Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness (Playstation 2)

Other products by CORE Design Limited

Product Features

• Lara has been accused of murdering her old teacher, Von Croy. On the run and pursued by the police, she falls into a world of murder and betrayal, revenge and dark secrets.
• Help Lara solve the mystery of the Obscura Paintings, and why the mysterious Alchemist is so dead-set on having them
• All-new features like the ability to interact with other characters, a wild new combat system with stealth attacks and last-chance grabs, and much more
• As you solve puzzles and overcome obstacles, you'll earn improvements in Lara's upper body strength, jumping ability, brainpower and more
• Cutting-edge graphics bring the adventure to life as the legendary Lara Croft returns!

Product Details

• ASIN: B00006BMQB
• Item Weight: 8 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (207 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,832 in Video Games (See Bestsellers in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description
A series of grisly murders brings Lara Croft into conflict with a sinister alchemist from the past and a secret alliance of powerful individuals shrouded in mystery. At the center of the conflict are the Obscura paintings, five 14th-century pieces of art that the alchemist is desperate to repossess. Accused of the murder of her one-time mentor, Werner Von Croy, Lara becomes a fugitive. Pursued by the police, she follows the alchemist into a dark world of blood, betrayal, and vengeance. It's up to Lara to defeat this unholy alliance and stop the villains from unleashing their incredible powers on the world.

Product Description
In Tomb Raider: The Angel Of Darkness, fans of Lara Croft will experience an all-new adventure for a new century!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Unacceptabley Awful, February 29, 2004

By	Review Lover "ReviewLover" (At a place...) - See all my reviews

In this day and age, are we as gamers really expected to put up with this level of crap? Possibly the biggest disappointment in the history of videogames since the Sega Saturn, 'Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness' is the first next-gen outing for the intrepid Ms. Croft.

Stuck in development hell for the best part of 2 years, Core and Eidos should be very, VERY ashamed of themselves for allowing such a bug-filled, poorly thought-out piece of software onto the shelves, much less a game with such a rich and popular reputation to live up to.

Put simply, 'Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness' is an absolute dog.

First: The graphics just do not cut the mustard. Granted, the human characters in the Tomb Raider series were never graphically astounding, but here they're just badly done. Textures are pixelated and the frame rate is low. Lara's animations are smooth and her new costumes are diverting, but that's it. Characters like Bouchard and Carvier are not good enough for the PS 2, being underdetailed and very badly animated.

Level design is very substandard for a TR game. And, horror of horrors, there's only one tomb, The rest of the game is like a horrible cross between Metal Gear Solid and a weak RPG, where Lara is forced to run about Parisian streets and warehouses with no real sense of raiding anything.

Second: The control system is an absolute abomination. Lara is just not meant to be analog. Gone is the intuitive quad-style floor layout and now jumps and falls are impossible to judge, the upshot of which is Core have created a game which is insanely easy to beat. Lining up the camera, controlled by the right analog stick, every time you want to make a jump, is just annoying, and the collision detection is ridiculous.

Third: This is such an easy game to beat. Although I should point out, you'd better get to like the phrases 'Overwrite Successful' and 'Load Successful', becuase you'll be seeing them a hell of a lot. Thanks to the ridiculous control system, Saving and Loading happens far more often than is acceptable, and when you do manage to make the jumps and climbs without the control system hampering your every move or the game crashing out (happens a lot, sound and event glitches abound) you wonder what happened to the rest of the level.

A horrible, horrible game that yields no rewards, and will cause great distress to fans of the TR series, 'Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness' is something we should all forget.

Core, never let this happen again.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not great, but good..., July 9, 2003

By	William the Conqueror "William the Conqueror" (Maryland) - See all my reviews

I've played all of the Tomb Raider games but Chronicles. AOD should satisfy any fan, despite all of the criticism that you read. It takes a little while to get used to the looks and feel of the new game, which kicks into high gear once you get out of the Paris Ghetto. As for the controls, yes they do take a while to get used to, but you do get used to them. Some people mention that they cannot step sideways or back to set-up a running jump: read the instructions, it's there, stop whinning.

Here is a list of the positives and negatives that I have encountered, and some things that I would have liked to see in AOD.

Positives:
1) The graphics are great, including Lara herself, with even some jiggling you-know-where.
2) The story line is a great combination of the first movie and the previous games, mixing murder plot and traditional site exploring.
3) New moves like peaking around the corner and sneaking up on people.

Negatives:
1) The game slows down in certain places. Really annoying.
2) The controls are not responsive enough.

Some things I miss:
1) The mansion.
2) Lara saying 'u-huh' when she finds something.
3) She loses some of her English accent. It's there, but it's really light.
4) I would have preferred a greater variety of sites to explore, including outdoors. Instead, it's really Paris and Prague (so far).

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars save game... over & over & over, July 14, 2003

By	Kevin R. Wilson "Save Farscape!" (Lonsdale, Ar. USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is perhaps the worst [money] I ever spent.
Let's get the pros out of the way since there is only 1
PROS- The story is good rivaling that of the movie francise.
CONS 1.For all the hype and post-poned release dates you would think this game would have been less buggy and more playable.
2. The ps2 controls in this game are below par of the old atari joysticks, you have to push the run stick into next week to get her to get out of harms way not to mention the slow motion bug that happens when someone else is in the room with you, geez!
3. Stealth mode... as useless as Ben & JLo's partner movies.
4. load times- too many & too long.
5. weapons- why is it you can kick a dog twice to put him down but a pistol takes a whole clip to do it?
6. jumping & climbing require a lot of saving games because of the bad judge of distance
7. camera angles- most 3D games camera angles aggravate me to some extent, but this one is just FUBAR.
8. When targeting some enemies in certain areas you have to holster your weapon just so you can move around, don't know what that is all about.
I enjoy replay value as much as the next person, but having to jump from the same ledge 30 times because you keep screaming all the way to your death is just ridicilous...
I suggest games like Devil May Cry or The Thing but avoid this one.