TSSZ @ Eurogamer Expo: Final Roundup, Part 1

Last week TSSZ News attended the Eurogamer Expo where one of our reporters (me) got to play on a number of games before release. Days after the event demos of some of the games that were previewed appeared on the PlayStation Network and X-Box Live. Now you may have had a chance to play some of the games without driving three hours to and from London so please leave a comment if you agree or disagree with the opinions here.

So as these updates were beaten by demos the following is a  two part blowout of the rest of the games worth anything at the Eurogamer Expo. Happy reading!

Tomb Raider Underworld

Oh dear. Poor Lara Croft is starting to show her age a bit now. Once the most recognisable female characters of the late 90’s Lara has had a mini ‘Sonic’ moment in so far as that her games got progressively worse until the lowest point they could go (Angel of Darkness, I’m looking at you!).

Ripped from the arms of her creators at Core, Lara was handed to Crystal Dynamics who actually managed to drag the Tomb Raider series kicking and screaming onto Next Gen consoles. Tomb Raider: Legend wasn’t a bad game but it failed to set the world on fire. Underworld is arguably more of the same.

Maybe it was because I’d just played the new Prince of Persia but in Tomb Raider: Underworld I found Lara a chore to control. Sluggish and unresponsive to even some of the more forceful analogue stick motions it was hard to get her to jump off her private boat and swim towards land in the right direction. Things only got worse when trying to climb. The game offers no clue as to where you’re actually supposed to go so you are left looking for ledges, nooks, crannies and other things to grab hold of. Unfortunately it’s really hard to spot whats scenery and whats a viable route forwards. Several times in the demo despite having figured out the way forwards Lara fell back into the sea after jumping the wrong way, not jumping far enough or maybe she was just being vindictive.

The graphics were admittedly quite pretty. The scenery in particularly had been given a lot of love. Unfortunately the shading cast over Lara in the first cut-scene looks ugly. This was something that effected Legend but really by now it should have been fixed. Thick, blocky and just basically ugly it was rather distracting. This is a shame because physically Lara is looking better than ever.

Mirror’s Edge

The build available at the expo would have been much better if it had been the Demo available for download right now. On a busy show floor with no explanation of the controls the very first jump between buildings in the game could have potentially been many peoples last. So frustrating was the lack of a tutorial the sight of main character Faith watching skyscraper windows fly upwards past her was common. The sickening thud as she hit the floor coming from several demo stations at once. A look over the options screen wasn’t much help, the button for jumping (L1 actually) wasn’t labelled ‘Jump’ but rather ‘up’ as it deals with jumping, grabbing ledges, wall running and many other context sensitive moves.
Once this concept has been learnt however and the fact that L2 is the ‘down’ button responsible for sliding, crouching and rolling when landing from a jump things become considerably easier. As you run aroud the rooftops of a near futuristic city you learn to look for objects highlighted in red to either jump off or slide under. All of the action is handled in first person which isn’t actually as confusing as it sounds as for the most part it’s pretty easy to see where to go. The hard part is going to be deprogramming some players not to take on enemies head on.

Once the bad guys appear it’s be a good time to run away. That’s right, just because the game is in the first person it doesn’t mean you should find a gun and start blasting away. Thats a good way to get yourself dead. Instead you need to find a way to escape your attackers as swiftly as possible. Should you come face to face with someone intent on filling you full of hot lead you can punch, sliding kick, flying kick or even disarm them. If this someone has a friend you’re still dead as any sort of attacks are only effective in one on one encounters.
In motion everything looks fantastic. Cool clean lines and the ‘runner vision’ showing important objects in red give the game a very distinct style. Just don’t stop to look at things close up as textures can look a bit grubby. One part of the demo also changes from follow red to follow blue, with no warning. While not hard to figure out if other more complicated sections of the game pull the same trick this could prove very confusing.