Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness is the 6th, and last game of the original TR series. Here, Lara was framed for the death of her mentor, and tries to clear her name as well as investigate his last mystery. The graphics are pretty great, a major update from the previous 5, looking more like the Legend trilogy but not as good. It's also the only one to have cloud saving feature. Despite the poor reviews, it is strangely the only classic TR game I'm interested in because of the more urban-setting, like some cool parts of TR: Legend. The modern setting combined with mystical themes provides a really great atmosphere, and reminds me of Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines. There is technically only 1 tomb in the whole game, its the most difficult and my least favorite part of the game. However, it doesn't mean the other levels are linear, there are still puzzle-platforming elements, but in urban settings rather than ancient locations. I also really like how there are manual saving and quicksave features, something even the newer games lack. You don't have to redo many parts of a sequence if you fail. There are little RPG elements, like how early in the game there are multiple ways to do a level, dialogue choices, and in some places Lara needs to "upgrade" her strength to pass certain objectives. However, it can be kinda poorly-implemented and feels unclear. You can also play as Lara's ally Kurtis Trent in some levels, but its only like less than 10% of the game. The only bad thing from this game for me is the controls. Clunky tank controls makes Lara feel very slow. You cannot turn the camera around, and sometimes its hard to control your movement, especially jumps. But the platforming is quite forgiving, and the enemies are kinda slow, too. So it balances out. In short, AoD is a pretty decent Tomb Raider game with lovely atmosphere but poor controls. It's still playable, though, and once you get used to it it's not that bad. So don't worry and get this game.

Lacking in every aspect. Just sad.

bad controls kill the game, its like controlling Lara's "doppelganger" who never went tomb radiing, works in an office and does no exercise beyond eating maltesers. Gave up after using the level skip a few times. Shame because there is a story there, its obvious they fully budgeted the storyboards but gave up finishing the game itself. Read the book instead.

It's not often that I use the term "unplayable" to describe a game, but when both the game and the settings menu crash on launch without fail, I think it's safe to use that term here. I've now spent the past three hours scouring forums and wikis and only come up with solutions that I can't implement due to the settings menu failing to launch 100% of the time. I was under the impression that GOG games were supposed to work out of the box, but I guess I overestimated their qualiy control if they let something that doesn't even launch on modern systems get on their storefront.

So many bugs. But cool