AOD is heart-breaking. I felt even just a few more development months could have potentially put it on par with Tomb Raider 1 and 3. I also see you have good taste in music as well as games.
Probably another victim of corporate pressure, deadlines, and similar things. The game indeed had a lot of potential you can see under the mess. Heck even if only the controls were fluid it'd be liked a lot more, but they are just too frustrating. I did complete the game, it had very good visuals, atmosphere, map design, and music (the main theme is serious classical stuff). But my experience were more negative than positive overall. Great review by the way.
Thank you for the comment. Yeah, The Angel of Darkness (along with Daikatana or Driver 3) is one of the first examples that I can remember that were so hyped but ended up being such a disasters. It's too bad, because underneath that mess, there is a big potential, just like you said.
Our man is now on camera! Welcome to UA-cam haha! I’ve been looking forward to this video, and I enjoyed it a lot. Very different perspective from everyone else obviously, so it was an interesting watch! Also, nice sense of humor haha I laughed along with you a lot.
A small correction: after TRAOD failure Jeremy Heath-Smith left the studio (he was "asked" to leave) and formed another studio called Circle Studio. It's that studio that half of the Core members moved to. The rest stayed in Core Design which was going to be closed immediately. Core managed to convince Eidos to give them a chance and started working on other projects under the leadersip of Richard Morton and Gavin Rummery, but after SCi bought Eidos the studio was sold to Rebellion and rebranded to Rebellion Derby. It's a sad history of a studio that was so independent it made Eidos despise them, then after one bigger failure struggled to stay afloat and died a few years later.
@@kristijan893 Halfway through I moved the game to another drive and it removed the patches, I immediately got killed by skeletons as she wouldn't run away 😅 When they remaster AoD I might actually choose the "modern" controls 😆
Yes, I listen to it every once in a while. Old school thrash and death, even though I'm suck at Amorphis and Paradise Lost these last few months.. Don't know why
As I understand it, they didn't get sent dev kits for the PS2 on time and when they eventually did get them sent they sometimes were outdated or Sony would change the specs of them so any work that was done had to be scrapped. At one point they had to completely scrap everything they had done and were only lucky enough to be able to keep the music, as everything they had made wouldn't have run on the finalised version of the PS2 Dev Kit. What blows my mind is that Tomb Raider was one of the huge cultural gaming icons for the PlayStation at the time, and they decided not to give Core or Eidos any help or PS2 Dev Kits as soon as any changes were made or even a heads up that changes have been made so there are now new limitations on what the hardware will run.
I didn't know that. If that's true then, that was a real shitshow. You are right about one thing though - it's utterly amazing how they managed to handle such a cultural icon so poorly. It was a matter of one bad game to nearly kill it all in its entirety. Okay, The Angel of Darkness turned out the way it did, but didn't Core deserve one more chance to prove themselves? No. Eidos just had to be the typical money driven publisher and sever everything just to save their face. Such a shame. Luckily, the franchise didn't die.
No need to worry, you look pretty good man. You being incorporated in the video was a nice surprise. I liked it. You can do that more often. And do not be afraid of camera, it doesn't bite 😉. I started playing this game very many years ago, don't want to say how many though, you may guess my age 🤪(kidding). Seriously speaking, I couldn't finish it because of the bugs. I just became too frustrated by them. So it was very interesting to see your review.
Thank you for this kind comment. I think it will get better with time :D I intend to be in front of the camera more often :) If you ever want to play it and finish, it's possible, but like I said, you need to get one fix downloaded, or the game will crash constantly in Strahov Fortress
Excellent video. I know I abandoned it on PS2 after I jumped backwards off a chandelier instead of forwards. 5 times in a row. And that was after shouting "Just climb on the crate FFS!".
I had so many situations where Lara just wouldn't jump or she would just awkwardly move to entire different way. Even backwards like in you case. The controls were so broken at times
It's weird. But Tomb Raider Anniversary has similar (I think) control and that plays beautifully. And Underworld starts with a swimsuit level, so that's great too!@@kristijan893
while i think many other games in the series are objectively much better, AoD holds such a special place in my heart to the point that i consider it my favorite, both for what we go and what we could've gotten. of you're interested to replay it in the future, I highly recommend trying out the Restoration mod! It adds a lot of things left in the cutting board during development and, even without the new stuff, changes enough to give a completely new experience. hell, they added the twin pistols too! That's fun!!!
