Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Action Adventure

When Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness was released in 2003, it was critically mauled by the majority of reviewers and a number of Tomb Raider fans. Bright Things along with Little World and Eidos return to The Angel of Darkness' world of murder, mystery and raiding in a new format for the Tomb Raider series: the interactive DVD. Before I get into the review, if you do buy this, you must always remember that is exactly what it is - an interactive DVD. Contrary to popular belief, this is not a video game and is not to be treated like one.

Most interactive DVDs are quizzes based on sports or TV or are versions of quiz shows like Who Wants to be a Millionaire?. Using your DVD remote control you select an answer to the question given. Fortunately for Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Action Adventure it manages to get outside the box and create an innovative new type of interactive DVD. Using the Up, Down, Left, Right and Select/Enter/OK buttons of your DVD remote control, you choose what you want Lara to do next. Depending on what option you choose you may have more options of what to do next. So if you choose the "Look" option at a point, you may discover a new area or in a rare case get Lara killed. However if you had chosen to let Lara "climb" you may have missed out on this new area and missed out on any bonus points. You could basically see this as answering the questions and moving on to the next question if you get the previous one correct.

The real innovations for interactive DVDs come next. In some parts of the game you must remember a specific combination it gives you. With about one to three seconds to memorize these combinations you must push the buttons next, within a time limit, to proceed or die. They do actually get the adrenaline going with frantic button mashing. Next are the "pushing specific button to build up meter to pass area" sections. Usually involving either the Up or Down buttons you must press them enough times to build up a meter in the top right corner (hence the title). In some of these sections you will also have a time limit. The final innovation, and the one that appears most frequently bar the choosing options, is the button combinations that appear on screen which you have to press to move on. These are basically the memorizing sequences without the memorizing and of course, like the other two, occasionally appear with a time limit.

The game condenses Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness into twenty levels. Starting out in Paris and eventually finishing under Prague's Strahov Fortress to meet the game's antagonist (and thus the interactive DVD's antagonist). Because the game has been condensed into twenty levels, some areas have been edited to a much smaller size or cut out completely, most notably The Tomb of Ancients, Café Metro, The Sanitarium and Maximum Containment Area. The interactive DVD has cleverly edited out most of these areas so that the story still makes sense. The only place where the edit does take a bit of a slide is with Kurtis' missing levels and the cutscene following which has also been edited oddly with dialogue cut out that makes Lara's and Kurtis' new relationship feel forced and tacked on.

The interactive DVD can be played by yourself or with a friend (or even with multiple people split into two teams) and be picked up where you left off with the pass code feature. Playing by yourself is basic. Do what you want, if you die, you get reset to a checkpoint within your level or the start of it depending on how far you've gotten. In two team mode, it's slightly different. One team will take a turn to complete a level, if they complete, the remote is passed to the second team to complete the next level and then passed back to team one and this continues until it is complete. However, if a team dies within a level, the remote is handed to the next team to complete the level and any points gained by the team that died are lost.

For players of Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, a familiar voice has returned for this interactive DVD. Ex-Lara voice actress Jonell Elliott has returned once again to voice Lara and to guide us through the training and story. Jonell as Lara tells us what is happening, why she is doing some things, and what to do at times. Due to some of the cuts, this was a useful addition to the interactive DVD and a nice touch for fans of Jonell. Unfortunately, no other voice actor from The Angel of Darkness returns.

You'll know what to do if you've played Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness and you'll be able to enjoy the story without any bugs or glitches that may have hindered your play through of the video game version. It's fun, it's slightly challenging at times and can be played through with friends and family. It breathes fresh air into a format which was always doing the same thing (i.e. quizzes) and it can be picked up cheaply. Overall it's a very enjoyable experience that even my own mum enjoyed it and let's just say, she does not enjoy the video games!

superb

Nice one LM! Thanks for the effort! good review!

Have to agree! well done Lara man - a great review. May just have to buy this now, just for the experience.