Saturday 27 September 2014

Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation

I'll cut to the chase: This is not a good game. I honestly wanted to like it. It was one of the later games that my sister and I never actually finished, so I was keen to finally get around to it now.

With the exception of an early flashback to Cambodia, the whole of The Last Revelation is set in Egypt, including a trip to some Greek architecture in Alexandria. There are a few new things going on. The theme tune on the main menu, while containing the original melody, has evolved almost beyond recognition at this point. There are a lot of swooping cameras, both on the menu background and at various points in the game.
There is no option to access Lara's mansion on the menu.


The cutscenes in this game are in desperate need of subtitles and the audio quality is appalling. I immediately began to lose my patience with the game during the introductory level in Cambodia.Werner's constant interruptions are very stifling, and the dialogue leaves a lot to be desired. When he's not delaying your progression, he's needlessly chasing boars around.

The decoration of the Egyptian levels is very impressive in places. Some of the levels even rotate; what was once the wall becomes the floor, and so on. That's certainly a very interesting aspect of this game. It does, however, often involve swinging on newly-exposed ropes and climbing on poles, activities which are far more frustrating than they are entertaining.
There are some doors that can be opened by hand, rather than with switches.



There are a lot of dark places, and the flares give off a green tinge, which is both unhelpful and terrifying. My television was at maximum brightness and I still could not see my way around a good portion of this game.
The inventory has changed, and definitely for the worse. Instead of tiers of rings, everything is just in a long, straight line, and it can be a great pain in the ass to navigate to things which have become far apart on that line. You can combine some items together, such as a laser sight with a revolver or crossbow.



The enemies of the game are mostly human, with some mummies here and there. The latter are pretty scary, but their throat noises are quite off-putting. The only way to get rid of them seems to be exploding crossbow arrows.

The most dramatic music of the game seems to be brought out when you're approached by scorpions, and this, along with shooting them, seems to be somewhat of an overreaction. Having said that, Lara is quite in the habit of shooting little bats.

Triggered a cutscene while on fire.
The Jeep-driving segment of the game is very haphazard. The moving clouds above outdoor areas are a nice touch, but they are very pixellated.
You can dip in and out of levels in this game. You may enter and leave one several times before being finished with that area. It's an interesting concept, but it doesn't quite hit the mark for me. There is too much going on with these levels, and it's impossible to get too far without having to resort to a guide. It's not even slightly obvious where you're meant to go, and what you're meant to do with various objects. As mentioned earlier, some doors can just be opened by pushing on them, but you find this out by accident. Monkey swing surfaces can be hard to detect, and you can spend quite some time stuck in an area before you finally notice one.

You also sometimes slide into the beginning of a new level that looks absolutely nothing like the end of the previous one, and this only adds to the confusion.

The worst level for me was City of the Dead, and the motorbike segment was infuriatingly stupid.
I just didn't get along with the formula of this game. It was completely unintuitive, dragged out for far too long, and I'm not sure what the titular "last revelation" actually was, after all that.

This game should not have been such a chore to get through, especially considering it was the last one before Lara's heavily-implied death.



No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...