Tomb Raider Underworld is usually regarded as the weakest entry in this trilogy of the era, and while I do like it a smidge more than Anniversary, it's not really hard to see how and why that's the case.
I mentioned it back in my Anniversary review, but Underworld's development was rather messy. At first, I thought it was just because the parallel development of the two games, resulting in a shortstaff count for Underworld, was the main reason, but after actually reading the archived Gamasutra interview on creative director and co-writer Eric Lindstrom I linked then, there's more to it than just that. Basically, what they thought could be a simple engine reconfiguration due to shared tech, turned out to be a full process of refactoring and going from scratch just to have things work well and how involved and challenging working on a definite (and at the time) next-gen console would become. The sinking ship at the end of the Mediterranean Sea level, a marvelous action setpiece, was detailed by environmental artist Simon Craghead on being a big technical trouble to solve, remarking how it barely managed to make it into the final product. Alongside this, they also had to cut out time for the concept and prototypes short, as well as skip out on pre-production to head straight into it proper. The most egregious blows to the development, however, were the parting of three key figures during this process: One of the art directors, Murphy Michaels, left at some point due to moving towards film departments, lead designer Harley Baldwin White-Wiedow had to bow out in order to have her baby, and lead level designer Kyle Mannerberg sadly passed away during this process as well, also placed as remembrance in the game's final credits. The game initially sold 1.5 million copies, which to Eidos was a disappointment for their expected results, which prompted layoffs of about 30 people, Eric included, to occur. Not that long after, though, in February 2009, it then reportedly sold about 2.6 million, following that Eidos CEO Ian Livingstone stated it landed well within their target range. Reason I say this is that, over at the Tomb Raider Forums on Mid-January 2009, supposedly Eric, under a different alias due to being one of those laid off, started up a Q&A thread and after getting some questions regarding the game he went on to mention how getting all this done in about 3 years was "a damn miracle", and that part of the issue was overambition, and laments how he should've and could've done a better job at scaling these sorts of things to make the cycle smoother. Take this with a grain of salt though, I've yet to find much to confirm if this was actually him outside the admins giving the thumbs up.
Due to all that went on during the creation of TRU, you can feel the rough, rather unpolished experience throughout, but if you ask me, the encapsulation of all this can be pinpointed at the midpoint, Southern Mexico, though the clips shown are from Coastal Thailand since it was the earliest to show off what I'm about to say. There's been some notable improvements and changes made to the formula, such as the bike here now being something you used to drive through the land, doing jumps off ramps and even for puzzles here and there. QTEs are no longer a thing, now if a do-or-die situation happens you must pull off a maneuver quickly in order to survive. Lara's now able to do wall jumps, walk along narrow ledges and even poles for more traversal conundrums and obstacle courses, in fact her ground control feels more tight than ever with more flowing turns and the slide jumps finally carrying that momentum again instead of an awkward stop like before. You can only bring one other weapon at a time like in Legend, but this time you're at least able to choose between an SMG, shotgun, rifle, tranquilizer, or a spear gun, as well as having a stock of grenades. Human enemies are significantly downplayed this time, so now animals and Thrall-like creatures are the center of attention for combat encounters. Speaking of downplay, Lara's companions don't chatter often during gameplay this time, instead she herself does all the reciting of appropriate myths and legends herself when needed. Finally, environmental details are more poignant than usual, being a lot more open and 'lived in' compared to TRL and TRA's more linear and corridor-like approaches, along with allowing more dynamic alterations like with the grapple now being used to do more than quick jumps and wall runs, and more moving parts and mechanisms being shown off at a time.
