My Tombraider Underworld review

Hey guys
Ive been playing through ‘Tombraider underworld’ lately and thought it was time to write a a review of the game.

Im a huge fan of the series and having enjoyed ‘tombraider legend’ was anticipating underworld, in hopes that it would improve on legend and offer up more of what we like…we so far im not at all disappointed….

Underworld picks up the story of legend with Lara in search of her mother, Early on, Lara realizes that her mother was not transported to Avalon after all, but to the Norse underworld, Helheim. In order to enter that realm she must obtain a powerful artifact: the thunder god Thor's hammer, Mjolnir. As she travels the globe seeking clues to the hammer's whereabouts she will visit places like the Mediterranean, coastal Thailand and various other locations.

this latest addition of the game is using the crystal engine used in legend and as with previous tombraider games the graphics of this game are amazing…….the difference between cut scenes and In game play is practically unnoticeable.









(PLEASE NOTE: if you want to see more screen shots click on my xfire link in the sig)

The game offers up 7 levels with the normal puzzles, jumps and fighting that we would expect from a TR game, and like legend one is able to use melee attacks when in close quarters, but with the added feature of being able to select a second weapon with unlimited ammo at the start of each stage, melee really hasn’t featured as big a part as I thought……as well as weapon selection one can choice costumes at the start of each stage….im not sure how many different ones are available but it’s a nice change.

Fighting is like previous TR’s with the exception that you can now lock on to more than one target when using the default pistols, you can leap jump dodge or choose a more direct method of getting in close and melee attacking, as well there is a special move which gets recharged with every hit you make on enemies but to be honest I haven't spent any time with it…I like the more traditional methods of disposing with the enemies.

As well as that there are of course secrets to be found throughout the game and also each stage has a relic which is actually a worthwhile thing to search after, as when you find it it completely restores your health and also increased your health bar permanently…..

One thing which im really enjoying with the game is that there seems to be various ways one can go about solving each puzzle, basically offering up different paths one can follow to accomplish the goal, basically if you think you can make a certain jump, leap or crawl there's a good chance that you will actually be able to take that path…this adds to replay value of the game as well as giving one an option to take a different path if one gets stuck.

The game offers up a decent length, im about half way through and have put in around 8-10 hours so far, I haven't been searching for all the secrets so find this to be very reasonable, as I said im a fan of the series but if someone is looking for a good adventure/action game with puzzle solving this is a very good contender…..

i rate this a game a very good 8/10 there are a few bugs but found that installing the one update (around 100mb) fixes most of them..

im playing this game on the machine in my sig and have the settings maxed out and dont experience any slowdown and i get a minimum of 30FPS and max in the 50's, average FPS in the 40's, but think weaker machines may struggle with this game.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: windows XP/vista, processor: 3+ GHz Intel or 2.5GHz AMD, Memory: 1gb RAM (XP)/2gb RAM (vista) 7gb hard drive space, Video card: nVidia 6800+/ ATI X1600+ 256mb memory shader model 3, Sound card: directX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers.
(as per the box)

i would recommend this game to fans of the series and newbies alike it offers up challenges and enjoyment.....but can be frustrating if you cant work out a puzzle....(recollects spending over an hour to work out a stage last night)

anyway if you have any questions feel free to ask...
cheers