Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Angel of Darkness

Copy protection

If you do a full install of the game, you can play it without needing to have the game CD in your CD drive. The game's readme file even explicitly mentions this. This is an unusual display of trust (or perhaps it's just resignation) in today's copyright paranoid times.

Development

Even though the game was developed by a UK company, it suffered numerous delays and release date changes and was eventually released in the UK after the USA.

German version

In the German version, all blood effects were removed.

Movie

Sometimes synergy works, sometimes it doesn't.

When the second Tomb Raider movie had a weak opening at the box office, Paramount studios was quick to point the finger at Angel of Darkness. In an interview with Reuters, Wayne Lewellen (President in charge of Distribution) said:

"The only thing we can attribute that to is that the gamers were not happy with the latest version of the 'Tomb Raider' video game, which is our core audience"

Angel of Darkness came out one month before the movie. Had it been the other way around, perhaps Eidos could have blamed the game's numerous bugs and glitches on the film.

Reception and sales

Core planned to release two more Tomb Raider games based on AOD's engine. However due to it's lukewarm response, Eidos halted the production of the next TR game. In fact, Eidos shocked everyone when they announced that future Tomb Raider games will be developed by Crystal Dynamics, which seemed odd as Lara Croft was seen as a British icon.

Even though AOD received alot of bad press it still managed to sell 1 million copies.

On January 13, 2004 Angel of Darkness (PS2) has won the Gold-Award from the German VUD (Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland - Entertainment Software Association Germany) for selling more then 100,000 (but less then 200,000) units in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Awards

• 4Players
  • 2003 – Biggest Console Disappointment of the Year (PlayStation 2)
  • 2003 – Biggest PC Disappointment of the Year
• GameSpy
  • 2003 – Car Crash of the Year (PC)
• GameStar (Germany)
  • Issue 04/2009 - One of the "10 Most Terrible Sequels" (It omits the challenging jumping sequences but adds stupid level design and introduces useless new features, e.g. the RPG and stealth elements.)
• Computer Games Magazine
  • March 2004 - #2 Worst Game of the Year 2003
• Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland
  • January 13, 2004 - Gold Award (more information in the "Reception and sales" section

Information also contributed by Alan Chan, ClydeFrog, Kartik KHANE, PCGamer77 and Xoleras