When you keep playing this level however, cracks begin to show themselves. Secrets are horrifically downscaled here, where for every one treasure you snag from doing a fun diversion off the beaten path, you find three more from a simple kick on jars and vases, or literally being out in the open altogether, and this time there's only six relics to collect as well. The reward this time being just concept art, X360 achievements, and for relics, increasing your max health by a small percentage, is pretty unfortunate, making this the first time I purposefully skimped out this aspect instead of accidentally missing them such as the one in TR1's Tomb Of Tihocan. Instead of the gameplay animation being custom made, this time they were mocapped with the two stunt actresses being Olympic gymnast Heidi Moneymaker, and stuntwoman Helena Barrett. While a technical achievement, due to the aforementioned troubling production, this meant that the polish and look of these animations at play are... scuffed, to say the least. Whether it's Lara acting like a spider when rock climbing with the way she unnaturally contorts and stretches, deciding to play leap frog when doing jump grabs, as well as overlap of objects leading into issues such as whatever the hell happened here, or even just the game itself being so fickle as to when and how you can be able to grab something and being so damn random as to if or how much fall damage you'll receive if needed, this has been the rockiest and ill-feeling play-by-play in a platformer I've gone through in a while. On that note, the camera here is dreadful, easily the worst of the trilogy, as well as the worst I've experienced in this marathon thus far. In each level, it has either gotten stuck on something, refused to showcase where I need to jump or shimmy over in order to progress, freaked out against a corner, or some combination of those and then some, and while sure it's much easier to move the stick (or mouse) along to reorient yourself, it still doesn't make doing tight tasks, especially ones where you're on a set timer, any easier. Once again, I doubt this is a PC port issue, TRU's not quite as founded as TRA's but it's much better than TRL's since I didn't need to do much tinkering to get it to run well, and above all else this is a more common issue on every platform. Using TRAWindowed, which I've mentioned and linked the past two times, caused more issues if anything, so I can't recommend it here.
By far the worst alteration however, is the combat. Some people have discussed ire towards poor visual tells and cues, but truthfully it only really gets bad during the second half of this level, and during the final battle, rest of it is fine-good like before. Combat, however, is a slog from the first actual level. Your dodge rolls and jumps are uncomfortably gimped compared to last outings, meaning that you're likely to get hit from something/someone either before or after making the move. Enemies like in TRA are very aggressive, but this time the chances of getting stunlocked are more likely, which makes it frustrating when you have multiple bogeys to deal with at a time. Because you only have one other weapon, that means if that weapon runs out of ammo, it's gone for good and you have to rely on the pistols. They also just throw so many at you, each time I thought I was finally done like three more suddenly appear just to waste my time. The best way to mitigate the time you're spending on them, along with making this a case where I recommend playing on Easy - or, via the options, configuring the selections if you already set one at the beginning - is to use this game's new Adrenaline Moments. By getting a certain amount of hits in, a bar will fill up and upon activation via the right stick, will activate slow-mo, and during this period your bullets deal extra damage, as well as have a chance to stun enemies too, and the bar still fills up from each hit as well. Eric has gone over this at one point, elaborating that it'd be another tool within the kit and not the centered, go-to option other games were utilizing it as, and to that I retort by saying the little I've played of Max Payne had heavier priority on mechanical finesse from the dodges and gunplay you participate in, than my entire playtime here where it was practically the only means to end a fight as quickly as possible if I didn't have a shotgun with me. There's also this headshot move you can do, but since it requires being up close and pressing the X button with the bar full, I stopped using it the moment it was mentioned in the tutorial. All this within a level that felt structurally similar to St. Francis' Folly, and it turned into one of, if not the most frustrating experience I've faced in this marathon yet.
By now, you probably read all that, double-checked the score I gave it, and went "aw hell, here comes someone saying they liked something because of the IDEAS and AESTHETICS behind it". While honestly part of that is a motivator, I do genuinely believe the good stuff TRU was able to showcase regardless are pretty damn satisfying. Interactions and platforming obstacles can be clunky as hell sure, but the mechanical, playground-like nature these areas take you through are some of the best on offer within the trilogy, asking you to utilize and problem solve your way out of tight corners or to unlock a piece of the warped puzzle to get you to move on. It also does a great deal in having you imagine and work out within your head how these places came to function, whether it's the nooks of the freezing, trap-ridden halls within Jan Mayen Island as you shimmy and wall jump across the broken floors and hammer swings, the tropical and rotted architecture of Coastal Thailand giving you many places to swing and grapple across, or hell even the caverns of Croft Manor greeting you with stained glasses and shadow imagery, and the underground ruins found underneath a sheet of Arctic Sea as it greets you to the blue eitr-filled confinement of Helheim, in spite of their jarring brevity, were still captivating to witness nevertheless. While I haven't captured a ton of examples, more often was I able to step back and just, soak in the presentation, seeing all the different tones and lighting frames sell me on the atmosphere. TRL consistently has more enjoyable and engaging levels, TRA has a few pieces and segments that feel immense and powerful, but bar for bar, TRU was the closest this era has gotten to truly selling you these places you're going through felt real and massive in scope, much like how the first game from 1996 was able to do so.