I was thinking about restoration mod at first, but I wanna experience the vanilla version first. Just to properly see why was this game universally hated so much, even though there are people like you that like this game. Thanks for the comment!
I often say to my wife that I'm at least 3000 years old and this is my final reincarnation. But yeah, these games can surely help make the aging process much faster lol
I have fond memories of this game, but its been like 20 years sinxe i played it last, so its far from fresh. I remember liking this lara and the art direction. I picked up a ps2 copy a few months back from a charity shop for €3. Do you have charity shops where your from? Sometimes you strike gold. Beginning of this year of found sandwiched between some fifa ganes a copy of Yakuza 1 ps2 and Deux ex 1 ps2 €2 each.
Unfortunately, no. But i used to find heavy discounted games like Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2 or something like that for PS2 that would cost like 15$ new, and a little bit later, I would find out that these are very expensive. I almost got my hands on Yakuza, but somebody got it before me. I used to find some games like Jak X or Colin Mcrae Rally 2005 for like 3$ in a big stores or brand new PS2 memory cards (see through red versions) for 4$. Good times. Nowadays, it's nearly impossible to find hidden gems in stores for dirt cheap.
what do you think? Now they are remastering TR 4,5,6. So whether they will just fix the bugs & remaster the TRAOD as it is or they will remake the game as they originally planned ?
I think they'll just remaster and fix the bugs in the AoD. Don't think they'll make it as originally intended because it would probably take some serious time + I don't know if they still have all of the documentation for the intended trilogy. Who knows if the ex-Core Design members have it somewhere.
The storyline got me to finish it, I was really into it. Annoying you had to save basically after EVERY jump you made, puzzle you solved etc because of the glitches, but it definitely wasn't as bad as everyone made out. Just a shame to think of how it COULD have been.
Can't believe my boy Varg Vikernes finally got free from that drug rehab. Congrats homie, keep it real. 🙏🙏💯💯 Jokes aside, pretty decent look, and also good review. AVGN really did the Angel of Darkness dirty with his review, though knowing AVGN, it is mostly not meant to be taken seriously either way for the most part.
I think you might the trird person to compare me with Varg. But i'm not into burning churches and stabbing people heh. was kinda aiming for the same - not to be taken seriously. Did I succeed? Don't know, but i'm gonna keep trying
I remember I bought this pre owned and expected it to be great, I played all of the tomb raider games and expected the same, I wanted the same. I ended up just running around the town, not knowing where to go, and didn't care about the story. It was awful.
Primal I really enjoyed, you just had to turn your brain off whenever Jen started whining about her _clearly evil antagonist_ boyfriend and how much she loved and missed him and such. I feel it's like a 7/10 game - flawed, but if you get past those flaws, some parts that are really enjoyable.
I agree. It had it's problems but the story was so interesting it made me want to keep playing. I actually think the story was the best so far on any tr. Personally I dont like the last 3 that much, they look great but the focus is on collecting weeds and finding chickens and doing pointless crap.
I am the odd ball, I was the only one who liked it when it was released and couldn’t even understand at all why people hated it. In some ways it was the best tomb raider game yet. Controls didn’t bother me at all, once I learned to play they were surprisingly accurate and smooth, they were a prototype of modern controls every game has nowadays. You move lara with 2 sticks instead of 1 and camera movement determines also how lara moves. People hated that. I was so sad when the trilogy didn’t get the sequel and I was imagining it in my head how the story would continue. I will never knwo. Artistic ambience and the thrilling story was great, unlike I had never seen. The game was really innovative and ambitious. Something about that game is so unique and haunting and I understood what the creators in core design wanted from the game and must have had big plans for the trilogy. So sad that eidos destroyed that for greed.🙁
I decided to play through all of the Tomb Raider games after finishing I-III Remastered and currently I'm on Angel of Darkness. It reminds me of when I first played it when I was 9. I love the art direction so much but the controls are just so bad.
Actually it's good only if you play the Fan Patch Restoration Project. However AoD doesn't connect well since that cut cutscene really bummed me out. Seriously how does Classic Lara become Emo Lara? It doesn't make sense there was no fellow up.
