Review: Tomb Raider: Underworld for N-Gage
October 9, 2009 by Chapree
Chances are, you have met Lady Lara Croft before. We mean, come on, who doesn’t? She is simply one of the most well known video games character around, a proof of Tomb Raider franchise’ fame. We haven’t even mentioned the movie version yet that features Angelina Jolie-cious…ok, you get drift.
But for later iterations of the series, our female adventurer has started to show her age, in both game and storyline quality. However, the most recent release, Tomb Raider: Underworld is meant to reignite the flame that the series once had and actually managed to do so for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 version of the game.
Did Eidos managed to pass the torch to Tomb Raider: Underworld for N-Gage? Find out after the jump.
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Tomb Raider: Underworld brings Lady Lara Croft all over the world once again, from Mediterranean Sea to the Arctic in a search for her mother. Along the way, the usual collection of puzzles, traps, mind blowing mazes and trails, wall to wall jumping and also living corpses combat, are waiting for her to conquer. You know, the standard Tomb Raider experience. That should make any Tomb Raider fans feel at home at an instant.
But if you are expecting that this N-Gage version to be on par with it’s PC, PS3 and X360 sibling, we are sorry to say that it would not meet your expectations. First and foremost, although the game is presented in full blown 3D, it felt like a 2D platformer game since there are only two way to move: forward and backward.
No right and left, fully mono trail. You can however switch to first person view and look around in 360-degrees, useful when you having trouble looking at an obstacle in the default third person view. That also give you a chance to enjoy the game’s visual, which fared pretty well for a mobile game. The game’s animation are pretty smooth with Lady Croft able to move across the screen very fluidly.
Secondly, the challenges are fairly easy, even for non-adventure gamer like yours truly. Unlike its PC and console cousins which are really-really challenging at times, the N-Gage version challenges looked the same throughout the game. Given its mobile nature, we actually welcome the move since there are only so much thing you can do on a mobile phone. There are also no multiplayer mode but that is pretty understandable too since we knew that Lady Lara Croft rolls alone most of the time.
To conclude, Tomb Raider: Underworld is an enjoyable game despite its shortcomings, especially the restricting single trail movement and a rather linear challenges. It is quite nice time killer especially if you are one of those long time Lara Croft’s fan. However, is the RM23 price tag justifiable? All we can say is try the demo. You will know in an instance whether the price tag is worth it or not.
Tested on Nokia N-Gage N81 8GB, screenshots are actual gameplay on the said device. Tomb Raider: Underworld for N-Gage is available for RM 23 from N-Gage official website.
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Chapree