But, to reiterate, part of why I still ended up liking this are because of what was being presented. I like the idea of the thread being the monomyth philosophy with the focal point being on the Norse, as Toby Gard and Eric have discussed, and thankfully this is one of the few things within the story that felt fleshed out considering how often you end up going through different cultures in their "underworlds". I like the idea that Natla and Amanda, the two villains from before, represent different aspects of the Croft Family's past, and how one bitterly moves on and the other stubbornly refuses to let the past die, even if they only dwell on this during the second half. The idea of Lara having a doppelganger that reflects the darker aspirations she has within her is sick, but unfortunately this never comes into fruition. I like the vibes of the grit and somber storytelling even outside the actual presentation within the gameplay, it focuses on the fundamentals of how serious things have become without ultimately drowning in self-sorrow BS like TR2013 didfrom what I can remember. The way Lara is characterized here is some of the best it's ever been, with multiple points being how she pushes herself forward despite the harm that has happened, symbolically letting go a piece of her and her family's history by practically giving up and literally shooting down what they were trying to achieve. It's seriously compelling in some regard, even if the potential never quite reaches its peak.
So yea, Underworld? A bit of a mess! Yet, it's a mess that I completely dig and find fondness for regardless. It's a shame this didn't get the time it needed to clean up and flesh out all its point to maximal effect, but it is what it is.
LAST TIME: TOMB RAIDER LEGEND
ADD-ONS: BENEATH THE ASHES / LARA'S SHADOW
NEXT TIME: LARA CROFT GO
I mentioned it back in my Anniversary review, but Underworld's development was rather messy. At first, I thought it was just because the parallel development of the two games, resulting in a shortstaff count for Underworld, was the main reason, but after actually reading the archived Gamasutra interview on creative director and co-writer Eric Lindstrom I linked then, there's more to it than just that. Basically, what they thought could be a simple engine reconfiguration due to shared tech, turned out to be a full process of refactoring and going from scratch just to have things work well and how involved and challenging working on a definite (and at the time) next-gen console would become. The sinking ship at the end of the Mediterranean Sea level, a marvelous action setpiece, was detailed by environmental artist Simon Craghead on being a big technical trouble to solve, remarking how it barely managed to make it into the final product. Alongside this, they also had to cut out time for the concept and prototypes short, as well as skip out on pre-production to head straight into it proper. The most egregious blows to the development, however, were the parting of three key figures during this process: One of the art directors, Murphy Michaels, left at some point due to moving towards film departments, lead designer Harley Baldwin White-Wiedow had to bow out in order to have her baby, and lead level designer Kyle Mannerberg sadly passed away during this process as well, also placed as remembrance in the game's final credits. The game initially sold 1.5 million copies, which to Eidos was a disappointment for their expected results, which prompted layoffs of about 30 people, Eric included, to occur. Not that long after, though, in February 2009, it then reportedly sold about 2.6 million, following that Eidos CEO Ian Livingstone stated it landed well within their target range. Reason I say this is that, over at the Tomb Raider Forums on Mid-January 2009, supposedly Eric, under a different alias due to being one of those laid off, started up a Q&A thread and after getting some questions regarding the game he went on to mention how getting all this done in about 3 years was "a damn miracle", and that part of the issue was overambition, and laments how he should've and could've done a better job at scaling these sorts of things to make the cycle smoother. Take this with a grain of salt though, I've yet to find much to confirm if this was actually him outside the admins giving the thumbs up.
Due to all that went on during the creation of TRU, you can feel the rough, rather unpolished experience throughout, but if you ask me, the encapsulation of all this can be pinpointed at the midpoint, Southern Mexico, though the clips shown are from Coastal Thailand since it was the earliest to show off what I'm about to say. There's been some notable improvements and changes made to the formula, such as the bike here now being something you used to drive through the land, doing jumps off ramps and even for puzzles here and there. QTEs are no longer a thing, now if a do-or-die situation happens you must pull off a maneuver quickly in order to survive. Lara's now able to do wall jumps, walk along narrow ledges and even poles for more traversal conundrums and obstacle courses, in fact her ground control feels more tight than ever with more flowing turns and the slide jumps finally carrying that momentum again instead of an awkward stop like before. You can only bring one other weapon at a time like in Legend, but this time you're at least able to choose between an SMG, shotgun, rifle, tranquilizer, or a spear gun, as well as having a stock of grenades. Human enemies are significantly downplayed this time, so now animals and Thrall-like creatures are the center of attention for combat encounters. Speaking of downplay, Lara's companions don't chatter often during gameplay this time, instead she herself does all the reciting of appropriate myths and legends herself when needed. Finally, environmental details are more poignant than usual, being a lot more open and 'lived in' compared to TRL and TRA's more linear and corridor-like approaches, along with allowing more dynamic alterations like with the grapple now being used to do more than quick jumps and wall runs, and more moving parts and mechanisms being shown off at a time.
