Recently I have been playing on Tomb Raider Underworld and one of the levels, called Valhalla, got me inspired to do a new art design. I haven’t reviewed the game on my site but I do rate it as an excellent “Tomb Raider” experience.
Mini Video Game Review
I’m a big fan of Tomb Raider, having completed all the past games, and I think anyone else who is a fan of this genre won’t be disappointed either as it delivers on all the important levels and looks great. Of all the Tomb Raider games it isn’t the longest and is a little simpler, puzzle wise, than others – I don’t remember either me or my mate Lawrence getting stuck whilst playing it (I must admit to looking through the walk-through once but that was just out of laziness).
For me the only real let downs are the fact that the camera angle occasionally messes up and can be frustrating and also that the combat sections feel a little like they were not fully developed and seem very much like a bolt on (luckily there aren’t too many of them). The main thing is that the game is involving, has one of the best story lines and stays true to the original game concept.
Design Inspiration
The level that my design is based on is Jan Mayen Island – Valhalla. For me it is one of the most well designed levels, second only to the Coast Thailand (which for me looked like a better rendering of the beginning of Uncharted – Drake’s Fortune and is just gorgeous).
Without ruining the story of this Tomb Raider game, it is heavily based around Thor and for anyone interested, Valhalla is part of Norse Mythology – it is an enormous hall located in Asgard which is ruled by a mythological god called Odin.
The Valhalla level consists of making your way down a long hallway with 4 large swinging hammers of which you have to jump on to swing across into other rooms etc. However if you look down you see that the hall is made up of platforms on what seems to be a bottomless floor with a brilliant white light. The animation and effect when you fall off one of these platforms is what inspired this piece and I think it is one of the most simplest and elegant elements of the whole game.
Thanks to AdelaaR on tombraiderboard.com for the image of the Valhalla level, above, which gave me my inspiration. You can also see glimpses of it from a YouTube video, link at the end of this post – but be warned if you are going to buy the game this is a bit of a spoiler.
Also for more concept art from this game check out my post of inspiring video game concept art which has a number of cool art pieces from this game.
Valhalla Design
Here is the design which is fairly simple, but I really like it’s simplicity – let me know what you think?
