Tomb Raider: Underworld
| Tomb Raider: Underworld | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 | |||
| Studio |
 Crystal Dynamics Nixxes Software (Windows and PS3) Buzz Monkey Software (PS2 and Wii) Santa Cruz Games (NDS) EA Mobile (N-Gage) Feral Interactive (macOS) 
|
||
| Publisher |
Eidos Interactive Feral Interactive (macOS)
|
||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
November 18, 2008 November 21, 2008 |
||
| platform |
Windows macOS PlayStation 2 PlayStation 3 Xbox 360 Wii Nintendo DS N-Gage 2.0 |
||
| genre | Action adventure | ||
| Subject | adventure | ||
| Game mode | Single player | ||
| control | Gamepad , mouse , keyboard | ||
| system advantages preconditions |
|||
| medium | DVD-ROM , Blu-ray , download | ||
| language | German | ||
| copy protection | SecuROM 7 | ||
| Age rating |
|
||
Tomb Raider: Underworld is the ninth part of the well-known action-adventure computer game series around Lara Croft . Like Tomb Raider: Legend and Tomb Raider: Anniversary, the game was developed by Crystal Dynamics . It was released in Europe on November 21, 2008. The PlayStation 2 version was released on January 30, 2009.
action
The focus of the story is Mjölnir , the hammer of Thor, the god of thunder . Lara is looking for this apparently powerful tool to find a way to Avalon to learn about her mother's fate.
The scenes are an undiscovered, sunken ruin in the Mediterranean, the jungles of Thailand and southern Mexico , the Arctic and Lara's Croft Manor.
The plot follows on from the events of Tomb Raider: Legend . Lara is still looking for her mother, who is said to be in Avalon. To do this, she first travels to the Mediterranean and tracks down a ruin there. There she is attacked by a giant octopus, but she manages to kill it. In the ruins she learns something about Niflheim , a Nordic underworld, and something about Thor. Lara finds one of Thor's gloves that you need to use his hammer. After she has taken the glove, it adapts perfectly to her hand. However, shortly afterwards she is attacked by mercenaries, who take her glove away and blow up the entrance of the room.
Lara gets out of the ruin via another path and sees a ship on the surface of the water. On the ship, Lara meets her former friend and current enemy, Amanda and Natla, the immortal queen of Atlantis , who is also trying to kill her. Natla tells Lara that Lara should go to Thailand if she wants to find out more. Then the glass cage in which Natla is trapped is pulled out of the ship with a helicopter, as it sinks because a mercenary hit an explosive pipe while trying to kill Lara.
After Lara has fought her way through the Thai jungle, she stands in front of Thor's statue and has to move a huge bridge there. After she has managed that too, she learns that the second glove is in the crypt under her house. After defeating the two guards in the crypt, she returns to the surface with the second glove. The Croft Manor suddenly explodes. A lara lookalike, created by Natla and controlled by Amanda, kills Alister, a friend of Lara's. Lara swears revenge.
Now she has to travel to Mexico to find Thor's belt there. In the underworld of Xilbalba, she has to defend herself against spiders and the undead, which preserve the powerful artifact. With her belt and gloves, Lara is powerful enough to get Thor's hammer on the island of Jan Mayen . Here you have to master huge ice rooms and fight a yeti . Equipped with the hammer, Lara faces Natla a second time, who is trapped in another Amanda's tanker. The doppelganger reappears and a fight ensues. Amanda is injured and thrown away, the doppelganger escapes. In her anger, Lara smashes Natla's glass cage. This flies away, but tells Lara where they will meet again, since she too wants to go to Avalon.
In the Arctic Ocean, Lara dives into huge ruins, where she meets Natla, who is performing a ritual as a goddess so that Thor lets them in. Then Lara hits a door with the hammer, which opens. At a lake with water that spits out the undead, Lara finds her mother, who has also become an undead, probably because she came into contact with the poison. Natla shows up and tells how Lara's father Richard Croft was murdered by her when he refused to divulge information regarding Avalon. Natla plans to use a machine of the gods to wreak havoc on the world.
With the help of Amanda, who survived and followed them, they can destroy the doppelganger and Natla by both falling into the poisonous undead water. The machine explodes. Lara and Amanda escape via the portal, which is already known from the game Legend, and which leads back to Nepal , where Lara's mother disappeared. Lara wishes her mother peace and leaves the temple in Nepal with Amanda.