@@kristijan893 don't get Mii wrong it's got it's flaws but I genuinely enjoy it, its more than playable and actually is pretty fun, except the water level, that place suuuuccckkss 😅😅😅
The main challenge in this game is to make it run... it's certainly a different approach 😅 at least it's not a portability thing, it was awful even when I got it a million years ago...
OMG! Primal is my all time favorite game! The graphics imo were ahead of their time. I remember being so excited that I could see how shiny Jen's pants were! XD However it wasn't perfect. The game play was pretty lethargic (some of the puzzles were basically walking simulators and took way too long to finish because of the walking) and there were some parts that were pretty glitchy. The combat system wasn't the greatest either, it got kind of annoying having to scoot away when you didn't want to fight and I never got used to the trigger-mashing. Still, to me it's one of the most beautifully designed games. My favorite being the Wraith world, the Victorian-esque look of it was amazing. And on one part they had a dick innuendo joke, I believe lol.
I'm still contemplating if I should brush the dust away from the game and try it. I know that graphically it was impressive for it's time, but I never got the chance to properly play it. I even think I've encountered some bugs that prevented me to advance the game so I gave up. But it was so long ago that I can't remember it any more
Eeeeeeasy money. ... 😆😆 But no, for real, this was a fun game. I played it on PS2 and loved the very dark nature from start to finish. Ehhh..but poor Kurtis, though.
you are handsome. and oh boy. your voice ❤❤❤❤❤😍 I did plau TR AOD thousands of time when I was a teen. it was the only game il my PC. but sadly I disagree with you. I had a LOT and a LOT of bugs. and like u know the internet wasn't around like now. we I had big problem with that game.
I Played it, and abandoned it on the 2nd level. It's not a Tomb Raider game. That's when the franchise started something new. TR 1-4 is the true Tomb Raider games, with the old school controls and the grid system. We can include 5, but it sucked.
It s not really good. Average but so many strange and unfinished levels. Combat is almost inexistent. The exploration is crap. The levels are too modern and normal. The ending is abrupt. The beginning is ok but they forgot to explain something CRUCIAL: how did lara survive the ending of tr4? I mean this game and chronicles shoukd not exist. If core had put all the devs into one game instead of 2 then MAYBE this game would be good
worst game in franchise for far, even more then chronicles.......simple reason: its an unfinished game, a big whole demo. i remember I was so exciting before the game launches, but then when i played it.....couldnt believe that the first thing in the game that was wrong, were lara s movements: one of the most important feature in a 3rd person game. a totally shame
AOD is heart-breaking. I felt even just a few more development months could have potentially put it on par with Tomb Raider 1 and 3. I also see you have good taste in music as well as games.
I really liked the spooky atmosphere of TAOD, it's a shame production issues really brought project down
I agree with you. Such a shame.
Probably another victim of corporate pressure, deadlines, and similar things. The game indeed had a lot of potential you can see under the mess. Heck even if only the controls were fluid it'd be liked a lot more, but they are just too frustrating. I did complete the game, it had very good visuals, atmosphere, map design, and music (the main theme is serious classical stuff). But my experience were more negative than positive overall. Great review by the way.
Thank you for the comment. Yeah, The Angel of Darkness (along with Daikatana or Driver 3) is one of the first examples that I can remember that were so hyped but ended up being such a disasters. It's too bad, because underneath that mess, there is a big potential, just like you said.
Our man is now on camera! Welcome to UA-cam haha! I’ve been looking forward to this video, and I enjoyed it a lot. Very different perspective from everyone else obviously, so it was an interesting watch! Also, nice sense of humor haha I laughed along with you a lot.
Thank you very much. It was my intention to have a slightly different approach and a bit of dry humor. Glad to hear it's kinda working :D
A small correction: after TRAOD failure Jeremy Heath-Smith left the studio (he was "asked" to leave) and formed another studio called Circle Studio. It's that studio that half of the Core members moved to. The rest stayed in Core Design which was going to be closed immediately. Core managed to convince Eidos to give them a chance and started working on other projects under the leadersip of Richard Morton and Gavin Rummery, but after SCi bought Eidos the studio was sold to Rebellion and rebranded to Rebellion Derby. It's a sad history of a studio that was so independent it made Eidos despise them, then after one bigger failure struggled to stay afloat and died a few years later.
