Tomb Raider: Underworld Preview

Lara has a new set of melee attacks to help her fight off big cats

The upgrades extend beyond the gymnastic. Like before, she's pretty handy in a scrap, and can now get up close and personal with new melee attacks to supplement her classic auto-targeting weapons fire, including kung-fu style flying kicks. As she makes her way towards the temple giant spiders attack, one of which latches itself on - she swats it off and stomps it into oblivion. Job done. Lara can use her guns while she's using inanimate objects, like poles, too, with one hand firing and the other holding. Best of all? Finally Lara can now target two separate enemies while she's dual wielding, something she's hasn't been able to do in the previous games.

We see this in practice as two huge tigers attack in the jungle. Switching to dual Uzis - Lara's classic load-out - she targets each individually as she pumps bullet after bullet into the crazed beasts. Once dead, they remain there. Underworld is a persistent world, where enemies don't magically disappear into the ground. Shocking.

Don't like the idea of pumping bullets into endangered species? Seems like you're not the only one. In response to players who have questioned why Lara doesn't respect the exotic wildlife she encounters during her adventures, Crystal Dynamics has given her a tranquilliser gun, which, after firing a couple of darts, will send her enemies to sleep rather than animal heaven. How cute.

If, like us, you prefer more deadly forms of defence, you'll be more interested in what's called 'adrenaline moments' - where Lara slows down time and has the chance to land one shot kills. But you won't be able to do this all of the time. You'll only be able to do this when you've dealt "a lot of damage", Adam explains.

What could Lara do? She could do this.

All these improvements have been made with a single, simple design philosophy in mind, what Crystal Dynamics has coined 'what could Lara do?'. She will automatically reach for gaps she can stick her fingers into, wherever they may be, she will push foliage out of the way, she will carry large objects that won't fit into her back pack - all of this helps to create a much more realistic and convincing experience.

The Temple Lara has travelled to Thailand to raid is very similar in architectural style to Angkor Wat, the famous real world Cambodian temple that's probably being overrun with gap year students as you read this. Indeed much of Underworld will be familiar to anyone who's spent time in Cambodia or Thailand - the team visited both countries as part of the game's development.

We're shown Lara's digital binoculars, which provide a perfect opportunity to show off the new photo-taking and sharing feature. You'll be able to take a photo, setting the timer so you can move Lara into perfect position for a context sensitive pose or wave, and then share it with your friends via Xbox LIVE and PSN (the photo-sharing feature won't be included in the Wii version of the game).

Why would you do such a thing? Eidos hopes players will use it to help each other out, to show friends a new route they've discovered, secret or hidden artefact. The idea is it will turn into something akin to a user-generated help service. It's a nice idea, but it's not something we imagine we'll be spending much time dabbling with.