with its story so it makes sense Folmann would up the score higher than his work on Legend already was. But it is also not without its beautifully romantic tunes and wonderous ambience that Legend brought.
If that wasn’t enough then thankfully there’s DLC to go through; Beneath the Ashes and Lara’s Shadow which both take place after the main game. Beneath the Ashes sees Lara exploring the depths of the destroyed Croft Manor even further uncovering an artifact that creates and controls the thralls with the phrase “Okh Eshivar” and ending with a curious encounter with the doppleganger. Lara uses the phrase on the doppleganger setting her free and sends her off to “make Natla suffer”. Lara’s Shadow sees how the doppleganger survived Amanda’s assault earlier in the game, recovering Natla, being sent to kill Lara at her order which ties to the end of Beneath the Ashes, and then her inevitable making Natla suffer, at Lara’s order. Lara’s Shadow is a very ambitious DLC as it gives a whole new character with new abilities for you to play as. She can slow down time where basically she’s actually going super fast, use melee combat and has an array of other super powers to use where you can knock enemies back. Her climbing abilities are differnet from Lara’s as she can attach to walls through strength alone and run along jagged walls. A lot of how she plays reminds me of Soul Reaver somehow and even Prince of Persia, especially with running along walls avoiding traps while slowing down time... But they are fine additions to Underworld that help tie up a few loose ends to the game.
Tomb Raider Underworld has a few little technical hiccups with a janky camera and platforming glitches, but overall it is another incredible game. It was incredibly ambitious and that is admirable. It continues to add more to the Tomb Raider series with inventive and creative gameplay mechanics, technical feats, pushes more of what Lara can do and what myths she can explore. Maybe it could’ve done with a few more months in production to refine it just a bit more with a few more pennies to do it, however it is a stellar conclusion to the Legend trilogy wrapping everything up nicely. It’s just a huge shame that this was the last we got to see of classic Lara and her adventures as she would get rebooted yet again in 2013 seeing Lara in her younger days before she became the Tomb Raider we all know and love. And even then that took a whole trilogy to even get to the beginning of it.
Tomb Raider is getting yet another reboot though and with its purchase by Embracer Group/THQ Nordic, maybe hopefully we’ll get a return to the classic, fun loving, confident and clever, adrenaline-junkie adventuress who fangirls and swoons over tombs and stares down dinos and the undead like they’re not even shit. I say it’s sorely needed again.
Where to Purchase:
Ebay: £3- £90/ $4-$662
Amazon: 62p-£25/$20-50
Cex: £3