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TOMB RAIDER UNDERWORLD
I was promising myself a lot about this travel. Ony 22 journalists from the whole world were invited for a presentation in Merida (North-East Mexico), including the only official from Poland - CDA exponent. This exclusive show was suppoused to unveil for a first time the game, that was about to change Lara Croft's countenance. Was it accomplished?
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The game, as for now, is known under the not-really original title: Tomb Raider 8. Unofficial rumors say that the final version will eventually be released under the Tomb Raider: Underworld name. Though the developers didn't confirmed this, the news about this title being trademarked by Eidos have spread through the Internet. Besides, it's a quite good one and well-describing the content of the game title.
NEXT-GEN FOR THE FIRST TIME
I was really wound up about the new Lara, because more than a year ago, I spoke with Ian Livingstone, even before Tomb Raider Anniversary release. On a question why does Anniversary looks so similar to it's predecessor, he answered that Anniversary is only a tribute to Lara, not a next-gen game. But a one like that - indeed - is in production. Though he didn't want to tell anything more than it's being developed by Crystal Dynamics and it's working title is Tomb Raider 8. Since then I was waiting for any additional info, and it finally happened. I left covered-by-snow Poland, went through the half of the Earth and...
The intimate presentation took place in a small hotel room. Eric Lindstorm, Crystal Dynamics creative-director was talking about TR8 (or is it TRU?), while Rob Pavey, main programmer, was playing one of the levels live. It's localisation wasn't any suprise. Devs showed us the fourth level, placed in Mexican state of Chiapas, among the ruins left by the Mayan civilisation. I won't hide, that I waited for the moment of game's turn on with a great impatience, wondering how next-gen, modern and based on a completly new engine Lara would look like...
UNEXPECTED TURN OF EVENTS
The schock was significant, but unfortunatley not because of enormous amount of changes and new things. On the contrary, the first scene, with Lara standing in the forest, looked almost exactly like what what we seen in Legend two years ago. I must say, unfortunatley, that we can throw into the bin all the promises about a completly new engine being used and developed. Even an amateur would guess that it's a modified TRL and TRA engine only. Of course it's not a disadvantage at all - those games still look great. Nonetheless I had to share my frustration with you, caused by too excessive expectations.
Now after I'm done with complaining, I can progress to the next chapter of the story. The goal of the (nearly the whole) level, wich I was able to see, was to eneter the world of Mayan civilization. To do so, in a classic way, our brave miss archeologist had to climb onto tens of ledges, walk on walls, jump on piles (more about her moving abilities later), and of course solve an ancient puzzle, one of those on wich EGM (one of CDA rewievers) always grabs his hair and ask: "of what these Mayans made those springs, that even after thousands years later they're still working?!". Well, there's sth in what he says, but no one should demand too much of realism from Tomb Raider...
The game's presentation was focused on three main aspects, wich will be expanded in the final game. If made in points, it would be sth like this: Lara versus the world, Lara affects the world, Lara's doing everything you expect her to do. But I'm warning you pervs, the last point may not be what you're thinking about. Or at leats I don't know of any secret keybord combination that causes Lara to do a streptese ;-)
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LARA VERSUS THE WORLD
As in all Tomb Raider games, your biggest enemy and at the same time your biggest friend is the world. There's won't be any difference in "the eight one" in this aspect. Our heroine will still travel through different, in most cases very dangerous parts of our planet, where some ancient civilizations left some very precious tresures. There's lots of traps, trapdoors, thorns and wild fauna. Flora, on the other her will be less dangerous, but importunate for Lara nonetheless. I was really stunned when I saw that one animation - when Lara runs through the creepers, she doesn't risk her boobs being cut, but rather push the creepers aside with her hands. So small, but so exciting.
LARA AFFECTS THE WORLD
We have to say this clear: Lara needs to retire, or at least be put into a prison, for devestating everything that stands on her way. As a one-person archeological team, the lady doesn't give a ****. In places, where real archeologist would want to use the most modern and if possible the least destructive equipment, she runs into with no 'Sorry', usually leaving lots of debris behind. In Tomb Raider 8 her abilities of affecting the world surrounding her only get increased, and that is not only in pre-scripted cut-scenes and moments. One of the new abilities is the one of picking up many kinds of staff/lances and sticking them into the holes they're fit in (to avoid confusing: I'm talking about holes in walls). Of course it's all needed to bob on it for a moment and perform a jump somewhere.
