Only a game?

Unquestionably the biggest games release of the summer and arguably the biggest game of the year is the long-awaited return of Lara Croft in Tomb Raider: Angel Of Darkness, which is due out on PS2 and PC on June 20, having been originally scheduled for release last November. The good news for Lara fanatics is that everyone’s favourite tomb-raiding heroine is to be 100 times more detailed than ever before, and will be made up of new fewer than 5,000 polygons.

The new visual dynamics aren’t the only alterations – the biggest difference between Angel Of Darkness and previous Tomb Raider games is the change in Lara’s personality as she embarks on her darkest and most sinister adventure to date. When her former mentor Werner Von Croy is murdered in Paris, while on the trail of one of the five 14th Century Obscura Paintings, Lara is framed for the killing and forced to go on the run in a bid to track down the perpetrators, which leads her into a web of alchemy, murder, blood and betrayal. According to the game’s developers, Eidos, this is no simple tale of good versus evil, as Lara encounters more evolved situations and characters with which she must interact, including fellow adventurer Kurtis Trent, who is pursuing the sinister Eckhardt, the supposed art collector who Von Croy was due to meet before his unfortunate end.

Most of the other big games this summer are movie tie-ins. We’ve already had the brilliant Enter The Matrix, which is a companion game to The Matrix: Reloaded, and is far superior to its celluloid sibling in this reviewer’s humble opinion. Other movie-game tie-ins include The Incredible Hulk, developed by Vivendi Universal for PS2, Xbox, GameCube, PC, which promises to be smashing good fun, literally, as you stomp and destroy everything in your path as the Hulk while utilising more stealth-based techniques as alter-ego Dr Bruce Banner. The GBA version, meanwhile, is based on the original comic strip.

The fact that the original movie was released over 15 years ago hasn’t stopped Virgin Interactive’s development of Robocop, the game, a first-person action adventure that sees you taking on the metal mantle of the world’s first mechanical law enforcement officer, who has to protect the citizens of Detroit from all manner of futuristic bad guys with your vast arsenal of weapons.

One of the most fun titles coming this summer is undoubtedly Evil Dead: A Fistful of Broomstick, which was developed with the full support of creators Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert, and Bruce Campbell (whose voice features in the game). The game puts the player into the shoes of Ash, the chainsaw-wielding hero of the film trilogy, as he battles his way through legions of zombies in a bid to save the town of Dearborn from the influence of the Necromonicon ex Mortis – the Book of the Dead, with the same mixture of comedy and horror that made the movies so much fun. A Fistful Of Broomstick is due out on June 27 on PS2 and Xbox.

Capcom’s upcoming Resident Evil Dead Aim (due out June 20) is a light-gun shooter based around the survival horror classic, and initial reports suggest that it is miles better than Resident Evil Survivor, which appeared on the PS1 some years back. Apparently the game manages to combine the best FPS elements with the classic feel of the Resident Evil series, and even involves a certain amount of puzzle-solving.

Elsewhere, UbiSoft’s brilliant Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell gets released on GameCube and GBA on June 6; Virgin Interactive’s Barbarian makes the transition from Xbox to PS2 this June; EA’s F1 Career Challenge hits the shelves on all platforms on June 13; Empire’s Starsky & Hutch is out on PS2, PC and Xbox on June 20; and LucasArts’ Indiana Jones And The Emperor’s Tomb is out on PS2 on June 27; Vivendi’s Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter is due out on all consoles in June, with Henry Rollins providing the vocal talent of the main character; LucasArts’ highly anticipated gladiatorial epic Gladius should be released on all platforms this August, along with SCi’s The Great Escape, based on the classic wartime movie. Phew!