Alternative ending
There is an alternative ending, which immediately follows that of Tomb Raider: Underworld . Out in the storm, Amanda tries to kill Lara, she is still not over the past events in the archaeological era. Lara knows no mercy, after all, Amanda killed Alister and tried to do this several times on her. She shoots Amanda in the leg and leaves her in the ice.
Innovations
In addition to revised graphics and a completely reprogrammed game engine , Crystal Dynamics has integrated other new features. Lara can do over 1700 movements, but the operation is even more intuitive than usual. The game worlds (levels) are also more dynamic: Lara can now interact more extensively with her environment. In addition to changing weather conditions, Lara's body can be provided with wounds and dirt depending on the use, which is washed off again by the rain. Lara now also leaves footprints in the area. New fighting techniques are also part of the repertoire. For example, Lara can now aim her weapons at two different targets at the same time. The opponents can be defeated in slow motion with adrenaline. The often criticized AI of the opponents has been improved and killed opponents now remain in the level. Eric Lindstrom, the Creative Director of Crystal Dynamics, explained that in Tomb Raider, the player usually climbs, fights, or solves a puzzle. This should be different with Underworld: All elements are now nested with one another. There is also a usable vehicle again: an all-terrain motorcycle with which it is possible to drive on dirt, snow and ice.
An interesting innovation is the sonar map: This tool shows the player a 3D image of Lara's surroundings by emitting an active sonar ping. This makes it possible to see hidden objects and rooms.
According to various game testers, it takes about ten hours to finish the game.
Add-ons
Under the ashes
From February 24, 2009, the add-on download Unter der Asche will be available exclusively for the Xbox 360 . After Lara's property was devastated by her doppelganger, she found a network of passages and caves under the ruins. The aim is to find a mysterious artifact in the catacombs. This was found by Lara's father on an earlier expedition. It gives control over the undead from Avalon. The doppelganger suddenly appears. She survived. However, since she can be controlled by the artifact, Lara sends her back to Natla to give her hell, as she has probably also returned for the third time. In addition, the new download contains six new outfits.
Lara's shadow
After Under the Ashes , Lara's Shadow is the second smaller sequel to Tomb Raider: Underworld for the Xbox 360, in which instead of Lara Croft you play her much stronger doppelganger. The first goal is to fulfill Natla's wishes. But when she sends the doppelganger to Croft Manor - this is where Under the Ashes and Lara's shadow overlap - Lara sends her back to terrorize Natla. Now it is time to fulfill Lara's wish and apparently finally to bring down Natla.
success
By the end of 2008 around 1.5 million copies of the game had been sold worldwide, 500,000 fewer than expected by publisher Eidos. The loss of income as a result was about £ 20 million. In North America in particular, fewer games were sold than planned, which Eidos attributed to lower purchasing volumes by retailers and unexpectedly sharp price cuts. As a result, Eidos considered revising the look and play of future Tomb Raider games as well as the character Lara Croft in order to make them more interesting for female players, among other things.
Trivia
In the background music, not only motifs from earlier TR games, but also changed and adapted motifs from Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen are regularly used.
Web links
- Official website ( Memento of January 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- Tomb Raider: Underworld at MobyGames (English)
- Entry in Fanwiki WikiRaider
Individual evidence
- ↑ Found the cut (alternate) ending of Underworld . tombraider-game.de. February 1, 2009. Retrieved February 20, 2013.
- ↑ Tomb Raider Chronicles - Nautical Adventures For Lara Croft . Tomb Raider Chronicles. June 7, 2008. Retrieved February 19, 2013.
- ↑ a b Cover story: Tomb Raider 8 . In: Play , January 2008, p. 12.
- ↑ Lara Croft Surfaces from Underworld? . Retrieved February 19, 2013.
- ↑ Tomb Raider: Underworld - Test / Critique / Review . Retrieved February 19, 2013.
- ↑ Tomb Raider Underworld - Under the Ashes . Retrieved February 20, 2013.
- ↑ Tomb Raider - Lara's Shadow: Second Expansion Released . Retrieved February 20, 2013.
- ↑ Eidos CFO Says Lara Croft Overhaul in the Works . Retrieved February 19, 2013.