I don't think the Tomb Raider games have ever been good. Like, ever.
They've never looked like the sort of quality game that I could embrace
and point to as something appealing. Which is funny, because Naughty
Dog basically took the Tomb Raider theme, made a gender change, and put
out 2 really great games. That's kinda sad when you think about, that
it had to take some pretenders to the throne to actually make good
games.
Lara's a sex symbol in gaming, that's quite obvious. But
that fact alone has never ever been able to get me to care about the
games. Like, I'm as much of a red-blooded heterosexual male as the next
gamer, but uh... if I want porn, I can find porn. It's all over the
internet. Very easy to find. Even some super kinky stuff. I don't need
it in my video games. And that whole idea of trying to sell the games
based on Lara's massive boobs, that always turned me off, ironically.
It just seemed very shallow and insulting and kinda desperate.
Now, I've actually only played one Tomb Raider game, and it was the
last one, Underworld. Is it fair to judge an entire franchise on one
game? If you think about it, the latest game in a series is supposed to
have all the improvements and refinements and perfected elements of
each previous game, right? So if Underworld wasn't gonna do it, I doubt
my opinion would have improved by playing the older ones.
And uh, I hated Underworld. It really stunk to high heaven. I am really
really glad I didn't play any TR games in the days of yore, judging by
what I got in Underworld. First of all, the platforming is not that
great. It felt pretty damn stiff and clunky. On its face, it's probably
the strongest element of Underworld, but compared to contemporaries
like Prince of Persia or Assassin's Creed, and it really fails. It's
just not good enough anymore. Of course, there are people out there who
actually dislike the sort of platforming in PoP/AC, so it's all
personal preference. But I myself couldn't get onboard with it.
Now, the combat. That's a really strong factor for me in games. The
combat in Underworld is complete shit, and far far worse qualitatively
then the platforming. First off, manual aim seems almost nonexistent.
The level of fidelity isn't there, you absolutely aren't capable of
aiming at longer distances at anyone. Either it's too inaccurate or your
bullets just seem to phase out of existence past 15 feet. 15 feet! How
the hell can a developer only provide gunplay within 15 feet?
So manual aiming is terrible. I guess they want you to use their
lock-on aiming. But again, this only seems to lock-on within 15 feet.
You can't fire at enemies at medium ranges. I have no idea why. And the
whole idea of lock-on aiming is repugnant to me. I don't need to have
the game aim for me. I didn't need it in Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake,
Unreal, Rainbow Six, Battlefield, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, Crysis,
Gears of War, Mass Effect, Uncharted, etc... I basically haven't
needed or wanted it in about 17 years. Yet that seems to be how they
want you to aim in Underworld. I hated that, it felt lazy and out of
touch with reality.
And the dual pistols contain infinite
ammo. Why would pistols have infinite ammo? How does that make any
sense? Where would Lara fit infinite ammo into her clothes? I hated it
when Ubisoft gave infinite pistol ammo in Rainbow Six Vegas and SC
Conviction and apparently they learned it from the Tomb Raider games.
Also, the levels had a lot of peculiarities that really felt
unpolished. Near the beginning of the game, Lara is onboard her fancy
expensive yacht and is about to go diving for some treasure. Well, you
can't actually explore this yacht, because there are invisible walls
everywhere. There's some stairs leading up to the controls of the
yacht, but you run into an invisible wall right at the stairs. Why
would you do that? What the hell is the point of having all these
boundaries on this boat? I dunno, but it was lame.
So yea, all
in all, Underworld seemed like a terrible game. I did not finish it.
The combat felt awful and the platforming was merely clumsy. Not a good
experience, or even a mediocre experience.
