The first thing you'll notice when you start the game is the graphics. At first, the new Tomb Raider looks gorgeous and sharp and as I've mentioned before, levels are large and designed beautifully. The settings are in Paris, Prague, tombs, and others and each are impressive. The weather effects are quite realistic...especially the rain outside the windows! Footprints are made in the snow, dust rise from shoes and shifting objects. The water could've been done more realistically, but it's not too bad. The FMVs are very much like the previous games, but good part of the story is told through the aforementioned well-directed in-game interactive cutscenes.
Character models are much more improved. Lara now has a more smoother, softer feel to her; her new model is made of 5,000 polygons, against the 500 of the previous games. Her movements are realistic, agile, and done well. Her hair now swings in the right directions and the mouth, at times, moves accordingly to the words. Secondary characters look different from one another, with the exception of a few characters for which the developers used the same model.
Simply put, the graphics might have been gorgeous if it wasn't for the too many bugs and performance issues of the new graphic engine. Despite the long development time, the graphic engine of The Angel Of Darkness seems to completely lack optimization. First of all, slowdowns occur A LOT throughout the game. This is especially annoying when you're trying to gun down an enemy and you're not sure if you've killed him or you're just wasting ammo. Whether Lara is standing looking around a room or running, you'll definitely see the faulty framerate acting up. I think the main reason for this is due to the massive environments.
The bugs/glitches that happen are a hassle and have angered me a lot. Sometimes Lara would just fall straight through a solid object and fall to her death. One thing I encountered was being stuck walking near a wall, which forced me to reset. Other things include hanging off invisible ledges, not grabbing the ledge even though I know I made it, and falling to the ground even with the "Walk" button in place. But the most annoying thing is easily the random tendency of the game to freeze. In the early part of the adventure, my game froze after loading up. I tried to enter the next room and I would never be able to proceed. It ended up I had to re-start my game from the beginning because there was no way to fix it. Another problem (quite small) is the shadow of Lara. Her entire shadow would appear on the ledge beneath the one she's standing on, which is actually impossible in real life. So, you're basically seeing 2 shadows of Lara. And instead of having a shadow directly beneath her (like climbing down a ladder), it would be projected on the wall or sometimes on thin air.
Though not a major problem, the camera can get in the way. Using the right analog-stick to control the camera, it's difficult to get the proper angle you need for that one jump or to see where you're going when a wall blocks the view. The camera can also shift quickly when you're climbing on a rope or shimmying, so you'd have to change directions on the controller to continue on your path. Like I said, not a huge issue, but is a hassle.
The graphics are visually beautiful, but all the errors and performance issues are not. They create an interruption when you're trying to inspect your surroundings or when you're trying to progress in the game. And this can be very distracting.
