Tomb Raider: Underworld Comments by Ellie Gibson

Just do away with the score or have some "good/mediocre/bad" rating, since there is so much whine about the individual score every time. As it is now it would do with just a score and a heading since that's what will get everyones attention anyway.

From the review:
"Many of the locations are stunning, and so's Lara."

So as well as playing the game Ellie also flicked herself off to it. And it still only got a 7?

"So as well as playing the game Ellie also flicked herself off to it. And it still only got a 7? "
A bit uncalled for isn't that? I don't agree with the review, but it hardly seems necessary to stoop to that level.

I loved the demo so i might get eventually. Too many games to bother with this right now.

good review ellie :-)

7 seems a little harsh, I thought the demo was beautiful with some nice puzzles, however, the combat is still ABSOLUTELY FUCKING AWFUL *ahem*

I'll probably pick this up after Christmas, I really do wish they'd just ditch the crappy combat though.

Leave Ellie alone you FUCK PIGS!!!!!

To be fair to Ellie, I think that's a perfectly good review for the game.

Having played the demo I did very much enjoy it but it does have a lot of stupid things still very much part of it. The whole "go where you want but only where we let you" thing is pretty glaring once you notice it and for all the improved motion capture and glittery water you can't get past the fact that it should have conquered some of it's worst series traits by now.

Partly great, partly terrible - dragged down to average from very good - and a 7 seems pretty fair for that.

I often think some of you guys read the score first and then read the review, thus colouring her words with your own thoughts.

Poorly written review I think. the comments made don't match the score.

Don't know why the review is getting so much stick - she clearly likes Tomb Raider games, but this was a disappointment, it wasn't really that hard to understand.

"Don't know why the review is getting so much stick - she clearly likes Tomb Raider games, but this was a disappointment, it wasn't really that hard to understand."
Because the review is comparing the game to some phantom known as the 'the real next-gen'. If it's an evolution of the last game and better than it, why is that a problem? Nobody said this game was going to be revolutionary or anything, so why does Ellie expect to be able to go anywhere. It's the same kind of shit that Drake had to put up with too and frankly it's ridiculous. Not every game needs to be free-roaming and directionless to be good. I agree the combat is still poo and that brings it down a mark, if the jumping is still as glitchy as the demo that should be another mark down - but marking it down because it's not what you dreamed it would be seems hardly fair.

One or two sexist remarks too many in the review. Being a woman doesn't give you that right ;)

Bit confused by this, you spend most of the review slating the game and then give it a highly respectable 7/10 when I was expecting a 5 or 6 tops.

All hail Ellie! Queen of the videogame review! This is one of your best yet. Thanks for this Ellie

Error alert! Ellie was mistaken to suggest you can't change weapons mid-level. You can, and the review has been amended to reflect that. Apologies for the error.

Might as well apologize for the entire review.

That could be the most bi-polar review I've ever read.

Thanks Ellie, informative and entertaining as always. Although I'm surprised you felt the need to censor the word "bitch" but left "big-titted" out there for the whole world to see, so to speak. ;)

And for all the "doesn't read like a 7/10, reads more like a X/10" people: huh?

How can you read a review, decide a number based on your interpretation of their interpretation of the game experience and then be surprised that your scores don't match? Do you count the number of positive and negative things and try to figure it out that way?

So, Ellie said fifteen good things and twelve bad things so it should be 15 / (15 + 12) * 10 = 5.555 repeating, we'll call it six.
Seven, what the hell? What treachery is this?
I won't rest until I've posted vague murmurings about it not sounding like a seven on the comments thread, how dare Ellie give a score in violation of my scoring system!

The score seems about right to me, but then again, I've read the scoring guide: "A seven suggests [that if] you're into the idea of the game you should still try and check it out - you might like it more than you think, or be able to forgive its less than brilliant visuals. Or maybe it looks good, but the camera issues were just unforgiving, or maybe the AI wasn't up to much."

http://www.eurogamer.net/scoring_policy.php

i want more objectivity, i feel this is just one wobbly vault the side of subjective. can we have a review now to replace the opinion.

quote khatmandog: i want more objectivity, i feel this is just one wobbly vault the side of subjective.

how about not quoting your feelings if you're looking for someone else to display objectivity? hello? mcfly?

