Following in Max’s ever capable footsteps, I’m here this morning to bring you some more initial thoughts, only this time it’s on a demo, and not some silly RPG (haha, sorry, had to).

As you well know by now, the Tomb Raider: Underworld demo hit Xbox Live yesterday (even though it’s been on the PC for a while now), and after waiting for…ev…er… for it to download (1.3 gigs!) I finally got to take Lara out for a stroll.

Of course, the first thing I noticed was the improved character model. Okay, I may have been looking for it first, but when I wasn’t oogling, I did notice that Lara is even more realistic these days following the trend that began back with Legend, and her movements are very fluid on the screen. If you run toward a wall or rock or any other large surface, Lara will automatically put her hands up to protect herself, rather than constantly running in place as though the ground beneath such areas was magically turned into a tiny treadmill. She’s also got some new tricks for scaling walls, such as using rock-wall-like patterns of, well, rocks to overcome the distance between ledges, being able to stand on the top of some ledges and poles, and she even has a Hyabusa-inspired ninja jump, allowing you to bounce off walls in order to reach higher ledges. The last one takes a bit of practice, and your timing may be off at first, but I’m sure with practice - and a more lengthy tutorial (the level in the demo is not the game’s first stage, apparently) - I’m sure we’ll all be bouncing like stealthy assassins in no time.

The combat looks to combine some of the best parts of Legend and Anniversary. When you build up enough of an adrenaline meter (for Lara this time, not her enemy) by shooting enough, you’re allowed to do a slow-motion attack, which looks like the jumps from Legend, but it also brings up a reticle similar to those in Anniversary. However, where the sights in that game connected on their own, in Underworld, you have to slide the right thumbstick to match up two circles before you execute the killing headshot. My first try was awful, and the tiger I was aiming for ended up with a nice snack, but the second time around, I nailed the SOB, and showed Lara my love by presenting her with a new tiger-skin rug for her living room. I hope she likes it =)

One last cool aspect of the combat can be seen in the concept art above - Lara’s pointing her dual pistols at two different enemies! In the past, this was impossible, and you were left to slug one opponent to death while dancing away from the other. Now, you can take on multiple baddies and creatures at the same time. This comes in especially handy when a hallway-full of bats comes swooping at you, and just pulling the trigger drops several of them at the same time.

The demo was not without its flaws, though. The motions, for having all those sexy fluid animations, remain a bit clunky at times when just running around. Also, the camera is again limited in its scope, and it was a bit difficult for me to locate the first long jump, which meant I ended up swimming a bit more than I should have. There are still some kinks, but this is a demo after all, and I’m willing to give it some time to settle in and prepare myself for the full game, releasing November 18.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 at 6:37 am and is filed under Game Chat, Gaming News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.