Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness
- April 16, 2003 00:00 AM PST
Lara Croft is back�again. Here�s what should make the latest Tomb Raider one of the best.
Tombs Raided? Check.She�s raided tombs, fought dinosaurs, uncovered hidden conspiracies, and saved the world, but when Lara�s framed for murder, can she save herself? Core and Eidos will be asking that question in May in Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. Billed as �Lara Croft as you�ve never seen her before,� this new Tomb Raider promises to be something newer and darker, wrapped up with the good ol� platform-hopping, impossible-gorge-leaping gameplay that Lara�s fans have come to crave.
Stealth Is a Verb
Since Lara can�t save the day by simply jumping, climbing, and crawling through dank tombs, Core has given her a suite of new stealth-based moves to get her around town unseen. Based on the preview version, the new TR is no Splinter Cell, but Lara has the ability to sneak around, shimmy on her belly to avoid laser traps, and even silently snap guards� necks if she catches them unaware. She�s also had some martial arts training, too: If her trademark dual pistols aren�t subtle enough, she can whip out some two-fisted attacks and some pretty wild spinning kicks to get the job done.
Change Your Latitude
It�s not just her moves that have changed, though. Rather than mansions in Venice or tombs in Egypt, Lara�s latest adventures will have her crawling through sewers or sneaking around alleyways. Just in case you thought Lara�s glamour days were numbered, she will also find herself infiltrating the famous Louvre in Paris, which in the preview version looked stunning�especially the Mona Lisa. Dark caverns and underground catacombs round out the list of places you�ll drag Lara through this time. While the early build needed a bit of work and the controls were being tuned as of this writing, the new Tomb Raider could be the one to revive the franchise.
