A couple of things that impressed me with this title right off the bat. The character model for Lara looks really good, and not necessarily in the obvious way, but in the sense that it carries over the design of the original with enough of an updated look to make it right at home in the incredibly beautiful environments she gets to play around in. The second thing that impressed me was the actual level design. It doesn't really hit you until you reach the Thailand stage, but damn if it isn't one of the more beautiful looking locations I've seen in adventure game for quite some time, and that's including something like Uncharted which I loved as well.

Along with the locations, the actual platforming is spot on. The game doesn't really hold your hand very often, there's a lot of trial and error in the beginning, and while you start to figure out what to look for about halfway thru, the challenge is incredibly consistent throughout. Every so often it will toss a new mechanic your way, usually in the form of the stuff Lara is searching for, but those mechanics never take over the core gameplay, and they're usually gone before the stage ends. The only instance where I didn't care for the change was in Mexico, where you're driving around on a motorcycle back and forth between different ruins, and while the bike controlled well enough, it was just a way of stretching out the level into something longer than it needed to be. Outside of this (and the combat), everything the game tosses at you works extremely well.

More on the combat, to be honest, I could have done without it completely. It's not something that takes center stage outside of a few areas (that beginning boat fight in particular), but when you do have to shoot it out with local creatures or other humans, it's generally a drag. When fighting against other humans, it's pretty difficult to avoid getting hit, since Lara is given a limited amount of defensive moves. You can roll around a bit, which will generally avoid fire, but as soon as you stand up you'll probably get shot a time or two. Locking on and switching back and forth between targets works well enough, but enemies seem to have a ridiculous amount of health, unless you're using the adrenaline fueled slow down effect, and even then it takes too long to kill things, especially in a group. There's a one hit kill you can pull off if your adrenaline is full, but it completely wipes out the gauge once you use it, so you're typically only going to be able to kill one enemy out of however many you're facing off against. The only thing that's a little bit fun from the combat side is the sticky grenades you can toss onto enemies, but you're only given a limited number to use so they're not always completely viable in a fight.

Outside of combat though, my issues with the game are minimal at best. Since there's a limited amount of handholding that goes on here, it can be difficult to figure out where you're going on occasion. Once you start to get used to seeing handholds and platforms within the environment though, this problem becomes pretty moot. It's a bit hard in the beginning if you don't know what to look for, but by the time the game ends it becomes really rewarding to figure things out on your own. On occasion the camera won't always center how you want it, and it does require a bit more manipulation than you might want, but it rarely caused me to fall or miss a jump, at least not enough for me to really complain about it. The controls feel spot on to me, and while the game does cheat a bit for certain jumps (auto centers for small pedestal's and what not), jumping and leaping from platforms to handhelds to walls all feel really natural within the game.

Story wise I pretty much have little clue what's going on outside of the main plot. There's some secondary characters used here from the previous games, and while there is a handy little mode that will catch you up on Lara's adventures up to this point, if you just jump in you might be wondering who the chick with the wings is, and what the deal is with Lara's parents and so on. It's not super plot heavy, but there's enough of it there to confuse newcomers I'm sure, especially if your previous experience was solely from the PS1 era titles. However, the story took a backseat to the gameplay for me, so in the end I wasn't too wrapped up in the events, and was more focused on what was coming next.

That said things seem to drop off pretty quick at the end, both in gameplay and plot. I'm guessing there's some DLC down the line for this title, simply because the end is pretty abrupt in my opinion. I don't think those of you that enjoy the plot will find it entirely satisfying, so if you're mostly story driven with your Tomb Raider games, then it can come off as a disappointment. However, in reality that shouldn't hinder your actual gameplay experience, and when it comes to platforming Tomb Raider: Underworld really excels at it.

So while it's got enough faults to keep it from being a GOTY contender for most, it's still the best Tomb Raider title I've ever played, and I'm really curious to see what's next for the franchise once again. Definitely pick this one up; even if you've been turned off by the series in the past from some shoddy sequels, I think a lot of people will be surprised by this one.