Return Without A Meaning (Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness (PS2))

Member Name: vassilis73

Product:	Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness (PS2)
Date:	18/09/03 (123 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Sound, Few good additions

Disadvantages: Control

When I first heard about Angel of Darkness I thought that it would be a title that will resurrect the tired Lara Croft and allow her to go back to the very top as most favourite hero of a game.

The movie was about to be out on June and Angel of Darkness to follow but it didn?t happened. The new Tomb Raider came out after the movie and disappointed everyone really. Lara Croft was known for her physical abilities and her body maybe, but not for her character. In Angel of Darkness though lot of emphasis have been placed on the promotion of her character. You come to know her more which very nice!?

The Scenario
After many years of doing nothing, Lara Croft is in Paris and talking with her friend Dr. Von Croy.. Dr. Von Croy is working for a man named Eckhardt and his mission is to find 5 art paints of the 15th century. The legends call these paints Obscura and are connecting them with mysticism and black magic. The join of the five paints gives power that many bad guys would love to have.

Slowly slowly Dr.Von Croy and all that are with him are been murdered and Lara became a witness of Doctors death. French police thinks that Lara killed him and they try to arrest her. From that moment on Lara is trying to clear her name and to find the solution of the mystery of the paints.

I have to admit, the scenario is great. Really interesting.

The presentation of the scenario is through cinematic cut scenes with atmosphere that reminds of of film noir, with new characters and clues that are been inserted just to confuse you and make the solution of the mystery even more difficult. The cut scenes are using the graphics engine of the title so to be entered smoothly at the game play. For the fist time in the history of Lara Croft, Lara has a character. She is not the without-a-soul hero but she is full with emotions.
She very angry and you can see that in the way she expressing herself. She is giving you the impression t
hat she has lost her patience

That is what is my opinion worth mentioning about the positive additions on Angel of Darkness. We live in 2003,but the biggest part of the gameplay is the same with the Tomb Raider of 1996(!) with very few additions

CONTROL
Once again the mega problem of Lara Croft. She moves like a robot almost! From the first moments of the gameplay, when you attempt a few things in a tutorial type of thing, the problems are obvious. Lara should be more athletic with her new moves.In contrast is so fast that makes the moves almost impossible!
Also, always there is a delay between the press of the button and the action of Lara and almost never done the same time. The moves are so fast that even the turning of her body caused me trouble!
If you make the comparison with Ico or Metal Gear Solid 2 as it concerns the moves, Lara is disappointing!
And I haven?t mention the way that the camera works! Even though there is a specific button to correct your view, the time that your view changes, the camera goes in places that put Lara in the opposite direction then the one that you had choose!! That is definitely bad as you loose time to correct it again and some times again and again.

Even though she very hard to move, she has greater variety of moves. Lara can climb at balconies, move silently and parallel to the walls (in an attempt to imitate Solid Snake?) In my opinion though the most of the stealth moves are extremely slow and they give the impression that they have put in more frames that are needed.( I am not an expert but these things are pretty obvious and you demand as a user to have something better than that. And it?s not something difficult because other games have it already!)
In addition I believe that the stealth moves are not helping you that much.

Also something else I noticed is that the enemies are quite stupid. Lara can move silently towards a man, stand next to him shoulder to
shoulder and he can see or feel her! Even if he spot her, she will win even if you don?t move her!! That?s tragic! Also, the system of automatic shooting is unmistakable even when that enemy is behind a wall!
A new thing that is being added and I want to mention is that Lara can hung from a balcony let?s say only for a short period.( there is a small meter on the screen that tells you how much she can stay like that. The more she is doing it, the more she can do things like that. But again that?s at times stupid. Lara open a door after a lot of try, and her strength is bigger that before! Where is the logic in this?

For the first time as well the user will be able to control another character except Lara. Kurtis Trent is his name. The control is the same but the most of the time when Trent is the protagonist the game play is transformed in survival horror as hundreds of enemies are trying to stop him.

GRAPHICS
Very weak point this for the game. There are so many bugs that my untrained eye has catch that made me wondering: the producers had done a test before they took it out in the market?? When Lara is passing through a door her clothes are different! Other time Lara is passing through solid walls! Or the bodies of her enemies are disappearing after the fell on the ground.
But at the other hand the textures and the design of the levels are fantastic, with great variety and realism.

SOUND
At times the sound stops without any obvious reasons. But except that, Angel of Darkness supports Dolby Prologic II and it creates great atmosphere. The music is really good and the sound effects are very realistic. The actors that gave their voices to the heroes have are talented but at times the tone of their voice and their expressions are exaggerated.

OVERALL OPINION
In my opinion Angel of Darkness creates more problems to the franchise of this game. But generally speaking It?s not a bad game .It?s still Lara Croft.
But there is nothing new and very exciting on this version of the game, so you can wait until June 2005 for the new version. If you are a fun of Lara Croft though and you can?t wait until 2005,then go and buy it. It worth it. For the rest of us I suggest ?Tetris??

Thanks for reading...

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