This review is right on the money. The game (demo) I played was full of Lara magic but also stuffed with basic gameplay nastiness and camera grief. My wife and I were having a conversation just like the first paragraph of the review too. And it was the same conversation we had 8(?) years ago. The only thing I would say is that the shooting of animals is not pulled up on enough here. It just feels wrong to me to be shooting Tigers, even if it is a tranq gun. 7/10 seems fair. Thanks for the review

Load of nonsense in the comments.

Don't like the style of the review? Disagree with the score? Think the score doesn't tie up with the writing?

Write your own review, stick a score on the end and then read it back to yourself over and over again instead of complaining. You'll feel better.

I think any game that manages to be "beautiful, exciting, challenging, rewarding and absorbing" and makes you "feel truly alone and free to explore the huge, expansive environment laid out before you", at least some of the time, deserves a fairer review than this.

That you can't climb all the rocks, that enemies don't take cover, that you can't do that or go there.. really which game (however 'nextgen') can stand such a negative approach? I mean Gears of War 2 characters can't even jump. Gears of War 2 physics totally suck in a world of Havok powered games. But Gears of War 2 got a deserved 9 because it was judged on the strength of what it actually does, and not of what it doesn't do and mostly doesn't need to. Because jumping, exploration and physics based puzzles are not very important to Gears 2 just as combat is not a very important part of Tomb Raider.

Edit: seen this little bit of wisdom at the end of IGN UK's Tomb Raider Underworld review by Laurence Warder, and how very appropiate to quote it here: "Scores are awarded for what a game is though, not what it isn’t". Apparently not as obvious as it seems..

And Ellis, very funny start aside, you don't manage to get the point across of just what is different between the moments "where you're left marvelling at the level designer's fiendish intellect" and the moments in which "There's not enough variation and ingenuity". is it a matter of finding too many unclimbable rocks? too many tarantulas following the same trajectory? or were you sometimes not in the mood for this kind of game?

Being objective is as much a part of being a games journalist as being funny. Consider this the next time you decide to be an averagely-titted b**** with a game for no good reason..

I guess what it ultimately boils down to is, few if any of us readers have played the game in full, while the reviewer presumably has. Maybe by the time I finish it I'll think it's 7 (or less) as well.

I don't really follow w/ the comments that the demo was bad though. I can only imagine if you feel that way that you didn't like Legend or Anniversary either. It pretty much struck me as more of the same, with improved animation and incredible environments - ie. an improvement on a formula I already liked.

Combat always has been dull, and occasional control inconsistencies have always been infuriating. But improvement is improvement, "next gen" or otherwise.

Thought the game demo was pretty dam good - fluid, nice animation, the graphics, large areas to explore, subtle sound effects. The camera is fine if you use the left stick to control Lara, and the right separately to look around the environment. If the sticks are used together the camera does have problems to follow Lara in some areas.

If people are complaining about the fighting system - it's fine for the game - your able to duck, jump over walls, round around, run & shoot, slow down time, hang of cliffs..etc all while shooting. Generally anything it's fine for this sort of game with nothing to over the top, & with enough control over Lara...it's probably the best from any previous Tomb Raider games.

From the demo the game looks better, has much larger areas, better puzzles, alot less liner, alot more going on onscreen with subtle animation, seems more fun then Uncharted (which is fairly liner & less exploring/puzzles/adventure involved ).

Tomb Raider games always give me that feeling that I ought to be doing something else with my time anyway.

"Tomb Raider games always give me that feeling that I ought to be doing something else with my time anyway."

You should be - but not something else instead, something else in addition to. I play TR Legend and Anniversary while I'm on a bicycle trainer pedaling away. Few games are paced properly that you can do both at the same time - finicky shooters for instance, no way - but I can actually blast through a workout and enjoy it thanks to TR! :)

Damn, who would be a female videogame journalist. Guess you gotta have thick skin.

I'll be buying this on PC at some point; it looks gorgeous and if it's half as good as anniversary I'm happy. Traditional gameplay mechanics FTW!

Playing though the third level at the moment. It's certainly the best next gen Tomb Raider by far.

November 1998? That was the deadly dull Tomb Raider III and by that time, many of us were already sick of the same tired old mutton-dressed-as-lamb engine behind the game.

Next time you need a review of a long-standing franchise EG, try picking someone old enough to remember the original game.

I was positively surprised by the demo - but after a while you notice the same problems with all TR games - the camera is not always optimal and with the more realistic looking and bigger locations this can lead to frustration.

