Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

Rating:
Summary: Great Game
Review: I didn't buy the first four Tomb Raider games, so I thought I would try this one, and I was very pleased. I loved it even though this's just my first day playing the game.
The graphics are cool, even though my computer wasn't fast enough to have a smoother gameplay. The speech and music were quite good; there was just this glitch that people were talking too fast like you'd hear when you fastforwarded a video or something, but I suppose it was another requirement my computer couldn't acheive.

The controls are quite complicated at first, but when you are familar with it it's okay.

Rating:
Summary: New Tomb Raider Gets 4 Stars
Review: Ah, after such a long wait, Lara's newest adventure in Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, doesn't disappoint.

The newest game in the Tomb Raider series follows up what's happened in The Last Revelation (for those of you who aren't "raiders" The Last Revelation was one of the previous Tomb Raider games that left us hanging).
We'll begin with the story. It is very interesting in a particular sort of way... the kind of story that will either draw you in or shove you roughly away. I found it quite interesting... but difficult to follow at times. I'll let you find out the rest of it (the story and its details) yourself. I wouldn't want to spoil it for you.
Now, even if the story doesn't grab you, the game itself may. I have to say first, before I go into the wonderful gaming experience, that this game (PC version)- like many others- is not without it's fair share of errors, freezes, and ridiculously funny glitches. Some people have had horrible problems with them, other have had none... To avoid errors with this game, make sure your system meets the system requirements, and that all your drivers are up to date, etc. Freezing screens come and go during play, making the player save so often it pulls you out of the game. It's also, as I said before, not without some glitches. These, at times are hysterical; i.e.: jumping to a ledge (or onto something) and falling into space/nothingness, pressing action to pick up an item or activate a switch and walking off through the walls, into nothing, and sometimes ahead a level or two. One final note on problems: Beware of the slowdowns; while you can manage with them it diminishes the game and lowers replay value.
Now, back to the wonderful gaming experience- and yes it really (and might I stress "really") is. It manages to please true Lara fans ("raiders") as well as the general public. It has grand levels with beautiful detail that fits in well with the sound and story. The levels have advanced, not necessarily become more complex, but they have changed. It should please everyone with some interest in Tomb Raider; levels like "The Louvre Galleries" are newer- with lasers and at one point (tear) gas. Other new things; like a stealth mode, which allows Lara to pass by enemies (now with new and improved AI) undetected (provided she doesn't cross their line of sight). There are things like strength upgrades (for example, you have to move a block to gain more strength before you can open a door and continue) and did I mention Kurtis? No? I didn't think so. Kurtis is the new playable character. At one point you will have to complete a level or two, playing as Kurtis (he is not an option). Now don't worry, you only get him for two levels and one boss that comes a little later. As far as traditional things go, there are levels like "The Hall of Seasons" that take us back to traditional raiding. Lara keeps her lovely British voice (from The Last Revelation and Chronicles), as well as her dry wit and wonderfully fine tuned attitude. The characters are so much more detailed and have facial expressions that express emotions clearly (to a certain extent, nothing's perfect). You have the ability to interact and speak with improved scenery and other characters.
The music is the last thing I would like to rant about, for it is truly magnificent, wonderful, orchestrated music that fits in perfectly with the game and its themes.
Overall, I really enjoyed the latest Tomb Raider game, even with all of its technical problems (why I gave it 4 stars and not 5). All of its many elements fall into place ever so neatly; creating a fun filled gaming experience.

Rating:
Summary: One would think.........
Review: Hmmmm, as a veteran of Tomb raider and an someone who plays most of the 1st person shooters that appear I was quite disappointed in the game controls. The story is great, the graphics are much better then previous Tomb Raider releases but the controls ruined the game for me. One would think with all the 1st person shooters with very precise and smooth controls Tomb Raider would have them too, not so. It is very frustrating to try and play a very well done story only to continually die for lack of the ability to accurately control Lara's movement. I hope Edios learns from this experience.

Rating:
Summary: Rent it.
Review: Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed this game. But I wouldn't want to own it. I rented it from Hollywood Video, which gives 5days on all rentals, and had it done before it had to go back. I actually liked the change in control, though it was occasionally a pain to get Lara to climb crates or walls. The story was good enough to keep me interested; though there wasn't the same sense of raiding tombs, there was the same meticulous planning to get through a level in one piece.

But I finished it in less than five days, and have no desire to ever play it again. Unless you happen to be a hard-core Lara collector, it's not really worth owning.

Rating:
Summary: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Review: I have played some frustrating games, but this one takes the prize. I think it all began way back when Eidos promised this game in November 2002 and kept pushing back its release until June 2003. But the question is, what the heck were they doing all that time? It sure doesn't look like they worked out all the bugs or did enough testing. Here's my rundown:

The Good:
New look for Lara with new outfits
Additional character Kurtis (though he is slow moving and feels heavy on the controls)

Better environments in which to play. No more 1980's technology in the design.
Challenging play requiring actual thought.
Lara's helpful commentary during the game.
Choice-making in dialog segments that determine outcome of gameplay.

