While Lara could merely scale ledges and gingerly crawl up rocky inclines, Shadow Lara can sprint-climb up any rock surface with a vein-like formation. Blessed with an array of 'shadow' abilities, she not only moves with lizard-like speed, but is pretty handy in the fisticuffs department, meaning the melee combat rather comes to the fore. Thrown in the deep end, you find yourself in control of a character who might look a bit like Lara, but has the ability to dose herself up on amphetamine sulphate at will. You know what videogame scriptwriters are like when they haven't had their Shreddies. Tasked with helping out Natla, your quest is to restore the power source to a gigantic, ancient machine so that the withered old hag can, I dunno, take over the world via some bonkers old contraption. Instead, for the two or so hours that this lasts, the starring role falls to the mysterious Doppelganger who popped up a couple of times during Underworld. Lara's Shadow is a different prospect entirely, mainly because you're not actually controlling Lara at all. More like a deleted scene to extend the game than a fully-fledged episode. In fact, that's pretty much exactly what the recently released Beneath the Ashes pack felt like when it belatedly arrived a fortnight ago: more of the same, and not particularly inspired either. To date, most downloadable content has been a cynical exercise in artificially holding a level back from the game and then punting it out at a price that makes you wince. Several unique cutscenes were created for this pack, and the production values of the visuals, sound, and cinematics are equal in quality to those found in the main game.Now this is more like it. The enemies that pop up here are also identical, though emo-Lara’s new fighting moves do add some spice to these encounters. While the specific set pieces of the level are all new, the environments should seem very similar to those who played through Underworld as a lengthy segment of Lara’s quest took place in the same location. Lara’s Shadow has you wandering around an ancient temple that is surrounded by pits of liquid blue energy that-when touched-instantly leads you to a liquid blue death. Repackaging levels is never cool, but making you replay an area less than an hour after running through it for the first time is just downright lazy. This involves you retracing your steps and performing the same climbing, jumping, and shimmying that you did earlier, with the only difference being a few new environmental hazards. Half way through Shadow, you are told that you will have to undo everything that you previously did.
TOMB RAIDER UNDERWORLD LARA SERIES
While this could be seen as a welcome change of pace, the well-crafted riddles of earlier Tomb Raiders helped the series stand out in the third-person adventuring genre, and not having them represented in this download makes the included level feel like it is lacking something.Įven more befuddling is the fact that you are required to run through every section of the level twice to complete it. There is nothing to be solved here, except when you must occasionally study the environment to see what path you need to take next.
Lara’s Shadow’s focus on platforming comes at the sacrifice of a major element from earlier Tomb Raider titles: puzzles. These additions are generally welcome, as they add an extra layer of complexity to the acrobatics. There are also certain walls that can only be scaled when your shadow abilities are activated, and fast-moving traps that cannot be passed unless time is being slowed down.
Using Dark Lara’s powers, you can climb and shimmy much faster than before. When not engaging in fisticuffs, platforming takes center stage. You are only forced to fight twice in Lara’s Shadow, so those who prefer to explore more than brawl will be able to avoid most of the conflict. While an improvement on what was available before, the combat still isn’t that compelling overall, and I found it best to just run past the bad guys as often as possible. You now have punch and kick buttons, and each can be combined with your “shadow power” to unleash a number of devastating attacks. Hand-to-hand attacks have been implemented-a first for the series-and these moves end up being more fun to use than Lara’s guns ever were. As soon as the level begins, we are told about Dark Lara’s “shadow powers,” which allow her to slow down time, move much faster, and put a little extra “oomph” into her guns and fists.
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