If they get the same team to remaster this one I am confident the control issues will be fixed.
Nice one man.. I like your content and you've just reminded me how awesome Porcupine tree are!!
Thank! Well, I hope Porcupine tree will continue to exist so I can see them one more time live. Because it's such an amazing concert experience!
Love your video! I just started this game, cant wait to check out the rest of your vids! 👊
I did abandon it on PS2 back in the day, but on PC with the slow walk removed and the bendy jump fixed it's one of my favourite TR games 🙃
I accidentally removed the slow walk with the fix and it made the game better actually. Such a small fix, such a big gain
@@kristijan893 Halfway through I moved the game to another drive and it removed the patches, I immediately got killed by skeletons as she wouldn't run away 😅 When they remaster AoD I might actually choose the "modern" controls 😆
An early Christmas present? Did not expect that, thanks.
haha no problem :D
Love you room. All white, plants and technology. My living room is the same style 😂
You look like the type of dood who probably listens to gooooood Metalz musics, I subcribes
Yes, I listen to it every once in a while. Old school thrash and death, even though I'm suck at Amorphis and Paradise Lost these last few months.. Don't know why
Late comment but I can't wait for review of the Crystal Dynamics trilogy! (Assuming you will). Those are my top 3 TR games.
As I understand it, they didn't get sent dev kits for the PS2 on time and when they eventually did get them sent they sometimes were outdated or Sony would change the specs of them so any work that was done had to be scrapped. At one point they had to completely scrap everything they had done and were only lucky enough to be able to keep the music, as everything they had made wouldn't have run on the finalised version of the PS2 Dev Kit.
What blows my mind is that Tomb Raider was one of the huge cultural gaming icons for the PlayStation at the time, and they decided not to give Core or Eidos any help or PS2 Dev Kits as soon as any changes were made or even a heads up that changes have been made so there are now new limitations on what the hardware will run.
I didn't know that. If that's true then, that was a real shitshow. You are right about one thing though - it's utterly amazing how they managed to handle such a cultural icon so poorly. It was a matter of one bad game to nearly kill it all in its entirety. Okay, The Angel of Darkness turned out the way it did, but didn't Core deserve one more chance to prove themselves? No. Eidos just had to be the typical money driven publisher and sever everything just to save their face. Such a shame. Luckily, the franchise didn't die.
What did we learn today? Corporate needs to chill and give their devs more time AND STOP USING THEM AS SCAPEGOATS!
No need to worry, you look pretty good man. You being incorporated in the video was a nice surprise. I liked it. You can do that more often. And do not be afraid of camera, it doesn't bite 😉.
I started playing this game very many years ago, don't want to say how many though, you may guess my age 🤪(kidding). Seriously speaking, I couldn't finish it because of the bugs. I just became too frustrated by them. So it was very interesting to see your review.
Thank you for this kind comment. I think it will get better with time :D I intend to be in front of the camera more often :) If you ever want to play it and finish, it's possible, but like I said, you need to get one fix downloaded, or the game will crash constantly in Strahov Fortress
Excellent video. I know I abandoned it on PS2 after I jumped backwards off a chandelier instead of forwards. 5 times in a row. And that was after shouting "Just climb on the crate FFS!".
I had so many situations where Lara just wouldn't jump or she would just awkwardly move to entire different way. Even backwards like in you case. The controls were so broken at times
It's weird. But Tomb Raider Anniversary has similar (I think) control and that plays beautifully. And Underworld starts with a swimsuit level, so that's great too!@@kristijan893
Please review Tomb Raider Underworld and convince me to replay it please! Also your sense of humor is awesome!
First anniversary, then Underworld :D Don't worry hah
while i think many other games in the series are objectively much better, AoD holds such a special place in my heart to the point that i consider it my favorite, both for what we go and what we could've gotten. of you're interested to replay it in the future, I highly recommend trying out the Restoration mod! It adds a lot of things left in the cutting board during development and, even without the new stuff, changes enough to give a completely new experience.
hell, they added the twin pistols too! That's fun!!!
I was thinking about restoration mod at first, but I wanna experience the vanilla version first. Just to properly see why was this game universally hated so much, even though there are people like you that like this game. Thanks for the comment!
