Tomb Raider goes Barbarian!! Review

Tomb Raider goes Barbarian!!

Everybody and their mother has heard about the exploits of the voluptuous Lara

Croft and her revolutionary game. Tomb Raider, a game

set in the third person perspective, not only packed a wallop in great game

play and graphics, but also proved that even in the realm of video games, ‘sex

sells’ (like we didn’t already know). In fact Tomb Raider not only proved that

sex sells, but it set the precedent for how video game damsels and heroines

would look in a whole slew of games that would attempt to follow in TR’s footsteps,

or G-strings for that matter.And if one formula works, then you’d better bet

your bottle of Vaseline, that formula will be repeated. So goes the case with

Eidos’s new and very anticipated game, Deathtrap Dungeon.

Deathtrap Dungeon is a Tomb Raider style game that takes place in a medieval

fantasy world. You can choose to play as either Chaindog, the chemically enhanced

barbarian or Red Lotus, the latex wearing (I didn’t know they had latex and

zippers back then!) dominatrix, hell bent on capturing the dark side of our

pimple-ridden pubescent fantasies.

Each character comes with the ability to use 13 different weapons ranging

from swords, hammers, muskets, and magic spells. The nice thing about using

the swords and hammers is that there are a variety of attacks ranging from a

slice to a jab that each of the characters can master. Killing your opponents

is a joy if you like heavy blood and gore. Legs, arms and head are all hack-able

and come complete with plenty of blood squirting and dripping off of nearby

walls. Not to mention a realistic hacking sound to accompany your battles as

you travel along on your merry way.

Your character even takes on a bloodied and beaten look as you take on more

and more hits. There’s nothing like a bloodied and beaten look to appeal to

our own individual masochistic sides.

The movement controls though are pretty standard. You basically have the same

moves as Lara Croft in TR 1, run, jump, and climb, slow walk etc. The graphics

and the floating camera angles are great, although sometimes they can be confusing.

There wasn’t really any camera blocking like there was in TR 1 when the floating

camera would get obstructed from view and you couldn’t see where you were going.

The in-game graphics make great use of the light and shadows features becoming

standard on 3D acceleration cards, and there are dazzling light shows whenever

a spell was cast, or some energy bolt was discharged. The character and monster

graphics could have been a little more rounded and less angular, giving them

a more realistic look. After all, in this age of 3D acceleration, realism rules!!

With so many other games like Quake II, Unreal,

and the upcoming Half-Life and SiN using more polygons to create

less angular characters, Deathtrap Dungeon fell just a tad short of having jaw-dropping

graphics.

The game play is also very much like Tomb Raider, in that you’re running around

in a maze-like dungeon environment where you’re looking for the right levers

to pull and keys to open doors and passages to the next level. They do a good

job in producing confusing and challenging mazes and catacombs to explore. There

just happen to be a lot more baddies to hack and kill. Nothing wrong with that,

right!?

There are a great variety of enemies to fight ranging from dark elves, psychotic

clowns, dragons, skeleton warriors, and even exploding pigs (for you animal

lovers). By the way, no farm animals were harmed in the making of this game.

Each enemy can be killed more efficiently depending on the weapon you use. Nothing

really new there.

The music was mediocre to boring. It didn’t really give you the epic feel of

excitement associated with a fantasy game. Then again, which game soundtracks

these days really move you? The sound effects were about on the same mediocre

level as the music.

When I first got a hold of this game, I must admit I had a real sense of excitement

and fever to load it up on my PC and play under the glory of MMX and 2 Voodoo2

cards. After about 10-15 minutes of play though, that excitement quickly died

down. Not to say that Deathtrap Dungeon was a bad game. It is, in fact, a good

game, but it just didn’t seem to ‘WOW!!’ me. It just seemed like Tomb Raider

with more swords.

Who knows, maybe I’m just hard to please, or getting more critical in my old

age. Let me compare it to science fiction films. If we look at Star Wars

(being the best), Battlestar Galactica (good enough, but not enough to

have me playing with my action figures in the bath tub), and Battle Beyond

the Stars (being the worst, which is why many of you may not remember it),

then Deathtrap Dungeon is fighting Cylons along side of Starbuck.