Still 7/10 is good enough for a TR game to get it - I'm pretty sure to pick it up over the holidays.

http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/11/21...

Bloody PR people....

Excellent review. Made me laugh quite a few times.

Sounds like any other Tomb Raider game in general.

@angerisagift
"http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/11/21...

Bloody PR people...."

Wow. Fight the powah, EG! :)

@ ctrl - k
Don't you want more from the reviews you read than opinion? Especially when the market is glut with quality products.
Objectivity is not expected in the comments pages of reviews, but it should be foremost in the considerations of the
professional journalist.
By calling me Mcfly aren't you conceding the part of Biff to yourself? Whoops!

cool another game i don't to buy in this packed holiday season.

and what's this i hear about eidos trying to stop low scoring reviews of this game from coming out?

I'm not sure what people's problem is with Ellie's review. She's clearly listed the things that disappointed her, and the score matches the written content perfectly, looking at Eurogamer's scoring policy.

Ellie felt disappointed that the game wasn't the top notch title she was expecting, and clearly several other reviewers felt the same, given the Eidos felt the need to ask sites not to publish 'Not as good as Halo' reviews. Hardly Eurogamer's most controversial moment, is it?

i think the reviewer has a chip on her shoulder.

Can any EG staff confirm whether Eidos' embargo agreement really included a "you can post it early if it is 8/10 or higher" clause?

It's so sad that after 10 ten years, Eidos are still a 1 hit wonder publisher. Relying a bird with big jugs doing the same thing as she's done for the last 10 years, with prettier graphics to prop up the entire company.

Brave move by EG to give this gaming-by-numbers tripe a 7 when they're obviously getting some heavy advert revenue from Eidos.. It probably deserves less for it's lack of originality.

Beware of other reviews.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.a...

The lack of reading comprehension amongst gamers is really utterly shocking. How can people not understand this review? Frustrating.

this game blows, more like a 4/10.

its self shadows make me want to puke but at least they are not dithered junk like gears2.

tbh there's nothing wrong with saying the reviewer goes a bit meow in the review, read the text

How can you read a review, decide a number based on your interpretation of their interpretation of the game experience and then be surprised that your scores don't match? Do you count the number of positive and negative things and try to figure it out that way?

So, Ellie said fifteen good things and twelve bad things so it should be 15 / (15 + 12) * 10 = 5.555 repeating, we'll call it six.
Seven, what the hell? What treachery is this?
I won't rest until I've posted vague murmurings about it not sounding like a seven on the comments thread, how dare Ellie give a score in violation of my scoring system!

++1 @sneetch

this game blows, more like a 4/10.
its self shadows make me want to puke but at least they are not dithered junk like gears2.

@zappa

Oh yea, right, when a game character's self shadows suck that means the whole game sucks, ie...4/10

/sarcasm off

Edited 1 times, most recently on 22/11/08 @ 22:12

well...the score isn't really that important, the text is just a bit catty, couple of mentions of the term bitch etc etc...i'm not saying that's wrong, there's just some serious disconnect between most of the review and the end paragraph, and it's a bit of a shock to find it all turn out positive...i was expecting to reach the end and find out all these problems and lara being a slag were going to have more of an effect on the final surmation...if you care to read through the article again i'm not coming from way out of leftfield here, and not suggesting that the reviewer is in some way bad, just not the kind of review you see very often, and i'm sure lots of ye like that....makes a change that's for sure

Oh no it's Ass Creed all over again!!! :(

Not especially interested in Tomb Raider in general; never was either, as I was playing PC games while the PS1 was shunting low-res pixels around TV monitors. But this is the first time I've ever been tempted to even try a demo for the franchise, so I'll see what I think. I did like that last Indiana Jones game, Emperor's Tomb I think it was called, and I figure that this series is similar stuff.

As for the comments here, if nothing else at least now I can vaguely understand why so many computer gamers never have girlfriends.

A heartfelt Congratulations to Eurogamer for standing up forreviewer integrity, and telling that PR company/Eidos to go fuck themselves.

Heh, I get the feeling there are more than a few "Commenters" here, from the PR company.

It's cool EG if you don't get any more review copies for Eidos games, they all suck balls anyway.

brilliant review, very entertaining and pretty much sums up what I was expecting based on my impressions of the demo. I now know this game isn't really for me.