I thought you were younger than this lol. These games have made you age man
I often say to my wife that I'm at least 3000 years old and this is my final reincarnation. But yeah, these games can surely help make the aging process much faster lol
You are sacrificing yourself for our entertainment. I bet your wife digs the look though. 😉😛@@kristijan893
This was genuinely my personal favourite TR game from ps2 it was awesome imo
I have fond memories of this game, but its been like 20 years sinxe i played it last, so its far from fresh. I remember liking this lara and the art direction.
I picked up a ps2 copy a few months back from a charity shop for €3.
Do you have charity shops where your from? Sometimes you strike gold. Beginning of this year of found sandwiched between some fifa ganes a copy of Yakuza 1 ps2 and Deux ex 1 ps2 €2 each.
Unfortunately, no. But i used to find heavy discounted games like Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2 or something like that for PS2 that would cost like 15$ new, and a little bit later, I would find out that these are very expensive. I almost got my hands on Yakuza, but somebody got it before me. I used to find some games like Jak X or Colin Mcrae Rally 2005 for like 3$ in a big stores or brand new PS2 memory cards (see through red versions) for 4$. Good times. Nowadays, it's nearly impossible to find hidden gems in stores for dirt cheap.
Playing Primal right now. Great game, would love a remaster.
what do you think? Now they are remastering TR 4,5,6. So whether they will just fix the bugs & remaster the TRAOD as it is or they will remake the game as they originally planned ?
I think they'll just remaster and fix the bugs in the AoD. Don't think they'll make it as originally intended because it would probably take some serious time + I don't know if they still have all of the documentation for the intended trilogy. Who knows if the ex-Core Design members have it somewhere.
@kristijan893 thanks for reply 🤩
I really love this game! It makes every other tomb raider games looks like masterpiece!😊
Words can’t express how happy I am this game is getting remastered and with a team working in it all the bugs and controls will be fixed 🥹🥹🥹
the first puzzle of the game is trying to get it to run 😂
you are right, hahah
Good video
thank you very much!
Angel of darkness is a work of art
Much as it was released basically unfinished can't deny its soundtrack is 1 of the best if not the best soundtrack in the whole franchise
The storyline got me to finish it, I was really into it.
Annoying you had to save basically after EVERY jump you made, puzzle you solved etc because of the glitches, but it definitely wasn't as bad as everyone made out.
Just a shame to think of how it COULD have been.
Finally I see the face of eternal hapinness!!
Can't believe my boy Varg Vikernes finally got free from that drug rehab. Congrats homie, keep it real.
🙏🙏💯💯
Jokes aside, pretty decent look, and also good review. AVGN really did the Angel of Darkness dirty with his review, though knowing AVGN, it is mostly not meant to be taken seriously either way for the most part.
I busted out laughing at that "my boy Varg Vikernes" XDD
I think you might the trird person to compare me with Varg. But i'm not into burning churches and stabbing people heh. was kinda aiming for the same - not to be taken seriously. Did I succeed? Don't know, but i'm gonna keep trying
I remember I bought this pre owned and expected it to be great, I played all of the tomb raider games and expected the same, I wanted the same. I ended up just running around the town, not knowing where to go, and didn't care about the story. It was awful.
Primal I really enjoyed, you just had to turn your brain off whenever Jen started whining about her _clearly evil antagonist_ boyfriend and how much she loved and missed him and such. I feel it's like a 7/10 game - flawed, but if you get past those flaws, some parts that are really enjoyable.
I agree. It had it's problems but the story was so interesting it made me want to keep playing. I actually think the story was the best so far on any tr. Personally I dont like the last 3 that much, they look great but the focus is on collecting weeds and finding chickens and doing pointless crap.
Yes, too bad the story is not fully realized. I'm sure it would be even better
I am the odd ball, I was the only one who liked it when it was released and couldn’t even understand at all why people hated it. In some ways it was the best tomb raider game yet. Controls didn’t bother me at all, once I learned to play they were surprisingly accurate and smooth, they were a prototype of modern controls every game has nowadays. You move lara with 2 sticks instead of 1 and camera movement determines also how lara moves. People hated that. I was so sad when the trilogy didn’t get the sequel and I was imagining it in my head how the story would continue. I will never knwo. Artistic ambience and the thrilling story was great, unlike I had never seen. The game was really innovative and ambitious. Something about that game is so unique and haunting and I understood what the creators in core design wanted from the game and must have had big plans for the trilogy. So sad that eidos destroyed that for greed.🙁
Unfortunately, we will never know what the game with its sequels was supposed to be. I imagine it was supposed to be Core Designs magnum opus
I decided to play through all of the Tomb Raider games after finishing I-III Remastered and currently I'm on Angel of Darkness. It reminds me of when I first played it when I was 9. I love the art direction so much but the controls are just so bad.