The Bad:
See-through enemies - didn't someone in design notice this?
Unresponsive/sluggish controls - I can't tell you how many times I yelled "take out your gun!" while I am pushing the gun key and the character just stands there like a dope. Otherwise, there would be a 1/2 second delay before the action was carried out. This is especially apparent during confrontation with enemies - just the time when you need the controls to be speedy.
There are times when your character needs to book it fast and he/she just sort of saunters a few steps before leisurely meandering into a light jog. Run!!!!!
Bugs- in which the game would switch into a movie when I was in the middle of a level or it would skip a movie altogether and I wondered what the heck happened???

The Ugly:
Me, playing this game and banging my keyboard or screaming like a nut at the characters.

Rating:
Summary: Better writers, worse programmers
Review: It seems clear that being involved in the movie business has gotten Lara's creators access to much better writers and actors than they ever had before. AOD has some of the most believable dialogue I've ever heard in a TR game (remember TR 1's bad guy yelling, "I'll heal and hide you to a barn door yet!"?). The story is likewise well-crafted, exciting and logical. Marvelous movie-quality acting, music, and graphics. Thanks, guys.

On the other hand, the controls have gotten really buggy and jumpy. Sure, Lara can now sneak and look around corners -- but she has great difficulty just standing still. Try to turn around fast and you're likely to find yourself frozen to the spot. The endless pistols are gone; instead we have six different variations on basically the same gun. And all the controls are mapped to different keys than before. They're not really making her more versatile, just more ... confusing.

Rating:
Summary: Big Disappointment
Review: Well, what more can I say? I glanced at a few of the recent reviews just now before writing my own -- I won't add much, but wholeheartedly echo the feeling already expressed.
I haven't owned all the Tomb Raider games - just II & III before Angel of Darkness. The others were fun to play. This recent incarnation of Lara Croft is just plain bad! What a waste of money.
In its defense, the graphics are beautiful for the most part. Except when they don't render due to bugs in the game or whatever. The latest drivers for my ATI 8500 All-in-Wonder have helped a little, but there are still plenty of areas where Lara disappears, or charaters heads are gone, or walls blank out or something similar.
The worst part of the game has to be the antiquated controls. Why not something like most first-person-shooter games have adopted, using the mouse to control Lara? It's almost painful trying to move Lara around the screen! What about Max Payne's controls? Or Return to Castle Wolfenstein? Those games play beautifully.
EIDOS tried to do too much with this - an overhaul of the entire character of Lara Croft, an overhaul of how the game is played (when do I even get to fire a gun?) - without changing the control of the character. It used to be run or walk, jump, grab, climb, shoot. Now its's.... nothing! Seriously, I have no desire to play this game anymore. I play UT instead.
I don't recommend buying Angel of Darkness.

Rating:
Summary: STOP. We waited 8 months for THIS ?
Review: I was so looking forward to Tomb Raider: AOD coming out in November 15th 2002. Then it got delayed, then delayed again, and again, and again, and again. When it finally came out (8 MONTHS LATER) I was really excited. I put the game in my PS2. And was really shocked at how bad this game was. I was expecting something incredible. But no. Lara moves like a robot, it is very difficult to control her, loads of bugs and its boring. No fun. I am a huge Tomb Raider fan and have played them all. But I think this one might be making a trip back to the shop for a refund. However, the graphics are incredible (best i've seen in any game), lara looks amazing and the music is great. But overall I am very dissapointed. EIDOS, get it right next time.

Rating:
Summary: I have to agree, This game is a waste of money,
Review: Even with a good PC with game is a waste of money, I bought the games and was so disapointed about the utter lack of quaility that I ended up taking the game back the second day I had it. The game is very unstable and Edios blames that on not haveing a fully DX9 complient system. For example: Lara falls though floors, sometimes get stuck while crawling, general graphic errors, the game just crashing with a "general game fault error". At one point in the game you have to kill an assasin at the end of a hallway and the game glitched and I couldn't kill the guy and he couldn't kill me, I had just saved the game at that point and ended up haveing to go back 2 hour and replay that section of the game. When I returned the game one costomer said they got it for the XBox and ended up returning it because it locked up their Xbox. Although Their is a lot of cool thing that the game had going for it, If Edios had just taken a little more time in development, ( And fixed the autoaim controls, I think that the most frustrating aspect of the game. ) It would be a great game. A lot of the games graphics are very cool. I Really liked the "Sancuary of Flame" and "Rath of the Beast" areas. The game just suffers from being released before it was ready.

Rating:
Summary: Who cares what other people think, This is the best game!!
Review: The only reason people dont like this game (PC) is because they dont have a good computer, I only had one problem, no big deal. Some one wrote a review that said it was too easy, NO WAY, I have been playing since 1996, and this one was the best because you have to think!! Just because its not perfect dosent mean its a bad game. its the best one in years, I injoy playing it!! if you have a problem with PC get it on playstation. This game has great graphics and the game play is great! So if your planning on buying this game make sure have a good system- (your PC), if not get it on playstation. And if your a big tomb raider fan dont read the reviews with one star, because they dont know what there talkng about!!!