If you are like me, you haven't stopped playing Angel of Darkness since you got it. Its been three years coming but AOD has to be one of the biggest achievements in the Tomb Raider series and certainly has some of the best game play and graphical quality available in the gaming industry. Game play has been improved by the use of new moves and modes, one of the new main differences you will find in the game is that Lara has so much more detail 'in-game' than in any of the other Tomb Raiders. This is down to Core's superb handy work and the increased number of polygons that make up Lara's body, thus making her look and move more realistically. Lara's moves are much better with smooth and realistic movement, even down to creases in her clothes when she bends her arms. Of course unless you are using the Playstation2 version the high quality graphics is going to need a good, moderately up-to-date computer, you can see the spec that is required to run then game in our news section. The use of the new DirectX 9 library from Microsoft introduces new features and opportunities for graphics which are certainly shown within the game, DirectX 9 is available on the game CD and is configured on installation of the game.

The installation of the game is simple and easy to use. The game is two discs and you are simply asked to insert disk two at around 50% of competition of installation, a variety of installations can be selected to save disk space or improve performance by running most of the game from your hard drive. This feature was not available in previous Tomb Raiders as music in Tomb Raider I & II has to be run as CD Audio from the CD, but because the games were less graphical detailed it didn't jeopardise your gaming experience.

No other previous Tomb Raider has used EAX sound delivery. EAX is the positioning and manipulation of sound, on my 5.1 surround you get to hear when something is coming up behind you because of the way the sound system and game work together. You can pick up the whole setup for great sound for around £70-80 which isn't that much in comparison to the amount of fun you are going to have with 5 speakers and a great sub-woofer. Many games right back to Half-Life have supported some kind of sound positioning but I haven't heard it as well done as in Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness you can really feel as if you are in the game.

You may have heard rumours that the camera angles were bad in Angel of Darkness, to be honest I think that's why it has been delayed, simply because they are perfect now and you can just the right angels when doing tricky stuff like wall hugging. When playing the game unless you are at a hard bit like the wall-hugging bits you have the great 3rd person view on Lara, just like in all of the classic Tomb Raiders, perfect!

Talking of classic, the control set. Core have kept the controls from the previous Tomb Raiders allowing anyone who has played the previous games to sit down and to be able to almost play it straight away. Of course any game takes getting used to because of the new way that things work. For example the Numpad 0 key in the classics and in the new one lets Lara look around, in the new game when looking the controls are inverted, when you press UP Lara look up, and when you press left she looks left. What I was used to was that the controls were Up to look down and down to look up etc, but don't worry this can all be changed in the new controls section where you can assign your own keys. So in theory you could configure W,A,S,D to move Lara and E for action (classic Half-Life controls) but I prefer moving Lara how we have all done in the past games.

The game is no longer based on a 'block-system'; that's what I called it. In the classic games the game was made of platforms of blocks pushed up and down to create the landscape. Angel of Darkness takes on a whole new style which enables extremely realistic surroundings. The levels are very details even down to bits of litter in the street.

The introduction of new characters again with higher polygon counts and better speech/mouth manipulation makes the environments even better to be playing in. You can even choose what to say to the characters and they will react differently depending on what you say or what ton you say it in, Angel of Darkness really gets you involved and you decide on Lara's destiny.

From what I have seen there are also chances to do hand to hand combat with enemies. The introduction of a stealth mode allows lots of sneaking around and killing enemies without them ever knowing you are there. A whole range of new moves such as Climbing pipes, monkey swinging, hand over hand rope crawling improve the game even more. The game introduces a new feature, 'grip strength', when holding on to a ledge, shimmying or climbing a pipe Lara only has a certain amount of grip because she has to let go, get her to her destination or she could end up plummeting to the ground with a thud.

As Lara gets further in the game the challenges become more...well..challenging!, and for this Lara needs to be stronger. As Lara interacts with a level more she becomes confident with handling harder challenges, for example moving blocks around to get to places will make her stronger so she can kick down that door.

There are a few bugs in the PC version of the game but it can depend on the machine you are running it on. Some computers may experience a crash when loading a new level or certain saved games, there is a patch soon to be released (few days) to fix this, so don't worry.

I'm not going to say much more because I don't want to wreak your Tomb Raiding experience. So go play and have fun. If you don't have the game already, I am sure you will now be convinced you want it. Please support Planet Lara by purchasing Angel of Darkness on PC or PS2 from our online store (in association with amazon.co.uk).

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