Goated game
Actually it's good only if you play the Fan Patch Restoration Project.
However AoD doesn't connect well since that cut cutscene really bummed me out.
Seriously how does Classic Lara become Emo Lara? It doesn't make sense there was no fellow up.
Primal is actually pretty good i have it on ps2 and digital ps3 and 4 lol
I need to play it again, because I feel I'm missing something
@@kristijan893 don't get Mii wrong it's got it's flaws but I genuinely enjoy it, its more than playable and actually is pretty fun, except the water level, that place suuuuccckkss 😅😅😅
The main challenge in this game is to make it run... it's certainly a different approach 😅
at least it's not a portability thing, it was awful even when I got it a million years ago...
Hair is laiddddd
OMG! Primal is my all time favorite game! The graphics imo were ahead of their time. I remember being so excited that I could see how shiny Jen's pants were! XD However it wasn't perfect. The game play was pretty lethargic (some of the puzzles were basically walking simulators and took way too long to finish because of the walking) and there were some parts that were pretty glitchy. The combat system wasn't the greatest either, it got kind of annoying having to scoot away when you didn't want to fight and I never got used to the trigger-mashing. Still, to me it's one of the most beautifully designed games. My favorite being the Wraith world, the Victorian-esque look of it was amazing. And on one part they had a dick innuendo joke, I believe lol.
I'm still contemplating if I should brush the dust away from the game and try it. I know that graphically it was impressive for it's time, but I never got the chance to properly play it. I even think I've encountered some bugs that prevented me to advance the game so I gave up. But it was so long ago that I can't remember it any more
AOD honestly is top 4 for me
Eeeeeeasy money. ... 😆😆
But no, for real, this was a fun game. I played it on PS2 and loved the very dark nature from start to finish. Ehhh..but poor Kurtis, though.
He deserves more attention, because... he's cooool :D
@@kristijan893 I agree! It would have been niiiiiiii-iiiiiiiiice if they hadn't KILLED HIM adfdhjdtygfa lol. :D
Maybe I shouldn't'like the game, but the music is so stunning it absolutely sucks me in
PoP SoT cames this same year....
You look like the young version of Rotting Christ's singer
Easy money! 💰 💴
God dammit, NOW I find out he's hot. Great.
I think there's a good game in there
you are handsome. and oh boy. your voice ❤❤❤❤❤😍
I did plau TR AOD thousands of time when I was a teen. it was the only game il my PC.
but sadly I disagree with you. I had a LOT and a LOT of bugs. and like u know the internet wasn't around like now. we I had big problem with that game.
based
elucidate
Resident Raider
I actually liked it
I remember playing it, and yeah far from perfect but I played and completed it
But it is the worst Tr game that's for sure
Well there's an unpopular opinion if I ever saw one. But I respect it because you have a pretty face.
I couldn't finish it. It's so boring! Clumsy and annoying controls too.
I Played it, and abandoned it on the 2nd level. It's not a Tomb Raider game. That's when the franchise started something new. TR 1-4 is the true Tomb Raider games, with the old school controls and the grid system. We can include 5, but it sucked.
It s not really good. Average but so many strange and unfinished levels. Combat is almost inexistent. The exploration is crap. The levels are too modern and normal. The ending is abrupt. The beginning is ok but they forgot to explain something CRUCIAL: how did lara survive the ending of tr4? I mean this game and chronicles shoukd not exist. If core had put all the devs into one game instead of 2 then MAYBE this game would be good
worst game in franchise for far, even more then chronicles.......simple reason: its an unfinished game, a big whole demo. i remember I was so exciting before the game launches, but then when i played it.....couldnt believe that the first thing in the game that was wrong, were lara s movements: one of the most important feature in a 3rd person game. a totally shame
hmm... no.