Tomb Raider II (PlayStation) Review

Welcome to the Great Wall of China. Although very linear, the first level where action woman/treasure hunter Lara Croft is on the search for a certain trinket, retains the unique charm and atmosphere of the original. Better yet, while still limited by the PlayStation's horsepower, things look more polished, with improved lighting effects, and a protagonist that has finally got a decent boob job, as well as a nicely animated, long ponytail, courtesy of the developer moving from quads to triangles, which is why lady Croft had a pyramid-shaped bosom in the original (The More You Know!) Oh, sure, the super-blocky humans do look a tad funny (in a good way), but hey, that didn't stop Minecraft from getting its own Telltale series. Having said that, however, those low polygon fellows are everywhere - in fact, in some maps enemies almost seem to outnumber the ones in the entirety of Tomb Raider. And no, that's not a good thing…

Eidos pushed Tomb Raider II to be more action oriented, which shows that the publisher barely knew what the strengths of the original where in the first place. This time around it’s less about ancient locales and puzzles, and more about shooting at bad guys - and usually not even inside tombs. Here’s the thing, though: the PlayStation instalments where never built for gunplay, so adding more of that in the sequel feels like a pretty bad decision. For starters, there’s no real tactic here. Humans start shooting the moment Lara shows her curvy behinds and fronts, which means that, unless knowing where someone will pop out from, it will almost be impossible to leave a gunfight unscathed.

As such, one can try to outmanoeuvre a foe and avoid most of the damage, but just standing still, shooting, and using a healing item turns out to be a strategy of equal strength. On the plus side, the maps themselves are much grander in scale, and decently varied. While there aren’t exactly many ancient ruins to get lost into, the places Lara will visit are quite the sight, and have a pretty strong atmosphere. Unfortunately, the level design suffers from a few serious problems. First, while most stages aren't linear per se, the process required to complete them feels very much like so, with the basic formula going something like: pull lever, open door, find new lever, open hatch, find another level, and the show goes on, with little variation between all those levers, doors, and hatches.

The next problem is the fact that the challenge has increased quite a lot, but mostly in all the wrong ways. At its best, Tomb Raider was about moving cautiously, looking at your surroundings, thinking of a plan, and then trying to follow it. At its worse, it was trial-and-error, with traps that you couldn’t avoid on your first try. The sequel turns this last issue to eleven, and from the very first stage. Oh, sure, it's now possible to save everywhere, but that doesn’t really soften the blow. Yup. You can save right before a certain tough segment, but you’ll soon find yourself abusing the save system, and record your progress after every two or so minutes, effectively killing the mood.

FOUR
There are some other "small" flaws, like, for example, the fact that secrets are now simple useless items that only benefit the one who will find them all (three per level), something that will disappoint those who don't have the patience to search under every crack and crevice for the, usually, insanely-hard-to-find third one. Finally, like with the first game, some stages tend to stretch for way too long, with one example being some underwater levels, which, whilst being some of the best ones, look almost identical. The most serious problem, though? Simple. Where are all the tombs?

The streets of Venice?? Opera houses??? Submerged ships?!? Oil rigs, for Huánglóng's sake?!?!? Okay, it's not that all of these are bad or anything. Some can have a really strong and genuine Tomb Raider-esque vibe to them. The sunken Maria Doria, for instance, can give pretty much the same sensation of exploring the mysterious, ancient temples of the first title, but for most of the time, you’ll feel as if you are playing a completely different game that just uses the same engine and control scheme, and just happens to have a beautiful girl as its protagonist.

Even the story is somewhat disappointing - and, yes, this phrase might seem silly in such a series, but a plot, even a placeholder one, can give a sense of purpose, and do what all good video games have done through the years: immerse the player into them. Why does this “fail?” Well, because it doesn't care much about the storyline, obvious by the fact that, between the first two to three levels and the very end, there is almost no story available. Lara gets on a plane, Lara gets lost in the sea, Lara does this, Lara does that… and then she fights a big ass dragon, and returns home to have a shower *shotgun blast*

The thing that gets hurt the most is the atmosphere that the original was known for. Apart from the whole save-and-save-some-more, and the trial-and-error thingy mentioned earlier, with both ruining the moment and taking you out of the game, the feeling of isolation, that special magic of exploring uncharted territory, gets marred by the fact that human enemies are way too abundant, even in places where it doesn’t even make sense! Oh, this definitely isn’t a bad game… but it’s not really the classic that many though it was back when it was released.