The Game Dame™

Review: Tomb Raider Underworld

Posted on February 3rd, 2009 in Pre/Reviews.
4 Comments so far

You may have been too busy noticing Lara’s ass to think about what her feet would look like after all that barefooted running around. Let me help you with that.

So I finally rented the latest Tomb Raider and played it through.

Um…

Yeah.

Ok, so here’s the deal with Lara. You know I love her character. I love her history. And I love the fact that Megan Fox is being tossed around as a potential candidate to play her in the next Tomb Raider movie. Lara is a great, strong, beautiful, marketable woman.

The games she’s in, however, piss me off. I had high hopes that because Crystal Dynamics was involved again, Underworld would kick ass.

FAIL

As far as graphics go, good job guys. The underwater settings were pretty fantastic and little details like Lara’s new brow wrinkles added some nice character expressions. The soundtrack was good as well, although, it did put me to sleep a couple of times when I was trying to figure out how to get out of one of many buggy-ass puzzles.

ON THE OTHER HAND….

CONTROL IT!!!
Jesus H. Mothereffing Christ, guys! Can you PLEASE fix the HORRIBLE CONTROLS we have ALL been SCREAMING ABOUT FOR FOREVER?!?!?! This game probably took me 10 hours longer than it should have to complete because I’d tell Lara to jump in the direction of a ledge only to watch her crash to her death. And because the auto-save feature was a joke, the game would often reload in a place that didn’t make any sense and it’d take twice as long to get back to where I crashed… only to crash again.

YOU’RE KIDDING, RIGHT?
So I’m cool with suspending disbelief in video games… but I have a really hard time with the fact that one of Lara’s clothing options before you explore the Arctic sea is a teeny bathing suit. And she swims through the icy waters just fine. Not only that, but as soon as she gets out on land, she kicks pots to search for treasures:

Not only would that probably shatter your frozen foot (if you hadn’t died from hypothermia first), WHAT THE FUCK IS LARA DOING SMASHING PRICELESS POTTERY INTO A BILLION PIECES??!?! She’s a treasure hunter. She values ancient artifacts… and yet she’s kicking the ever-loving shit out of potentially priceless pottery just to see if there’s something inside???!!!!! Riiiight.

ENDANGERED? PSHAW.
Lara into collecting pieces of history and keeping things fair. This is why I have a really hard time believing she would have no qualms about blowing the faces off of tigers – EVEN considering she’s under attack. What happened to fancy wall jumping to get out of their way?

About 1/3 of the way through my “I LOVE LARA” juices were hardly enough to keep me going through the rest of the game. There were glitches galore and hiccups that took hours to figure out. If it weren’t for the gamer points I knew I could earn for toughing it through, I never would’ve played through the entire game. NEVER.

The last level was a freaking joke. Glitch-o-rama. After an hour of things not working right, I had to restart the entire level. Which would’ve been fine if the enemies hadn’t loaded as INVISIBLE. Second restart… I WAS INVISIBLE. And the final cut scene/story didn’t make any sense. So the payoff was lame.

There’s more I could go into, but honestly, I don’t even feel like griping about it anymore. So I’ll end it here and let you know that – unless you’re just into torturing yourself with bad games – there’s no point in playing Underworld. And that makes me very, very sad.

4 Responses to “ Review: Tomb Raider Underworld ”

After writing and rewriting what I was going to say it’s much easier to admit I was 10 when she first appeared and have never been so turned on by square boobs. (Except that once at Lego Land)

And while I’ve never killed a tiger I once did kick the face off a badger to make a sporran.(This is a lie. It’s made from bunnies.)

(I love brackets.)

Left by Ewan on February 3rd, 2009

I love that opening image. Considering some of the places Lara gets into I think her feet might also be covered in blood, shit, warts, boils, and all manner of smelly fungal infections.

The game in general is a mixed bag. It’s a shame that so soon after Tomb Raider: Legend reinvigorated the series it already feels played out and dull again. And if Hollywood is planning a relaunch of the movie franchise all we’ll probably get for the next game is a ho-hum licensed ‘play the film!’ experience.

Left by Massouken on February 4th, 2009

>You may have been too busy noticing >Lara‚Äôs ass to think about what her feet >would look like after all that barefooted >running around. Let me help you with that.

Not only that, but she would have to has (??)huge muscles and a sailor’s hand. Scars, a fucked up hair and skin, and all those things that does not suit a pretty lady, right? But how will you sell games with girls as main characters to a bunch of wanker nerds if they don’t look like the girl of their dreams?

>but I have a really hard time with the >fact that one of Lara‚Äôs clothing options >before you explore the Arctic sea is a >teeny bathing suit.

Im quite sure those kind of things are decided by corporate old chaps. Things probably go like:

Project Manager: “So, this is the stage on the Acrtic sea. Blah blah blah.”
Corp Chap: “Wait! Can you guys put(!) less clothes on her?”
PM: “Wait! She is in the Arctic! She would be frozen wearing a bikini.”
CC: “Who cares? They won’t even notice! They are just wankers. If we could put her without clothes, they would thank us!”

Programmer: (after PM explaining the meeting): “But she is in the bloody Arctic!! I won’t code this… this is against my principles, mate.”
PM: “Please, they have the money. We cannot argue.”
Programmer: =(

This is the only explanation I can find…

Now, let me say something: I never really liked Tomb Rider, specially because of the controls. I always thought they were awkward in some way. Plus, Lara Croft being a hot pixeled woman was fun until I was 13 and found a crack to take her clothes off – which was worse in terms of quality than some fan art where she was nude (shame on me!). After these episodes I was more like: “No way she can run or do those things with such b00bage without feeling really uncomfortable! And how can she carry TWO BLOODY Desert Eagles and fire them!! That is too much even for a game. Plus, she kills tigers. I like tigers. =(“

Left by ricardo on February 5th, 2009

LMAO! Ricardo, you crack me UP! I love your Project Manager/corporate chap dialogue

Left by The Game Dame on February 5th, 2009

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Review: Tomb Raider Underworld

4 Responses to “ Review: Tomb Raider Underworld ”

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