| Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of darkness | |
| File:TombRaiderTheAngelOfDarkness.jpg | |
| Developer(s) | Core Design |
| Publisher(s) | Eidos Interactive |
| Designer | Richard Flower (lead programmer) |
| Engine | Engine Missing |
| status | Status Missing |
| Release date | June 20, 2003 (EU) August 1, 2003 (NA) |
| Genre | Action-adventure, Third-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Age rating(s) | ESRB: T PEGI: 12+ USK: 12+ |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation 2, Windows, Mac |
| Arcade system | Arcade System Missing |
| Media | CD, DVD |
| Input | Keyboard and mouse, Gamepad |
| Requirements | |
| Credits | Soundtrack | Codes | Walkthrough | |
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness is the sixth game in the Tomb Raider series, and is the sequel to Tomb Raider Chronicles and The Last Revelation. It was developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive. The game was originally released in 2003 for PlayStation 2 and PC, and was the first Tomb Raider title to be released for the PlayStation 2 console. The storyline follows Lara Croft as she attempts to clear her name while she is hunted across Europe, accused of murdering her former mentor Werner Von Croy.
Story
The story begins in Paris, where a serial killer the press have named "The Monstrum" has been terrorizing the city, killing several seemingly unconnected individuals in a brutal, ritualistic fashion. Lara has arrived in Paris to visit her former mentor, Werner von Croy. The visit, however, is not pleasant; Lara blames Werner for abandoning her in Egypt at the conclusion of Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation. Werner begs for her help, complaining that he is being stalked, and asks that she talk to Mademoiselle Carvier, a friend of his and art historian at the Louvre, but Lara admonishes him and gets up to leave. In the next few moments, a blurr of activity occurs, and Lara is knocked unconscious. When she awakes, Werner is dead, and his blood is smeared both on her hands and the walls of the apartment, forming strange symbols. Unsure of what has happened, and of her own guilt or innocence, Lara flees the apartment, and is pursued down the backstreets of Paris by French police. Eventually, Lara makes it to Carvier's apartment, and informs her of Werner's death. A shocked Carvier suspects Lara may be responsible, and telephones the police, but not before carrying out Werner's last wish that Lara should have his field journal. Lara is again forced to make a quick exit, and ends up spending the rest of the night in an abandoned train carriage in a Parisian slum.
Von Croy's journal contains details of his last project; research on a work of art known as the "Obscura painting", apparently located in a medieval chamber beneath the Louvre. The research apparently involves a man known as Bouchard, and Lara resolves to find and question him on Von Croy's final days. Everybody on the streets appears to know Bouchard; a drug dealer who offers Lara "something special" and a straight-talking prostitute called Janice both tell her Bouchard runs an underground criminal network in Paris, and may be difficult to contact. Janice also reveals Carvier may have been murdered by the Monstrum after Lara left her.
Lara is given access to Bouchard's secret underground lair after she retreaves an unknown but apparently valuable item from an abandoned nightclub known as Le Serpent Rouge, formerly run by Bouchard, for a former employee named Pierre (note: Lara may also give the item to Bouchard's bodyguard, which also gives her access to Boucgard's hideout). While returning Pierre's lost item to him at his new job at the Cafe Metro, Lara notices a mysterious stranger sitting in the corner, who later takes off on his motercycle.
Pierre gives Lara the details on access to Bouchard's hideout, located in the tunnels beneath St Aicard's Church. While making her way through the tunnels, Lara happens by a grizzly scene: a deformed, crazed man stapped down to a bed in a locked cell. Bouchard sits alone in his office, and when Lara approaches him demanding he tell her what he wanted with Von Croy, he initially plays innocent, claiming Werner had asked for maps of the Louvre to take "a busload of Japanese tourists to see the Mona Lisa", but Lara is unconvinced. After pressing Bouchard further, he admits Werner had contacted him asking for weapons and details of an archealogical dig going on beneath the Louvre. Deciding to pursue the issue further, Lara asks for the same information and weapons, which Bouchard agrees to provide her if she delivers a set of Czech passports to his associate, the pawnbroker Daniel Rennes. When arriving at the pawnbrokers, Lara is knocked aside by a gruff, tall man on his way out. Inside, it appears Rennes has met the same fate as von Croy, his dead body surrounded by mysterious symbols written in blood. His safe, containing the weapons von Croy had requested, is open, but while collecting them Lara trips an alarm and is forced to leap from the building as it self-destructs. Collapsing by a canal, the stranger from Cafe Metro again appears, flicking a cigarette into the canal before exiting again on his motorcycle.
