Tomb Raider Underworld - first look

So what's new? Well, the weather, for starters. The rain was absolutely lashing down on Lara, even though the weather effects are only 50% complete at the moment. So we'll be expecting twice as much rainfall in the finished game (groan). The soundtrack had deep rolls of thunder, corresponding with the flashes of lightning a couple of seconds beforehand, just like real-life. The attention to detail doesn't end there, either, with hi-def footprints left in muddy puddles and Lara's shapely form taking on the hues of whatever scenery she's standing by. Run near the green leaves and her legs reflect a green tinge, head out back into the open and the colours turn colder on her skin. It's subtle, sure, but another step towards making Lara look like she's really a part of her environment.

However, that's not always the case. The movement has been motion-captured by an Olympic gymnast, but while Lara does move beautifully in tightly-controlled animations like walking along beams or finding individual hand and footholds while climbin, it's a different story in ground movement. In combat or pushing circular levers, it can look a bit awkward compared to the more organic animations of Uncharted. With the two games' similarities so evident, they're easy to compare like for like. And, at the moment, Lara's looking a little more solid and assured than Drake, but slightly less forgiving to control. This could just be a greater sophistication than Drake's perhaps over-simplified movement, but we'll know for sure when we get to play with her ourselves (ooh-er).

Above: Movement is mainly excellent, althougha few awkward moments did break the illusion momentarily in the code we saw