“You just don’t know when to die.”

I’m not exactly sure what happened here, but after reinvigorating the floundering series with Tomb Raider: Legend and then faithfully retooling the original game with Tomb Raider: Anniversary, developer Crystal Dynamics managed to downgrade the controls and camera system in Tomb Raider: Underworld to such a degree that, despite being the best-looking and most atmospheric game of the Legend trilogy, it’s also the least satisfying to play.

Indeed, as Lara Croft forges ahead in the pulpy mythological storyline and traverses the globe solving environmental puzzles and fighting undead guardians of ancient relics, Underworld becomes a game that is much more fun to watch being played with a practiced hand than it is to play it for oneself. Slippery ledges, immobilizing sticky spots on the ground, flailing for balance when in the middle of flat expanses, occasional suicidal leaps into the abyss (or worse, to an earlier part of the level that forces you to redo a portion you’ve already completed), a camera that is player-controlled but also has a crazed mind of its own—all of these little wrinkles should have been smoothed out in a game whose bread and butter is the acrobatic traversal of its environments. Instead, these issues plague what is otherwise a solid exploration platformer.