LARA'S DOING EVERYTHING YOU EXPECT HER TO DO
She won't dance, she won't sing, there's also a very slim chance of her doing a... Forget it. But for sure, our heroine can do now as much as the whole circus team combined and doubled. So, if you expect form a game character to be more skilled than a monkey, jumping 1.5 meter up in the air and her hands never to be - I mean never - chewed, you couldn't find a better adress.
ENOUGH OF THE DIRTY TALK!
Let's get to the point. With what the new Tomb Raider will suprise us when released in few months? Lets begin with sth the developers didn't want to tell anything about. We needed a vise to get anything from them - and the amount of juice that came out from them was as little as from a ripe banana. We only know, as it was before, that the game won't take place only in the jungle. As Eric Lindstorm said: "We want to suprise the gamers with many interesting locations. We're not showing them now though, because without knowing the context you would thought that Lara should never end up here or there. But I can assure you that the plot is cohesive and after getting to know it, everything will be clear. We must remember about gamers expectations and not fantasizing too much. Lara on the Moon wouldn't be really a good thing.
During our conversation, I get to know that the game will take place only in the present time. The're won't be any retrospections, 15 years old Lara etc. as it happened couple of times in the past. The last thing about the storyline is that it'll be linear. Don't expect any revolution here. As in the all games in the series, Tomb Raider 8 will have only one cohesive plot without a possibility to change anything.
BAD YUCKERS
There'll be two main obstacles on Lara's way: not used to think/not very manually skilled gamer, and the enemies. The franchise is going to it's roots once again. The places Lara will visit, in most cases will be completly wild, not touched by the men for thousands of years. Thus, there won't be many human enemies. In most of the time, we will encounter many different kind of animals, on wich Lara as usual won't have much mercy, making her guns fire-red (as usual with unlimited ammo). Well - there's no one to fight for animals rights in the jungle.
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Of the creatures that appeard (during the presentation), I liked spiders the most. Little spiders came out in such a number in one moment, as if they smelled a chubby fly. Of course Lara got rid of them efficiently, even when they were literally jumping to her eyes. Bigger problems were avoided mainly thanks to no need of using the guns, but rather the soles of shoes.
A bit disappointed may be those who liked the fights with the bosses in previous instaltments. Don't expect any epic encounter like the Lara versus T-Rex one this time. The role of giant enemies in TR8 will be acceded by giant puzzles. The role of fight - by the brain-thinking.
ATTACK!
As long as we're in a topic of combat, it'll be good to stay in it for a while, since there're many significant changes in this aspect. A big fun comes from using Lara's meele attacks. I don't know where she trained, but her kicks and socks are as effective as Krav Mag's ones, but being far more eye-popping at the same time. Beggining from the simple kick/punch/sock, and finishing with a complex smother & throw combos, with the help of legs - self-defensive lessons with miss Croft are fascinating, though the students won't be able to test their knowledge in practise.
Meele combat may be useful on human enemies, but it will propablly be a bit harder with the animals. It should be noted, that the AI is well balanced. Homo sapiens know what a granade is and that you have to run away from it. Wild cats don't know it of course, but they're more militant, fast and agile. As usual, you need quite a dose of bullets to get rid of them.
A real new thing, when it comes to battle, is Lara's new ability of uplifting objects. I only saw a scene in wich she took a big staff, and could as well fight with it as throw it into an enemy. What's interesting, keeping something in one hand doesn't mean that the other one is bored in the meantime - you can always take your beretta and use it in a long-distance fight.
WE'LL REACH THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAINS
It's already became a tradition, that with every new installment of miss Croft's adventures, she gets many new moves. Even in the very first Tomb Raider, she was able to perform impossible, for a normal human acrobations (salto back combined with a meter jump in the air?! How?!), and with every new installment it got even more incredible. The programmers don't stop in their efforts to vary rock-climbing even more. If you played any of the previous Tomb Raiders, you will remember quite unrealistic/impossible column jumping. This time, Crystal Dynamics went even further. Not only you can easily get to the top of pretty much every column, but even jump onto it's tip. But that's nothing - Lara, standing nearly on only one leg, can shoot, without bothering about losing balance. It doesn't happens to her - just as tiredness from hanging or bobbing on some pole for too long.