Now fully armed, Lara takes to the sewer tunnels beneath the Louvre, in an attempt to break in to the archeological dig while the museum is closed. Following the drains, Lara eventually blasts a whole in the wall of the Louvre's ancient foundations, and makes her way through the heavily garded museum. To gain access to the archeological site, Lara needs a security pass from Mlle Carvier's office. Whilst searching for it, Lara discovers more information Carvier had collected for Werner's final project. The painting in question is apparently one of five mythological paintings created by a monk, Brother Obscura, in the 14th century, which when united create something called the "Sanglyph" or "blood sign". The paintings were desired by an ancient black alchemist known as Pieter van Eckhart, head of a mysterious Prague-based organization known as the Cabal. However, a group formed to protect the paintings, called the Lux Veritatus, eventually hid the paintings from Eckhart, including one beneath the Louvre in a heavily guarded chamber. Coded maps to the location of each painting, known as the Obscure Engravings, were also created. Lara also discovers information on a mythical creature known as the Nephilim, the so-called "Angel of Darkness", thought to be a hybrid of humans and angels that once lived in ancient Turkey. The remains of one Nephilim, the "Cubiculum Nephili" or "Sleeper", are believed to still exist.
The Sanglyph
With Carvier's security pass, Lara descends into the archeological dig beneath the Louvre. Beneath the former French palace, Lara discovers a series of magnificently decorated halls and chambers, defended by monstrous (and immortal) swordsman and demons. Lara is forced to scale the walls of the complex's largest hall, the Hall of Seasons, to find a small chamber, guarded by the ghost of Brother Obscura, in which the glowing painting sits. Dodging the angered spirit and removing the painting, the Hall of Seasons begins to flood, and Lara must swim up through the hall to the surface beneath the Louvre. Someone has apparently been tipped off about her adventures beneath the museum, as a team of mercenaries lays siege to the galleries, attempting to "smoke" Lara out using poisonous gasses. Lara makes her way towards the gallery's exit, dodging her enemies as best she can, until she runs into the stranger from Cafe Metro once more. Surprising her from behind, he disarms her (literally and perhaps figuratively) and takes possession of her hard-won painting, using a mysterious flying disc with retractable blades. However, in his own escape from the galleries, he is mysteriously knocked unconscious. Lara picks up one of his strange weapons, a glowing dagger, but before she can recover the painting, is herself knocked out. In her final moments of consciousness, she apparently sees one of the mercenaries morph into Bouchard's doorman.
When she awakens, Lara is surprised to find Boucher standing over her, offering his helping hand. He offers to drive her back to von Croy's apartment, and tells her there has now been a Monstrum killing in Prague, the victim being Czech art dealer Matthias Vasiley. As :ara returns to the scene of von Croy's murder, Bouchard makes a telephone call, telling a colleague to "dispatch The Cleaner". While in von Croy's apartment, Lara is able to recall more of the blurred events; Werver yelled at Lara to get out of the way, as the same man Lara saw leaving Rennes' pawnshop enters. The squirmish is between this man and Werner, and is he who murders Werner, not Lara. Lara must now find this man if she is to clear her own name. However, at this moment, The Cleaner arrives and showers the appartnment with a storm of bullets, sending Lara flying for cover. He has also booby-trapped the building's corridors, but Lara is eventually able to deal with him, leaving him dead at the end of the apartment hall. His phone rings, and Lara answers. It is Bouchard, asking if the girl has been "taken care of". Lara does not give him the answer he was expecting.
The next move for Lara is to head to Prague, where Werner's murderer now appears to be continuing his murder spree. She arrives at the Vasiley crime scene, on a grand Prague square covered in snow, to find the place well guarded by police. A diminuative reporter, Luddick, is watching the building, and fills Lara in on his suspicion that the Cabal may be involved, and that Vasiley may have been murdered when he refused to provide the Cabal with one of the obsura engravings. The Cabal apparently work out of a base in the Strahov complex, and Luddick says he can get her in to the headquarters if she gives him the full story. First, though, Lara attempts to gain access to Vasiley's office, again by breaking through the basement. In the building's cellar, however, Lara fins Boucher chained to the radiator. Questioning him on why he had tried to kill her, Bouchard reveals he works for the Cabal, still headed by the apparently immortal Eckhart, which is seeking to reunite the five Obscura paintings to revive the Cubiciulum Nephili. The Paris painting was number four, and now the Cabal need only retrieve the final painting, locked somewhere beneath Prague in an impenetrable chamber known as the Vault of Trophies. Bouchard was instructed to help Lara obtain the Paris painting, then eliminate her once he had bring the painting to Eckhart. However, now that Lara is still alive, Bouchard is fearful for his life. He believes Eckhart is the monstrum, the man Lara saw murder von Croy, and Bouchard will be his next victim. Lara instructs him to remain there, while she further investigates Vasiley's office. The grand, Jugendstil main hall of Vasiley's library has a mysterious, clock-like pattern on its floor, which Lara discovers is a trapdoor to a secret, underground study. There, Lara finds the obscura engraving. Returning to Bouchard, Lara discovers the Monstrum has already dealt with him, locking his dead body in a cupboard.
