"They're still around," he says, "and some I talked to have stated numerous times they would love to work on finishing the game."
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But only if it's done correctly.ĪJ.R doesn't trust Crystal Dynamics to stay true to Core's original vision - "when Crystal Dynamics took over it was just like Hollywood buying out your favourite TV series and dumbing it down to cater to a market it wasn't aimed at originally" - so he would only support the old team running the show. The end goal is to persuade Square Enix to greenlight an HD remaster. "I wanted our voices to finally be heard and to show the fan base is still alive after 11 years," he says.
His Facebook page, which has over a thousand likes at the time of writing, highlights the game's strengths and the community's modding efforts.
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And some of the smaller cut content, such as falling snow in the PC version of the Monstrum Crime Scene level, was completed but nonetheless omitted in all of the chaos of deadlines.ĪJ.R tells me there are also more than 100 animations that didn't make the released game, as well as "countless" voice samples and objects. Two of its four sprawling locations were cut a year into the project, while the planned story arc had to be chopped up and hastily reworked. That's just a fraction of what was planned at the beginning of development, too. The environments are brimming with detail that's offset by texture and clipping issues and frequent stoppages for loading, while none of the laundry list of new mechanics - including, but certainly not limited to, a basic dialogue system, ability upgrades, stealth manoeuvring, and a second playable character - seems fully implemented. Look past the busted controls and the glitches and Angel of Darkness is a mess of unfulfilled ambition. "I've talked to people who worked on the game, and when I think of what Angel of Darkness could have been it truly kills me because it could have not only been the best Tomb Raider game back then but also the best game on the PS2." "Games today get away with what Angel of Darkness couldn't back then," AJ.R says. Kristan Reed's Eurogamer review called it "a marked backward step" and a "half-baked, unfinished travesty" that was DOA for all except the most dedicated Tomb Raider fans.
"If Core were given only six more months of development time," AJ.R continues, "it would be a completely different Lara Croft on the market today." A fan-made trailer compiles some of the best Angel of Darkness mods.ĪJ.R is under no illusions about Angel of Darkness's problems, but he believes it was given short shrift by critics back in 2003. "If you look at everything Angel of Darkness tried to achieve and was mocked for," argues the HD remaster Facebook page owner AJ.R, "most games today actually use what it tried to build from the ground up." Angel of Darkness' dark tone, its RPG mechanics, stamina meter and generous blending of horror, action, adventure and platforming genre conventions have certainly become commonplace in recent years.
Yet its devotees insist the game was hard done by in the rush to release, that The Angel of Darkness never got a fair shake because of its myriad launch bugs and glitches and because of the difficulty of developing for the PlayStation 2.
It went through three years of development hell before it was rushed out unfinished in 2003, to the eternal mockery of an industry weary from grandiose promises after five prior games that all looked, sounded and played much the same. It effectively condemned the long-running studio behind one of gaming's most lucrative series to an inelegant demise. The Angel of Darkness very nearly killed Tomb Raider.
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