Tomb Raider: Underworld

Overview

Set mostly in Southern Mexico around Chiapas, Lara Croft sets off to uncover the lost Mayan underworld of Xibalba through use of portals located on our world. The Mayan legend holds that their 300-day calendar year included five extra missing days, days in which, according to legend, the portals opened. It's Lara's task to open the portal once again.

In Underworld, not only will Lara Croft and the environment she explores look much better due to a new graphics engine, but gameplay itself is being revamped. Interaction with the environment is of special note. If Lara's knees become muddy from crouching the rain will soon wash it away. Lara will also push through foliage with her hands or leave footprints in the ground, she will also be able to destroy parts of the enviroment, and the people and animals she kills will remain where they died.

Other additions to this Tomb Raider installment include a new melee combat system and the ability to pick up objects even if they aren't integral to progress in the game.

Underworld was released on 18th November, 2008 by developer Crystal Dynamics and publisher Eidos Interactive, and was made available for PS2, PS3, PC, Xbox 360, Wii and Nintendo DS. A demo for Xbox Live Marketplace came out on October 28, 2008 at 1.3 GB along a PC release of this demo days later. The Xbox 360 version will feature 6 hours of exclusive content in the form of two single-player chapters titled Beneath the Ashes and Lara's Shadow. The first being released on XBL this holiday, and Lara's Shadow being avaliable in early 2009. There is no news whether this DLC will be available for other systems.

Gameplay

Lara Croft

In terms of action the shooting has been revamped, so that Lara can shoot at two enemies at one time when using her famous pistols. It has also been noted that combat has been toned down to emphasise the adventure aspect of the game. There are no 'boss battles' per se in Tomb Raider: Underworld, only bigger enemies and bigger challenges.

One of the key developments in gameplay has been the 'giant puzzle' feature which shows the level itself acting as one giant puzzle for Lara to solve. Instead of a series of puzzles in succession, levels in Underworld are designed to be a mesh of puzzles fitting into a much larger idea than was at first apparent. Developers have mentioned that a big part of the game is watching the level change around you as you solve the puzzles.

Plot

Upon finding a temple of 'Proto-Norse' origin, Lara comes to believe that due to the similarities between the English myth of Avalon and the Norse myth of Niflheim being so strong, that they are merely different cultures interpretations of the same Underworld. Upon furthur searching the temple under the sea, she finds a gauntlet, supposedly that which the Norse god Thor worn. However, Lara is knocked out by a team of mercenaries under Amanda's hire and abandoned to die in the temple. Lara however, chases down the mercenaries to their ship and climbs aboard where she finds Amanda speaking with another enemy of Lara's; Natla, who is held captive. As Lara listens to them talk, she learns that Avalon is in fact the same as Helheim, rather than Niflheim and that no-one will be able to enter Helheim without Mjöllnir; Thor's Hammer. Due to an explosion caused by Lara fighting a mercenary, the ship begins to sink. As Lara escapes, she sees Amanda fleeing and shoots at her. Amanda throws the gauntlet into the water and Lara dives in after it, losing Amanda, but saving the god's gauntlet.

After making her way to coastal Thailand, Lara learns that her late father, Richard Croft had already done extensive studying on the subject of Helheim and had gotten to the second Gauntlet years ago, hiding it in a disguised crypt beneath Croft Manor. Finding the gauntlet (as well as a map to Thor's belt) Lara returns to her mansion to find it in flames. Lara makes her way through Croft manor only to be shot at by Zip who explains that Lara shot him and stole Amanda's 'Wraith Stone' from a vault. Lara and Winston explain to Zip that it wasn't Lara who shot Zip, asserting that Lara would have no need to burn down her own mansion and as Lara tells Winston and Zip to get out of the building, she herself goes to check the security feed in the computer room. Upon reaching the computer room, Lara catches a glance at her reflection in the glass wall, noting it looks somehow different. Suddenly, Lara understands that she isn't looking at her reflection, but an engineered doppelganger of herself on the other side of the glass (presimably manufactured by Natla). As Lara and the doppelganger fight, Alistair makes his way into the room, trying to escape the flames, but is ultimately shot by the doppelganger. Lara attempts to shoot the doppelganger, but she escapes too quickly. Carrying Alistair out of the burning manor, it is determined that he is dead and Lara stands, more determined than ever to find Mjöllnir, stating that she needs Thor's hammer to kill a God; Natla.
Making her way to Mexico, Lara finds Thor's belt and as she wears it, Thor's Gauntlets power up giving her the ability to handle Mjöllnir as soon as she finds it. She makes her way to Jan Mayen Island, finally finding Mjöllnir in Valhalla  where she also finds a message from Thor's father, explaining a ritual needs to be undertaken in order to open the gates to Helheim.