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During the presentaion, I also saw two other abilities that are new in the series. Rock-climbing lovers will be happy that Lara will be able to do it now also. And not only in the way it used to be, when she moved by using cracks in rocks. Now, on a specially marked parts of the walls she can move in any dierction.
The previous circus comparison about Lara's abilities wasn't really out of place, because lady archeologist can now... walk on the line. Do you too have a feeling that in Tomb Raider 10 she will juggle and do splits? When compared to all these new moves, such thing as added sprint doesn't look any spectacular. It's strange that Lara wasn't able to faster her run earlier - it's a very useful addition. All we know is suppoused to be only a tip of the mountain. Developers promise with this new installment of the series, we'll be suprised numerous times.
GADGETS
Though it's not officially confirmed, it seems that Lara Croft is a born out of wedlock child of Indiana Jones and James Bond. And that is something. Two games ago, she got a specific cable wich she could attach to many objects, either to bob, or to pull in something. These functions are still there of course, but there're new ones. The one I could see "in action" really impressed me.
Physics engine used the game is finally quite complex, many objects interacts and affects themselves in a natural way. It wasn't always like that before. That one scene I liked look something like this. Lara was standing on a declivity, and there was a rock laying a few meters further, wich had to be cast off the declivity in order to open a passage. Schooting into it was pointless, just as throwing objects. Our intelligent woman tacked a line/cable on the other side of the room, a few meters further than the rock. Then you just had to push the rock with the line in order to cast it. Simple isn't it?
As usual, Croft won't be counting only on her long and beautiful legs all the time. In couple of places, vehicles will appear - though the devs didn't reveal what kinds of. The only one showed in Mexico was a motorbike. It's function wasn't only about interspersing the gameplay, rather about making it faster. Vehicles in TR8 will be very important in solving the puzzles. In the presented level, in order to get into the Mayan's world, Lara had to get down from a very high declivity really fast. Impossible with foots only, so the better solution was to jump on a bike, and get down the other road with motorbike driving very fast.
ACTION OR ADVENTURE?
The level we seen in Mexico was focused mainly on solving the puzzles, wich was also the thing the devs keep mentioning in every possibility, that the puzzles will play a key role in TR8 - We try to remember about the gamers that preffered a style of gameplay as in Tomb Raider: Legend - Eric says - But we didn't want to simplify the gamplay too much, of wich older fans were criticising us, so we chose to take a middle road. We can't reveal now how it's gonna work, but I can assure you: there will be a special help/hint system in the game, for the players who expect mostly action from Tomb Raider and don't want to lose time solving the puzzles.
A bit dissapointed may feel those, who wanted an expansion of Tomb Raider formula. We don't plan to add any additional mini-games. - said Eric Lindstorm - We thought, that they would only break the fun. People expect consistency from us, continuous adventure, any departure form the basic concept of gameplay would only break the continuity. Though we plan to implement a few elements, like those during cut-scenes in the two previous installments. When we asked for something more about this, Crystal Dynamics creative-director said only - As for now we can't reveal anything more, we're still in the early stage of development. But in the couple of months, in Feburary-March we will try to show much more. Well, alright, I'm waiting for another invitation...
THE NEW, THE SAME LARA
After the first leftdown about the engine, I started to see all those little things, that even at this early stage of development, already make this game looks much better than previous ones. Main chracter's model was heavliy modified - The whole model was created from scratch - says Rob Pavey, the main programmer - We wanted her to look more athletic, without loosing anything from her womanliness. I think we made it. Well, not really hard to hide that our young archeologist didn't suddenly became a humongous gorgon, she'll still use a video games sex symbol.
What always caused the biggest controvertions, wich is bosom, stayed plus/minus the same as before. Wich means: it's still very big, but it's a tradition.
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On the other hand, many small elements were changed, like Lara's hair. You can clearly see that the developers really spent some time on them, creating quite realistically moving hair. Who knows, maybe in some level we will see Lara in an evening dress again with loose hair?... Hmmm...
