Crystal Dynamics have made some of the worst games i've ever played. They consistently make platforming games where the platforming is slippery and inconsistent, they are terrible at guiding the player along, where ledges that are climbable and aren't are subjects to whim, and focus on combat despite just not being any good at it. Legacy of Kain is their best series and it wasn't even their creation, and the actual playing of the games is the worst part of it. The most mechanically sound game of the Survivor trilogy was made by Eidos Montreal.
I don't want to sound mean, but CD just sucks ass. Underworld is just blatantly unfinished, which I doubt was their intention, but is just a case in fact: the game is buggy, the camera is more volatile than ever, and Crystal Dynamics has never been able to make a functioning third person camera, and the janky platforming feels rushed.
The way the game dishes out tutorials is genuinely insane. It starts off in a burning building where the wall-climbing tutorial is genuinely so badly telegraphed I wouldn't be surprised if most people didn't understand what the game was asking them to do. Then you get combat tutorials during an underwater section, it's insane how they did this. Tomb Raider 1 in 1996 had a big open area for you to play with Lara's moveset, it shouldn't be hard to get this right.
The narrative is going to be the saving grace of this, as its edgy and grim but not in the viciously unpleasent way Tomb Raider 2013 is. I think the series would be in a good place if Crystal Dynamics never ever touches another entry again.
I don't want to sound mean, but CD just sucks ass. Underworld is just blatantly unfinished, which I doubt was their intention, but is just a case in fact: the game is buggy, the camera is more volatile than ever, and Crystal Dynamics has never been able to make a functioning third person camera, and the janky platforming feels rushed.
The way the game dishes out tutorials is genuinely insane. It starts off in a burning building where the wall-climbing tutorial is genuinely so badly telegraphed I wouldn't be surprised if most people didn't understand what the game was asking them to do. Then you get combat tutorials during an underwater section, it's insane how they did this. Tomb Raider 1 in 1996 had a big open area for you to play with Lara's moveset, it shouldn't be hard to get this right.
The narrative is going to be the saving grace of this, as its edgy and grim but not in the viciously unpleasent way Tomb Raider 2013 is. I think the series would be in a good place if Crystal Dynamics never ever touches another entry again.