Back out on the square, Lara returns to Luddick and asks for his help getting in to the Strahov. In order to penetrate deeper into the Cabal's fortress, Lara shuts down the power-grid, unknowingly releasing a bloodthirsty monster held deep within the complex. Inside the Strahov, Lara discovers a greenhouse populated by strange and deadly plants and bugs, and meets Muller, a Cabal member who mocks Lara and mentions the existence of a Proto-Nephilim, a failed attempt by fellow Cabal member Boaz to recreate the Nephilim without the Sanglyph. Muller disappears before Lara can uncover more, leaving her to continue her journey deeper into the Strahov complex. On her way, Lara spies Eckhart murdering Luddick, and a confrontation between Boaz and Eckhart, in which Boaz admits she did hot destroy the Proto as she had claimed, and it is now on the loose. An enraged Eckhard summarily deals with her by feeding her to one of Muller's mutant bugs.
Lara's journey is cut short when her mysterious stranger again appears, locking Lara in a hydrolic chamber, where he says she will be safe and "out of trouble" while he attempts to track down Eckhart and regain the painting he took from Lara. Lara reminds him that she still possesses his dagger, which he calls a "Periapt Shard", but he claims he will deal with that later. This stranger now heads off further into the Strahov, leaving a frustrated Lara to "cool off". This young man appears to possess superhuman abilities, including the ability of "sight beyond sight". He travels through a sanitarium that forms part of the Strahov, filled with crazed and deformed men now freed from their cells by the power outage. One of the few coherent men in the building reveals he was employed by Boaz as a truck driver, transporting something from Turkey, but upon his return to Prague, in lieu of payment, he was locked up in the Sanitarium by Boaz, like the others, to serve as food for her "pet". Reaching the center of the Strahov, the "maximum containment area", the stranger comes face to face with the "Proto-Nephilum", the monster Lara inadvernantly freed. Using another of his Periapt Shards, he kills the Proto and restores part of the power grid, returning to Lara. She attempts what appears to be an ambush on him, but turns out to be directed towards one of Muller's mutants that was trailing him. The stranger finally introduces himself to Lara - he is Kurtis, an American from Salt Lake City, and part of the Lux Veritatus. Lara agrees to work with him to stop Eckhart from killing more people and reviving the Nephilum, but to this end they need the third and final Periapt Shard (hidden by Eckhart in his lab beneath the Strahov), which together can kill any immortal being, and the final painting from the Vault of Trophies, which must be distroyed.
Lara agrees to retrieve the final painting, and Kurtis informs her the Vault of Trophies is located underwater beneath the Strahov. Lara must swim through the Strahov's Aquatic Research Facility and through several booby-trapped corridors before she arrives at the sunken Vault of Trophies, a grand hall featuring giant statues of King Arthur's knights of the round table. Bringing together the Knights Limoux and Vasiley causes the roof to collapse, revealing a secret medieval library guarded by undead swordsmen. Here sits the final painting, which Lara removes and returns to the surface of the Strahov. Once there, she discovers Eckhart has captured Kurtis, forcing Lara to give up the painting for his release. With the painting in his possession, Eckhart releases the now highly mutated Boaz on Kurtis and Lara. Kurtis vaults Lara to safety, and gives her his two Periapt Shards, telling her he will deal with Boaz, and she must recover the final shard to stop Eckhart. Kurtis defeats Boaz in her giant, spider-like state, only to find this state was a cocoon for her rebirth as a praying mantis like creature with wings and sharp pincers. Just as he thinks he has defeated Boaz once more, she uses her last breath of life to stab him through his torso; he uses his flying blade to behead Boaz, but appears to collapse, dying, on the floor.
