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City of Villains |
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Domsez Youtube |
w/e 26.07.08 |
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July 25 2008
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Dom Robinson reviews
for PC CD-Rom, Sega Dreamcast and Sony PlaystationDistributed by
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Tomb Raider 4: The Last Revelation is the fourth in the successful series of games from Core Design. This time round, the game starts with Lara at age 16. She's graduated from Wimbledon High School for Girls and is off to study her A-levels at a prominent boarding school. After reading an issue of National Geographic, an article on the respected archeologist Professor Wener Von Croy grabs her attention and his intention to tour across Asia, culminating in a potential new discovery to be made in Cambodia. Anyone who has played either of the previous Tomb Raider games will know what to expect and for those not in the know, check out my reviews of Tomb Raider 2 and Tomb Raider 3 and if you've never heard of Lara Croft, then you're either dead or lying. |
What's New ?
My reviews of the previous games stated the additional moves allowed in those gamea, and what follows is a summary of the new moves for game No.4.
Attacking
Automatic & Manual Lock-on are possibilites, the former allowing Lara to lock-on to a target when her guns are drawn and she'll only change target when you press the Look key. If she loses sight of the enemy, the lock-on will be broken.
The manual option stops her locking-on to a target until you press the Look key in the first place. As far as I know, Lara was always able to lock-on automatically before now, but not manually.
Combining
Tomb Raider 4 is the first in the series which allows you to combine objects, as appropriate, for the purposes of continuing your mission, such as adding a laser-sight to a shotgun.
Climbing
Lara has been able to climb walls for a while now, but poles and ropes are new features to this game. As you'd expect, you have to jump up or onto the pole or rope and hold down the Action key so you don't drop off.
Whilst keeping hold, you can rotate around each of them. Using the Sprint key allows you to swing a rope back and forth and pressing jump will send Lara forth off the rope, while the same key on a pole will make you do a back-flip.
Big and heavy
If it's big and heavy it must be a Crowbar. When in use, she can pry items off walls, or prise open doors.
Hints and Tips
These cheats apply to the PC version only.
Level Skip Code :
Lara must be facing north. Use the compass to verify that she is. Select
"Load Game" and, input H, E, L, P. Now go to the inventory screen.
All weapons, infinite ammo, medipacks :
Lara must be facing north. Use the compass to verify that she is. Enter
the inventory screen and input G, U, N, S. Then exit the inventory screen.
All items :
Lara must be facing north. Use the compass to verify that she is. Enter
the inventory screen and input W, E, A, P O, N, S. Then exit the inventory
screen.
Graphics, Sound and Playability
Once again, the graphics look superb on the PC with the fluidity and movement you'd expect. This time round the game states a requirement of a Pentium 233 and 16Mb RAM, but it works fine on my P200MMX with 128Mb SDRAM, the extra ram making up for the shortfall in processor power. On the Playstation, everything is how you expect - it looks like the PC version but without a 3D graphics card.
On the Dreamcast, the graphics have taken a rather unfair bashing on the internet. Okay, so they're not absolutely astounding as something like Crazy Taxi, but they are as close to a reasonable PC 3Dfx card as they can get and playing on a big-screen TV (32" widescreen in my case) looks great and it saves me having to buy a 3Dfx card with TV-out facility.
However, since things are pretty much the same as the previous games it loses a point for not having made any particular advancement over the first three games. I'll be very interested to see what Core Design can provide for the Playstation 2 when it's released.
The sound effects and music are once again in stereo and crystal clear, but still no different from before.
The playability is one thing that continues to be first rate. The new moves are easy to get to grips with too. The controls allow Lara to move simply around the environment be it simply running, or running along up to a ledge, performing a forward roll and then pressing Action to hold onto the ledge before swinging forward to clear certain items. Sounds like a complicated manoeuvre, but it is possible.
I'm more used to keyboard controls for this sort of game which is why, on the Dreamcast, it's takes a while to get used to the controls on the joypad since it has more buttons than I'm used to. Not everything performs the desired action where I'd like it so I'd like to see a user-definable control system or, something that would be better, an ability to user-define the keys with a Dreamcast keyboard, so I can replicate the PC keys. (I'm presuming this hasn't been implicated as I can't find the option but I don't have the keyboard. I'd buy one in a second if I knew it was possible though).
Overall
At the end of my review for Tomb Raider 3 I said that I'd lay odds on the next Lara adventure needing to be significantly different to stay ahead in the ever-changing games market, but this isn't what we've been given. It's very much more of the same but while at times it makes you stop and think, or take you to a point where you can get no further and you have to put the game down for a while and then go back to it later, in the main it's easier and a more linear experience than the second and third installments.
However, the Tomb Raider series is beginning to behave like the James Bond films, the last two of which are head and shoulders above most films released but rather average compared to what's gone before and with this fourth installment it really needs to try a different tack next time round.
The Real Lara is still being modelled by a real-life woman and this time round it's another Lara, Lara Weller (right).
If you're after some more info on Eidos Interactive's games, you can check out their official Website at www.eidosinteractive.com or the
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GRAPHICS
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ORIGINALITY ENJOYMENT |
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DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