As before, Lara is a one dirty girl. When she falls over into the mud, her body gets dirty immediately. But if the rain pours at the same time, after sime time it effaces every dirtiness from our hero - just like a good wash machine. We don't need to write about as nice elements as wet clothes and hair after walking out of the water - it's a standard since Legend.
Personally, I regret that Lara's model was made once again as if she wasn't a real woman, but rather a computer animation. But that was the all-time Toby Gard's wish, who didn't want Lara to look too realistic (some complexes?). I would like to see some wrinkles or sth that would made her look like a real person. Rob ended the dreams of mine though - It's not the issue of technology, we could make her even more realistic. But we don't want to - it's still just a character, figure, not a real woman. Maybe it would be good to send some kind of petition to Crystal Dynamics?...
DYNAMO ON LARA
As I mentioned at the beggining, with the first look on the game, it doesn't look it's based on a new engine. Without digging if it's true or not, we can say one thing for sure: Tomb Raider 8 is without a doubt the best looking game in the series. The first thing you see are shadows. The sun that gets through the moving leafs or the ones that are visible on Lara's body - everything is being rendered real-time. It may not be on level of Crysis yet, but you have to remember that I saw an early version of the game, and many things will change for sure and for a better.
The lights look very good, especially when there's more than just a one soure of light, and when there're in many different colors. Everyone of them is layed on separately, wich creates realistic and spectacular image. It's a big joy to see heavily improved bump-mapping. Rocks. water, and every small prominent element doesn't look like a flat texture anymore.
The game is being developed only on nextgen platforms, wich means PC, X360 and PS3. Developers couldn't point any differences between them, though as the experience shows, PC version will look the best. - Since the beggining we were creating it on DirectX 9 - says Rob - Though we haven't decided finally, if we're gonna use any of the newer interfaces. I don't know if there's really any need to do so.
But if the team eventually decides to do so (the chances are high looking at the trends in the industry) we can be sure that Lara will show the most on PCs...
Release date (as said by CDA): 2nd half of 2008
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Lara always with CD
Lara's father is Toby Gard - member of Core Design team, wich in 1996, with the premiere of Tomb Raider, showed the world a whole new image of action-adventure games. Incredible success of the game made Lara not only a pop-cultural icon (we made a large, 8-pages article about this character BTW) but she started to appear on our monitors quite often. To sum up, Core created 6 TR games. The last one though, titled 'The Angel of Darkness' was received by the journalists and the gamers so poorly, that the owner of Tomb Raider mark, Eidos, made a very important and critical decision to carry over the production of next installments in the series to Crystal Dynamics (wich became famous after the success of their games like Project: Snowblind and Legancy of Kain franchise).
With Core Design, it shares only the initials. Laras creators lived in distinguished Great Britain, while the folks at Crystal Dynamics were true Americans. But the climate change was for a good, because two following games - Legend and Anniversary - made the series fresh again and attracted new gamers. To avoid completly cutting from the roots, Crystal Dynamics brought back Toby Gard (who left Core after the first game was released) after many years and asked him to help with creating the game. With Legend, he was the consultant. With TR8 his role is smaller. It's because of the big distance (Toby lives in Great Britain) he takes his part in creating cut-scenes. That's always better than nothing...
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How old is Lara?
By the by a longer article about Lara, I quickly counted how old she is. In the first Tomb Raider wich was released in 1996, Core Design told that their heroine was 29 years old. It's not hard to count how old she is now, but nonetheless I didn't resisted to ask Eric about this - It's a good question, but I have always the same answer. Lara is a young woman, and that's it. If you're still so much interested in this subject, tell me: How old is James Bond? Lara is 3 months younger than him.
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Lara in episodes
Eidos is one of the first companies, that with a high interest looks on a system of distributing games in a form of "episodic content". The first company to use it was Valve with their Half-Life 2, later the idea was used by the creators of adventure game "Sam and Max". Does Lara is heading into the same direction? Let's allow Eric Lindstorm to speak - I admit, that we're thinking about releasing Lara's adventures in episodes, but we're not planning any revolution here. The game will be premiered as a whole from the start, though eventually we will release something later in a monthly cycle. What is it going to be? No one knows. Let's only hope nobody will even think about creating add-ons like: "Lara: Gucci clothes" or "Tomb Raider: Pets". Though the last one could've been quite a nice bloodbath ;-)
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