Tomb Raider: Underworld

TR: Underworld is the final part of reboot trilogy of TR series after very average TR: Chronicles and TR: Angel of Darkness. It has taken the best parts of 2 previous parts, and added its own great stuff, including great and epic story, various and great looking locations (Thailand, Croft Manor and South America are my favourite ones), nice action/puzzle balance in gameplay. Even despite to story of TR: Underworld is exciting and interesting by itself, there are 2 add-ons (exclusively for X-Box) that enrich it, explain origin of some characters and fully complete the storyline (not only of TR: Underworld but for the whole trilogy). Summary: the whole trilogy (TR: Legend, TR: Anniversary, TR: Underworld) is very fine and entertaining, but this one the best part in trilogy, and one of the best (if not the greatest) among all TR games. Absolutely recommended.

Yep. This is the sawn song for the series. The follow ups TR(2013), ROTTR and SOTTR are good action adventure games starring Lara Croft, but they are absolutely not Tomb Raider games. I've played and completed every game in the series. None of them more than twice, except for Underworld, which I have beaten 7 times. Here you have the near-perfect balance of traversal, puzzle solving and action pulled from the original trilogy but with much smoother handling and a graphical facelift. The story, as usual, is not the star of the show here. It gets the job done and makes you hate all the right characters just enough to where you can't wait to ruin their day. But there is one aspect, brought forward from the originals, that really makes Underworld shine. You don't have a companion along for the ride, nor is there any annoying radio chatter blathering in your ear. Tomb Raider is at it's absolute best when it's just you (the player) and Lara embarking on the adventure together. It feels like you are working together as you enter an area and Lara talks about what she sees and pieces things together. It makes for a much more personal game experience and it's what initially made me fall in love with series with TR 1 on the OG Playstation. It's something that was more likely necessary due to time/budget/hardware limitations for the original trilogy (PSX) or perhaps because we hadn't yet reached the point where games felt the need to compete with Hollywood, but it's a feature a lot of today's games would benefit from. Modern games delight in constantly having a voice in the player's ear, leading them around like a child and in many cases, treating them like one as well with the aforementioned 'voice' frequently berating, talking down to or just flat out insulting the player. No thank you. Just let me and Lara go spelunking in peace. P.S. - And don't even get me started on the 'open world' crap. 5 Stars.

I believe this is my 4th time getting this game. I remember getting a retail copy as a gift from my dad and I also bought the Steam version and a copy of "Tomb Raider Ultimate Edition" many years ago. And now I got the GOG version as well,which I finished earlier today. I gotta say,despite some technical issues and bugs (for the love of god,turn on V-Sync and Triple Buffering if you don't want your game's physics to break), I still really love this game. It's my favourite in the Legend trilogy and in my opinion,it did the whole "edgy,serious and dark" story way better than the Reboot. Hopefully one day,we'll get more of this style of Tomb Raider again someday,instead of the Uncharted rip-off one. If not,then I hope that at least the Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light/Temple of Osiris spin-offs will get GOG releases.

For me this is the weakest entry in the Crystal Dynamics trilogy. Everything about it reeks of bad deadline crunch. Lara has more moves, but the animations no longer flow together as neatly as they did, and movement feels ponderous. The maps all have some finishing issues, especially the back half of the game, and you'll want to manually save now and then because autosave can lock you into unwinnable states. Also artifact pickups are excessive. On the order of 20~30 per map in random places, as opposed to <10 carefully placed in challenging spots, and most of them are in jars, which must be shot open with no target assist or kicked open with an incredibly clunky 'jar kicking' animation. Artifacts don't stay picked up if you restart the level because autosave broke your game either. On the bright side, visual design is at series peak. Maps are gorgeous. Lara's outfits are great. New motorcycle is great. In-game hints finally show XBox buttons when you play with a controller. The combat overhaul is mostly good, but blatantly unfinished. Overall the game is still decent enough to maintain interest and bring the story home, but its rough edges are trying.