When you keep playing this level however, cracks begin to show themselves. Secrets are horrifically downscaled here, where for every one treasure you snag from doing a fun diversion off the beaten path, you find three more from a simple kick on jars and vases, or literally being out in the open altogether, and this time there's only six relics to collect as well. The reward this time being just concept art, X360 achievements, and for relics, increasing your max health by a small percentage, is pretty unfortunate, making this the first time I purposefully skimped out this aspect instead of accidentally missing them such as the one in TR1's Tomb Of Tihocan. Instead of the gameplay animation being custom made, this time they were mocapped with the two stunt actresses being Olympic gymnast Heidi Moneymaker, and stuntwoman Helena Barrett. While a technical achievement, due to the aforementioned troubling production, this meant that the polish and look of these animations at play are... scuffed, to say the least. Whether it's Lara acting like a spider when rock climbing with the way she unnaturally contorts and stretches, deciding to play leap frog when doing jump grabs, as well as overlap of objects leading into issues such as whatever the hell happened here, or even just the game itself being so fickle as to when and how you can be able to grab something and being so damn random as to if or how much fall damage you'll receive if needed, this has been the rockiest and ill-feeling play-by-play in a platformer I've gone through in a while. On that note, the camera here is dreadful, easily the worst of the trilogy, as well as the worst I've experienced in this marathon thus far. In each level, it has either gotten stuck on something, refused to showcase where I need to jump or shimmy over in order to progress, freaked out against a corner, or some combination of those and then some, and while sure it's much easier to move the stick (or mouse) along to reorient yourself, it still doesn't make doing tight tasks, especially ones where you're on a set timer, any easier. Once again, I doubt this is a PC port issue, TRU's not quite as founded as TRA's but it's much better than TRL's since I didn't need to do much tinkering to get it to run well, and above all else this is a more common issue on every platform. Using TRAWindowed, which I've mentioned and linked the past two times, caused more issues if anything, so I can't recommend it here.
By far the worst alteration however, is the combat. Some people have discussed ire towards poor visual tells and cues, but truthfully it only really gets bad during the second half of this level, and during the final battle, rest of it is fine-good like before. Combat, however, is a slog from the first actual level. Your dodge rolls and jumps are uncomfortably gimped compared to last outings, meaning that you're likely to get hit from something/someone either before or after making the move. Enemies like in TRA are very aggressive, but this time the chances of getting stunlocked are more likely, which makes it frustrating when you have multiple bogeys to deal with at a time. Because you only have one other weapon, that means if that weapon runs out of ammo, it's gone for good and you have to rely on the pistols. They also just throw so many at you, each time I thought I was finally done like three more suddenly appear just to waste my time. The best way to mitigate the time you're spending on them, along with making this a case where I recommend playing on Easy - or, via the options, configuring the selections if you already set one at the beginning - is to use this game's new Adrenaline Moments. By getting a certain amount of hits in, a bar will fill up and upon activation via the right stick, will activate slow-mo, and during this period your bullets deal extra damage, as well as have a chance to stun enemies too, and the bar still fills up from each hit as well. Eric has gone over this at one point, elaborating that it'd be another tool within the kit and not the centered, go-to option other games were utilizing it as, and to that I retort by saying the little I've played of Max Payne had heavier priority on mechanical finesse from the dodges and gunplay you participate in, than my entire playtime here where it was practically the only means to end a fight as quickly as possible if I didn't have a shotgun with me. There's also this headshot move you can do, but since it requires being up close and pressing the X button with the bar full, I stopped using it the moment it was mentioned in the tutorial. All this within a level that felt structurally similar to St. Francis' Folly, and it turned into one of, if not the most frustrating experience I've faced in this marathon yet.