With Thor's belt, hammer and gauntlets Lara makes her way to the sister ship of the vessel she sank earlier, where Amanda is now holding Natla. Killing all the guards on the ship with Mjöllnir Lara confronts Natla. Soon after, Amanda and the doppelganger appear, but the doppelganger throws Amanda down a shaft, presumably to her death. Natla claims to know the ritual that will open Helheim and agrees to help a wary Lara who proclaims that when Natla makes a wrong move, Lara will kill her. With the help of Natla, Lara opens the gateway to Helheim, deep beneath the Arctic Sea. Eventually, Lara finds Amelia, her mother who has been turned into a thrall, a deceased person or creature that continuously reanimates due to a substance called eitir. Lacking any mind, memory or real conciousness to speak of, Amelia approaches Lara, most likely in order to attack, but Lara guns her down accepting that she is not her mother and that her mother died a long time ago. As Lara kneels, in sorrow, Natla reveals that everything up to that point had been orchestrated by Natla to allow her access to Avalon. She also explains that her first attempt failed years ago when Richard Croft, Lara's father refused to help her, so Natla killed him.
As Lara goes to strike Natla with Mjöllnir, the doppelganger appears and restrains Lara. Natla leaves Lara to the doppelganger who attempts to kill Lara, but is suddenly disabled by Amanda. Amanda realises that the world is in danger and holds off a number of incoming thralls so that Lara can defeat Natla.

When Lara reaches Natla, Natla is operating a titanic device called the Midguard Serpent, which is designed to bring about a seventh age, triggering apocalyptic levels of volcanic activity throughout the world.
As Lara steadily destroys the device with Mjöllnir, Natla tries to stop her, but to no avail. With the destruction of the Midguard Serpent imminent, Lara hurls the hammer at Natla which striked her and sends her hurtling down into a sea of etir.
As Lara regroups with Amanda, they find the exit is blocked and that there is no discernable way out. Lara however notices a portal identical to the one that transported her mother to Helheim (when she touched Excalibur which was driven into a rock) in the first place and determines that if they were to pull Excalibur out, they would be returned to Nepal. However, the portal is broken and Lara determines that the only way for them both to escape is for Lara to hold the Portal steady and for Amanda to pull the sword, with the two of them touching hands at the last moment to both be transported.

As Lara and Amanda find themselves in Nepal, they come to the conclusion that they are even, As Amanda leaves, Lara says goodbye to her mother, acknowledging Amelias death and walking away from the portal as the game ends.Tomb Raider: Underworld (video game) - giantbomb.com

Controversy

The news broke when a Gamespot UK employee left a twitter post explaining that Eidos had asserted for any reviews of the game with a score lower than 8.0 were not to be posted online or in print until after Monday 24th November. When a journalist for videogaming247 called Barrington Harvery, an employee acknowledged the review ban and responded that Eidos was attempting to manage reviews in order to make the games Metacritic rating higher and not put people off buying the game.

At the time, OXM UK and Eurogamer had each put up their reviews of the game, both of which stood at 7.0, an act which the representative asserted had caused problems. The Metacritic score stood at 78 and has since dropped to 77.

