***This review will contain SPOILERS***

Following its debut in the nineties, The Tomb Raider series has been moderately successful with its faithful fans. There was the first three for the PS1, and then it jumped platforms to the PS2 with Angel of Darkness and later, Legend and Anniversary. Now on the 360, I had high hopes for this new Tomb Raider.

So, Lara Croft, the busty archaeologist heroine continues to plunder valuable undiscovered tombs even today.

It began rather dramatically with Lara in a burning house. The objective was to escape somehow. Along the way I noticed it wasn’t just a random building, it was Lara’s mansion. Maybe it was the butlers fault, with all his horrendous farting?
She has a confrontation with some friends, and then I was taken back to events one week earlier. I wasn’t too bothered about the mystery; I knew I’d be filled in later.

Someone once said that a good beginning often led to a good end. Unfortunately, I’m going to start with a continuity error and see how it goes from there. Like I said before, Tomb Raiding is a dirty job, and now Lara really does get dirty. I noticed, however, that she is dirty one moment, the cut scene occurred, and when it was over she was fresh as a daisy.
I was really impressed by the graphics. Everything looked great. And I mean everything. Maybe not Lara’s face, but there’s no helping that. The water looked totally realistic. And Lara? Wow, not a square part on her entire lithe body. It really is too bad about her face.
Movement in the water, I thought, was actually really jerky whilst she was swimming down. But otherwise was fluid and easy.
The area outside the ruin looked extensive but I wasn’t able to wander far. And collectively, with the rest of the level, exploring felt really restrictive.

A few puzzles later, she retrieved Thor’s gauntlet. Then some mercs ambushed Lara, knocked her out, and stole her new accessory. When she came to, they were blowing up her only way out. Luckily, they left her unharmed, with all her weapons and ammo. It seemed like such a Disney Villain thing to do though.
“Let’s NOT kill Lara, take her valuable information, leave her in there so that she MIGHT escape and she will MAYBE, interfere with our dastardly plot later.”
I must point out here that I hate the combat parts they’ve added. I especially hate shooting guns in third person, even with an automatic targeting button. It’s just so annoying. But it felt like I was playing a First-Person Shooter, which I wasn’t happy about. At. All.
I play games like Tomb Raider in the hopes of getting a break from shooting the hell out of stuff. Now it’s everywhere. It’s like they’ve said;
“It won’t be good unless Lara has to shoot a bunch of guys.”
So, after some senseless murder, Lara was reunited with Natla, who conveniently told Lara exactly where to go next.

The game has only six main levels and two short ones, which is pretty lame. Remember the old Tomb Raiders where it took forever to complete them? Underworld is anything but. I did it on the master survivalist mode and still did it in one day, so even on its hardest mode it was still ridiculously easy. Maybe it should be called Tomb Raider: Overrated. But at least the butler has a name and some lines instead of wandering around like a farting zombie.

I was also disappointed with the controls. Now, I know they tried very hard to give Lara a larger repertoire of moves, but I found it frustrating most of the time. It was like trying to do origami with oven mitts on. She kept getting stuck against walls and in debris, jerking like mad. Once, she even jumped clean through a wall and died. Even when she was standing in front of a ledge she would miss by miles or inches. I’m not sure which is worse. Whilst she was standing on beams her movements were really stiff, often making the following jump quite awkward. And the camera angles were little help. During climbing they always got too close, and I couldn’t be sure where I was supposed to jump next. It was even worse on the motorbike. The camera kept panning back behind her, so it was near impossible to look around for any amount of time.

So I finished the game unsatisfied. If you want something challenging, then I do not recommend Tomb Raider: Underworld. However, if you want to get easy gamer score then it is perfect. But be warned; this game will cause you to get a sore forehead. From all the face-palming.