By now, you probably read all that, double-checked the score I gave it, and went "aw hell, here comes someone saying they liked something because of the IDEAS and AESTHETICS behind it". While honestly part of that is a motivator, I do genuinely believe the good stuff TRU was able to showcase regardless are pretty damn satisfying. Interactions and platforming obstacles can be clunky as hell sure, but the mechanical, playground-like nature these areas take you through are some of the best on offer within the trilogy, asking you to utilize and problem solve your way out of tight corners or to unlock a piece of the warped puzzle to get you to move on. It also does a great deal in having you imagine and work out within your head how these places came to function, whether it's the nooks of the freezing, trap-ridden halls within Jan Mayen Island as you shimmy and wall jump across the broken floors and hammer swings, the tropical and rotted architecture of Coastal Thailand giving you many places to swing and grapple across, or hell even the caverns of Croft Manor greeting you with stained glasses and shadow imagery, and the underground ruins found underneath a sheet of Arctic Sea as it greets you to the blue eitr-filled confinement of Helheim, in spite of their jarring brevity, were still captivating to witness nevertheless. While I haven't captured a ton of examples, more often was I able to step back and just, soak in the presentation, seeing all the different tones and lighting frames sell me on the atmosphere. TRL consistently has more enjoyable and engaging levels, TRA has a few pieces and segments that feel immense and powerful, but bar for bar, TRU was the closest this era has gotten to truly selling you these places you're going through felt real and massive in scope, much like how the first game from 1996 was able to do so.
But, to reiterate, part of why I still ended up liking this are because of what was being presented. I like the idea of the thread being the monomyth philosophy with the focal point being on the Norse, as Toby Gard and Eric have discussed, and thankfully this is one of the few things within the story that felt fleshed out considering how often you end up going through different cultures in their "underworlds". I like the idea that Natla and Amanda, the two villains from before, represent different aspects of the Croft Family's past, and how one bitterly moves on and the other stubbornly refuses to let the past die, even if they only dwell on this during the second half. The idea of Lara having a doppelganger that reflects the darker aspirations she has within her is sick, but unfortunately this never comes into fruition. I like the vibes of the grit and somber storytelling even outside the actual presentation within the gameplay, it focuses on the fundamentals of how serious things have become without ultimately drowning in self-sorrow BS like TR2013 did
So yea, Underworld? A bit of a mess! Yet, it's a mess that I completely dig and find fondness for regardless. It's a shame this didn't get the time it needed to clean up and flesh out all its point to maximal effect, but it is what it is.
LAST TIME: TOMB RAIDER LEGEND
ADD-ONS: BENEATH THE ASHES / LARA'S SHADOW
NEXT TIME: LARA CROFT GO
5 Comments
This is all really interesting stuff. Explains why I bounced off this at launch due to bugs and came back much later to find it enjoyable on the second play.
@FallenGrace No kiddin, I've played my fair share of games that had an uneven development time before, and TRU joins those containing great ideas that still show themselves quite often, yet mangled by this unfortunate lack of polish. If things were just set their way more fairly and the Powers That Be didn't interfere often, this probably could've been the best game of the LAU trilogy.
But like I said, I still like it anyway. Even if all that's happened kneecapped some of its offerings, it's still at least enjoyable enough to dissect and play in. That bit with the Shiva/Kali statue opening once you line up the beams of light from the arms is gonna stick with me for a good bit, same with the hammer hallways in Jan Mayen Island.
But like I said, I still like it anyway. Even if all that's happened kneecapped some of its offerings, it's still at least enjoyable enough to dissect and play in. That bit with the Shiva/Kali statue opening once you line up the beams of light from the arms is gonna stick with me for a good bit, same with the hammer hallways in Jan Mayen Island.
yeah the monomyth shit kicks super ass. Wish new Tomb Raider did shit like this so bad
@Snigglegros Yea, it's kind of bewildering that the Survivor games focus more on the now than on the past, or even a mixture of the two like LAU Trilogy did. There's a lot of potential for doing a line on monomyths that I wish more games would set out to follow on.
BlazingWaters
1 year ago
For a brief "where are they now?" overview on Toby Gard and Eric Lindstrom, Toby left Crystal Dynamics, and by extension Tomb Raider as a whole, not long after the game's release, saying it was time to move on and left it to the hands of others. He's done some work here in there, such as being one of the directors on Yaiba Ninja Gaiden Z, and most recently released a new game called Dream Cycle under a new company he sprung up, Cathuria Games.
As for Eric, well... alongside being writing a few books, he joined up with Might & Magic creator Jon Van Caneghem in a company that uh, does blockchain and NFT shit, along with trying to make this new "digital metaverse" game. So... yea. Massive bummer right there, but hopefully they'll realize that stupid trend is finally dying off and will do something that's actually cool and interesting.