DLC for Tomb Raider: Underworld
Lara's Shadow is an exclusive chapter of Tomb Raider Underworld for Xbox 360. Lara's Shadow allows the player to control Lara's deadly facsimile, the Lara's Doppelgänger in a mission to put an end to the Croft lineage once and for all.
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The second of the two 360-only DLCs, this one expands on Lara's doppelganger. In the base game, she was a cool idea that could serve as a morbid foil and reflection of the heroine's goals and ambition, created by Natla to be used for her agenda. Sadly, she never really got to do much of anything, only ever appearing and doing something three times before being thrown off a ledge by Amanda near the end. Much like last time, I emulated this with a premade Xenia Canary file someone on YouTube made, and once again I am not too sure if saying more than that will have the admins get on my ass.
It's here where the story of the add-on continues, though the package itself is more of the same from Beneath The Ashes. Granted, there's some neat ideas and deviations at play. I won't moan about the combat again, but I'll at least bite my tongue and say it's a little more tolerable here, due to the fact you can do a three-hit punch then kick combo twice to clear basic Thralls, and the Yeti-like ones taking a smidge more meat and loop to defeat. You can also speed it up by utilizing Shadow Power, which is basically Adrenaline Time except you have free reign on when and where to use it. During this, DoppeLara speeds up tremendously, granting the ability to climb cracked walls and bypass obstacles that're too fast to do normally, do a souped-up punch or slam move to deal more damage to enemies, as well as the bullets from the pistols being more potent as well. It leans a wee bit too hard on the context sensitive moments, nearly boiling down to "press Button here to clear that", but at least some of the obstacles are rather creative.
Other than that, I really don't have much to say. I was more or less on auto-pilot the whole time cause again, it's just more of the same. It also doesn't help this whole DLC takes place in the depths of Helheim and later, Natla's personal base of operations... which has the same aesthetics and layout, meaning the tedium and skewered pacing from BtA are amplified here. Not helping is how you go through this area twice, once to have her recuperate from her failure, and then again after Lara frees DoppeLara from the control and grants her legitimate free will to do whatever. I'll admit, it was kind of cool to see some lingering themes and ideas from the story get elaborated upon, but regardless of that and disregarding potential burnout since I doubt it'd be that influential to my feeling here, I don't find this enthralling enough to spend 10USD on, maybe even more if you don't have the PC specs to emulate it well or if you don't have a 360/Xbone/Series XS, unless you're craving for more TRU action. It's fun, but easily my least favorite of the two level packs, and one of the more mundane experiences thus far in the marathon.
It's here where the story of the add-on continues, though the package itself is more of the same from Beneath The Ashes. Granted, there's some neat ideas and deviations at play. I won't moan about the combat again, but I'll at least bite my tongue and say it's a little more tolerable here, due to the fact you can do a three-hit punch then kick combo twice to clear basic Thralls, and the Yeti-like ones taking a smidge more meat and loop to defeat. You can also speed it up by utilizing Shadow Power, which is basically Adrenaline Time except you have free reign on when and where to use it. During this, DoppeLara speeds up tremendously, granting the ability to climb cracked walls and bypass obstacles that're too fast to do normally, do a souped-up punch or slam move to deal more damage to enemies, as well as the bullets from the pistols being more potent as well. It leans a wee bit too hard on the context sensitive moments, nearly boiling down to "press Button here to clear that", but at least some of the obstacles are rather creative.
Other than that, I really don't have much to say. I was more or less on auto-pilot the whole time cause again, it's just more of the same. It also doesn't help this whole DLC takes place in the depths of Helheim and later, Natla's personal base of operations... which has the same aesthetics and layout, meaning the tedium and skewered pacing from BtA are amplified here. Not helping is how you go through this area twice, once to have her recuperate from her failure, and then again after Lara frees DoppeLara from the control and grants her legitimate free will to do whatever. I'll admit, it was kind of cool to see some lingering themes and ideas from the story get elaborated upon, but regardless of that and disregarding potential burnout since I doubt it'd be that influential to my feeling here, I don't find this enthralling enough to spend 10USD on, maybe even more if you don't have the PC specs to emulate it well or if you don't have a 360/Xbone/Series XS, unless you're craving for more TRU action. It's fun, but easily my least favorite of the two level packs, and one of the more mundane experiences thus far in the marathon.
This has so much potential and the gameplay is so fun and such a great twist on the game. I just wish it wasn’t one level repeated and then no boss fight at the end. I was so hyped for a boss fight and I just had told punch a button. A waste of the amazing game mechanics made for this
Played on Xbox 360
Beneath the Ashes was very mediocre and hardly strayed away from what was offered on the disc and was NOT worth $10. Lara’s Shadow is a completely different animal thanks to the new gameplay elements added. Lara’s shadow can use super speed and hand-to-hand combat against the undead creatures of the underworld. Natla is trying to restore herself using the machine she used to create Lara’s shadow, and then the tables turn…
Lara can now run up walls using her super speed. This makes gameplay very fast and extremely quick and also a lot more fun. She can shimmy walls super fast and can even slow down time to avoid fast moving obstacles. You also have a kick and punch button along with a few super attacks. You have a superkick, punch, and you can fire your guns super fast as well and all of these are very effective.
The fighting is responsive and works very well it’s just not very deep at all. For $10 this is all you can expect, but I expect Eidos to expand on this with more expansions. What I mainly loved in Lara’s Shadow is the fact that navigating levels isn’t difficult like it is on the disc. Since you move so fast you have to navigate quickly and you don’t need a walkthrough this time around to find out where to go.
I did find some obstacles to hard to avoid since you have to have PERFECT timing and this can be very frustrating. I also found that if you fight to close to an edge Lara will just fall off thanks to the spotty collision detection in the game and you will die lots of times due to this. Everything else is pretty much the same; while I love shadow Lara I just wish there was more. 3-5 hours of gameplay is not that much for $10. If you really love Underworld I promise you this will be an excellent buy.
Beneath the Ashes was very mediocre and hardly strayed away from what was offered on the disc and was NOT worth $10. Lara’s Shadow is a completely different animal thanks to the new gameplay elements added. Lara’s shadow can use super speed and hand-to-hand combat against the undead creatures of the underworld. Natla is trying to restore herself using the machine she used to create Lara’s shadow, and then the tables turn…
Lara can now run up walls using her super speed. This makes gameplay very fast and extremely quick and also a lot more fun. She can shimmy walls super fast and can even slow down time to avoid fast moving obstacles. You also have a kick and punch button along with a few super attacks. You have a superkick, punch, and you can fire your guns super fast as well and all of these are very effective.
The fighting is responsive and works very well it’s just not very deep at all. For $10 this is all you can expect, but I expect Eidos to expand on this with more expansions. What I mainly loved in Lara’s Shadow is the fact that navigating levels isn’t difficult like it is on the disc. Since you move so fast you have to navigate quickly and you don’t need a walkthrough this time around to find out where to go.
I did find some obstacles to hard to avoid since you have to have PERFECT timing and this can be very frustrating. I also found that if you fight to close to an edge Lara will just fall off thanks to the spotty collision detection in the game and you will die lots of times due to this. Everything else is pretty much the same; while I love shadow Lara I just wish there was more. 3-5 hours of gameplay is not that much for $10. If you really love Underworld I promise you this will be an excellent buy.