Although the act of managing review scores is not particularly uncommon in the games industry, it is particularly rare for a representative of such a firm to admit to it as the role of managing review scores is not seen by all as very honest, The news spelt bad news for Eidos who had previously been accused of pulling strings to get Jeff Gerstmann fired from his job at Gamespot over a 6.0 review of their game Kane and Lynch: Dead Men.

Release

In the UK, Game stores offered a Limited Edition copy of the game for the same price as the standard edition. Exclusive to this release is a special bonus DVD which includes 'Exclusive Behind the Scenes Documentary', 'Previously Unreleased In-Game Music', 'Art Gallery', 'Video'' and 'Trailers' all bought together with the standard game disc in a carboard packaging.

Critical Reaction

Gamespot offered a 7.0 / 10 review of the game noting "Excellent mix of outdoor, underground, and underwater locations" but pointing out that "it does little to address previous games' problems" which the full review specifies as camera problems, bad dialogue and a lack of refinement to core gameplay.
IGN who went on to point out furthur flaws such as object detection and combat issues, although still gave the game no lower than a 7.4 for the PS3.
Nintendo Power also went on to give the Wii version of the game a 7.0 / 10 citing the games environments as the best in the series but pointing out easy puzzles as a cause for concern. Combat was also described as so obsolete that the developers needn't have bothered.

The game has however marveled some reviewers who have produced wildly enthusiastic reviews.

The United Kingdom phone network, Orange produced a review of the game scoring the game at 9.0 / 10, praising the environments and Lara's reactions to them. The diminished amount of combat was noted as a positive, although the main appeal was in the exploration of the worlds which come to life.
Although The Guardian newspaper noted that the camera had a tendency to go haywire, they still gave it a 4 / 5 review pointing out the graphics and story (going so far to refer to them as unimpeachable) and citing it as a game that fans of the series will "certainly agree that it's the best Tomb Raider game yet."
Gamesradar (US) also went on to give the game a 9 / 10 review mentioning that although Lara's tendency to "[freak] out and [jump]off in the wrong direction" happens far too often, that exemplary check-pointing and the decision to ditch boss-battles pays off.

On Metacritic, the platform specific rankings for each version of the game are currently as follows:

• Xbox 360: 78 / 100

• Wii: 68 / 100

• Microsoft Windows: 81 / 100

• Playstation 3: 78 / 100

Downloadable Content

Eidos has announced that two new chapters of Tomb Raider: Underworld are set for release as DLC for the Xbox 360 console only after an arrangement with Microsoft. Eidos did not announce any prices for the new chapters, but did state planned release dates. The first chapter, which is titled "Beneath the Ashes", was state to be released Christmas 2008 but has yet to arrive. The second one, "Lara's Shadow", was state to be released March 10, 2009.

Lara's Shadow

Tomb Raider: Underworld Lara’s Shadow allows gamers to experience Lara’s universe from an entirely new perspective: that of the Doppelganger.
With faster movement, shadow powers and a melee attack that decimates enemies with devastating accuracy & speed, the Doppelganger will open up new gameplay mechanics, areas & puzzles which wouldn’t be possible while playing as Lara Croft. Lara’s Shadow is available now for 800 Microsoft Points.

When it was later confirmed by a reporter for MTV Multiplayer that there are no plans to produce the two new chapters for PS3 or Microsoft Windows, a outcry from the fans followed. An Eidos spokesperson had to give a defending statement for the move and said the following, "Microsoft asked us how we could extend the fantastic Tomb Raider: Underworld gameplay experience for their thriving Xbox Live community and this exclusive content was the result."

On November 8th a jury and public vote took place on the Festival Arcadia's Virtually Fashionable to determine which of a number of new outfits would be made available to download over Xbox Live Marketplace. The two winning designs, produced by Québec fashion designers are to be made available at a later date.

Four additional costumes for Lara are available for free on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The costumes are two classic Lara Croft outfits and two types of form-fitting wetsuits.

Xbox 360 Game Installation

Tomb Raider: Underoworld requires 6.6GB of space to install on an Xbox 360 HDD.