Lara, meanwhile, moves through the Strahov's underground tunnels to Eckhart's lab, where he uncovers the well-hidden final Periapt Shade. In a large chamber behind Eckhart's lab, she discovers Eckhart in the process of reviving the Nephilum, having joined the paintings together to form the Sanglyph, a gilded disk. In her final showdown with Eckhart, Lara stabs him with two of the shards, and makes her move to drive the final one into his head when she is stopped by Karel, the up-until-now silent member of the Cabal who stood at Eckhart's side. Surprisingly, Karel drives the shard into Eckart himself, ending Eckhart's immortal life. Turning to Lara, Karel reveals himself to be the last of the nephilum, having used Eckhart and Lara himself to revive the "Sleeper" and save his species from extinction. He shows himself to be a shape-shifter, having become Luddick, Bouchard and even Kurtis himself to aid Lara's quest. Lara's memory of Von Croy's death now appears completely restored, it was Karel, appearing as Eckhart, who had murdered Von Croy, sparing Lara because Von Croy had promised she would be able to retrieve the lost paintings. Although Karel promises Lara eternal life as a reward for her help, she is unable to overlook his casual attitude towards human life, particularly that of her former mentor. Though Karel attempts to stop her, Lara takes the sanglyph and places it directly on the foot of the Sleeper, causing it to overload with the new blood the Sanglyph provides, and evaporate, taking with it Karel.
Physically spent, Lara collapses on the ground of Eckhart's chamber, only to discover Kurtis' mysterious flying weapon lying nearby. She picks it up, and it quivers, its blades springing out and pulling her towards the chambers' exit. Lara smiles and makes her way out.
Gameplay
Much like the Tomb Raider games before it, The Angel of Darkness is a 3rd-person action-adventure-puzzle game that stars Lara Croft. The player controls Lara as she explores thirty-one levels, manoeuvring carefully across traps and solving puzzles to progress. Lara's new moves include a back-flip, a small hop, stealth, army-crawling, rolling out of the crouch position, hand-to-hand combat and the "super-jump" that can be performed whilst sprinting. Unlike other Tomb Raider games, it is sometimes necessary for Lara to acquire a strength upgrade to manage to clear certain jumps. An RPG element was added to the series, with the player choosing what Lara says in conversation, such as polite questions, bribery, or threats. Although this does not affect the main storyline, it does alter the route taken to ultimately reach Lara's goal. For example, she enters the club 'Le Serpent Rouge' differently depending who she talks to, and may be shot by Bouchard by saying the wrong thing. This, however, is mostly the case only at the start of the game (Parisian ghetto); after that, choosing what you say only affects the replies you get when entered in dialogue with another character.
Angel of Darkness is also the first game in the series to feature an additional playable character besides Lara Croft (later DLC for Tomb Raider: Underworld would feature another). Kurtis Trent initially appears to be an antagonist to Lara, but the player assumes control of him late in the game, shortly before he and Lara form an alliance against Eckhardt.
Characters
Locations
Paris, France
- See also: Paris
The foundations of the Louvre Palace
Lara meets with Werner in his Parisian apartment before he is murdered in front of her. Now a prime suspect, Lara lays low in the back alleys, but is forced to also visit a nightclub called Le Serpent Rouge, and the famous Musee du Louvre. Parts of the Louvre are faithfully recreated in the game, most notably the ancient foundations of the mediaval Palais du Louvre, which form part of Lara's entrance into the museum.
Prague, Czech Republic
- See also: Prague
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The Strahov Monastery in Prague
Lara hunts for clues in the apartment of an affluent art dealer, known as Mathias Vasiley, who was recently murdered by The Monstrum. The main location in Prague, the Strahov, is the stronghold of the organization behind The Monstrum killings, the Cabal. The Strahov Fortress is made up of different areas, including a bio-research facility, an underwater research facility, and a mental institution. The real Strahov is a baroque monastery which gives its name to the Strahov distinct of Prague. This monastery bears little resemblance to the game's Strahov visualisation.
Reception
The game received mediocre reception from critics, receiving a 5.3/10 from IGN and a 6.5 from GameSpot, with an overall GameRankings score of 56% for the PS2 version. The Metacritic review site stated that PS2 version of Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness has met with "mixed or average reviews",[1] while the PC version received "generally negative reviews".[2] Reviewers praised the improved graphics, sound and the environments, while they criticized large amount of bugs, control system, combat system, camera, steep system requirements etc.
References
- ↑ Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness (ps2: 2008): Reviews:. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2009-02-21
- ↑ Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness (pc: 2008): Reviews:. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2009-02-21
External links
cs:Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness da:Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness fa:توم ریدر: فرشته تاریکی fr:Tomb Raider : l'Ange des ténèbres nl:Tomb Raider: The Angel Of Darkness pt:Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness ro:Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness sv:Tomb Raider: The Angel Of Darkness tr:Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness ur:ٹومب رایڈر فرشتۂ ظلمات zh:盜墓者：黑暗天使