Nature is your bow, your wit: a sheath of arrows. You have a real bow, too, if you’re that type, but either way, draw back the string and propel yourself headlong into this gritty, frantic, and uniquely passionate reboot of the Tomb Raider series by developers Crystal Dynamics. Some minor stutters in the plot and gameplay keep this dark origin story of the pistol-wielding hero from five stars, but with Tomb Raider Lara Croft puts an arrow in the action adventure genre that just wouldn’t stick if shot by any other hand.
Lara Croft is 21. No pistols, no tomb raiding… yet. However, on an expedition to the lost Japanese city of Yamati, a colossal storm hits. Shipwrecked on an island hidden off the coasts of Japan, novice explorer Lara Croft must clench her fists against the harsh and feral landscape, embracing danger to survive. A strange cult hunting her and powerful storms trapping her, with bow and arrow Lara must become something she’s not to unearth secrets, fight the supernatural, and raid tombs to save her friends and save herself.
The actual plot of Tomb Raider is nothing special, nothing that will wow you like the epic tumbles down waterfalls or parachutes through forests the game thrills you with. Stranded on an island, trapped by supernatural storms from leaving, island cult, it’s all been done before, and Tomb Raider doesn’t add any inventions to this worn plot. It’s not cliché, perhaps, but it doesn’t really get anywhere, even if you do move through it nicely.
Where Tomb Raider really shines and shimmers is in Lara Croft herself, who is given a great amount of depth. Camilla Luddington provides a brilliant and always remarkable voice for Lara Croft, so whether she’s whispering, grunting, or screaming to her death in one of Tomb Raider’s many brutal death sequences, you’ll always want to listen to what she’s got to say. This is amplified during one of Lara’s many emotional moments in the game, like when she must first kill someone, or when she cauterizes a wound with the burning tip of her arrow. Lara Croft, not so much the plot, is and should be the highlight of her adventure.
The gameplay is occasionally put apart from the story, though. For example, Lara chokes down tears and is emotionally torn from herself when she kills a man in self-defense, but right as you regain control of her, you’re off and killing ten more people with nearly no emotional response from Lara. I’d watch as Lara silently strangled a man to death with the string of her bow, and say, “Um, Lara, are you okay with this?” And upon her silence I would just forget about it. Luckily, it’s an easy fault to look past, and usually the gameplay and plot meld seamlessly.
Compared to Lara, the whole supporting cast is drastically underwhelming. It seems they exist only to be Lara’s ‘buddies’, in need of help, and to fill their respective stereotypes: the computer geek, the stubborn one, the cranky sailor, the burly but loving ‘strong man’, who incessantly calls Lara “little bird”, among other unoriginal characters. The only unique one among them is Roth, an old friend of the Croft family, and I’m thankful he’s the featured character among the bunch. To give the cast credit, a few of the characters do eventually evolve past their stereotypical-selves, but only when they’ve proven they’re too bland for us to care about.
Tomb Raider sets you loose on nature’s grand stage with a variety of weapons and methods to traverse the environment. Pry open crates to collect parts to upgrade your weapons, and gain experience to spend skill points on certain ‘perks’. For weapons you’ll equip the standard pistol, bow, shotgun, and assault rifle. You’ll quickly pick a favorite, and I’ll be darned if it’s not the bow, which makes the most snappy and metallic sound when shot to please your trigger-happy forest rampage. All the weapons, except maybe the rifle, have real ‘punch’ to them, and enemies jerk back with believable force when hit. During certain firefight areas, the game uses a cover-system I really like, where instead of pressing a button to lock yourself behind cover, Lara will naturally position herself against cover if you’re next to it, and will still pop up to fire like any other cover-based-shooter. This system makes moving between cover, as well as getting into it, extremely easy and natural. Perks collected from spending skill points at checkpoint campfires can heavily influence how you play, allowing you to find collectibles, get more experience from stylish kills, or even unlock new moves for melee combat, like throwing dust into an attacker’s eyes. Upgrading guns is a fairly pointless activity, though. After you’ve given you’re pistol a silencer and your bow some fire, all that’s really left to change are reload speeds, ammo clips, the normal jargon that is hardly noticeable in combat.
Tomb Raider is full of cinematic action sequences and set pieces that make you feel so breathtakingly awesome. Sliding down waterfalls and mangled planes and rock cliffs is thrilling, and though Tomb Raider has gotten some criticism for its quick-time events, they work really well with these perils. It’s also nice to see some variety in the quick-time events, as Tomb Raider has me bobbing the left stick back and fourth and alternating pressings of both trigger buttons, as opposed to games like Dead Space, that just want you to break the ‘A’ button on your controller and throw variety out the window. The Hollywood style jumps and falls become something different in the hands of Tomb Raider, though, and this is due to the fact that Lara gets hurt by them, badly. While Nathan Drake from Uncharted can jump out of a sinking cruise-liner and calmly fix his hair afterwards, Lara Croft is grounded in reality, and must cauterize deep gashes and stitch up her cuts. It’s this extra realism that gives great balance to the impossible stunts she executes.
If you thought Tomb Raider was all shooting you’ve been ignorant to the vast world Crystal Dynamics gives you. Sticking true to the name, there are tons of ancient tombs and collectibles for Lara to find and raid around the island, each with it’s own unique puzzle for you to solve. One time I wandered through a cave, torch lit, still thinking I was progressing with the campaign, only to solve a few quick puzzles and be told that I just raided someone’s sacred tomb. “What!?” I said. Then the experience bar shot up and I made peace with my lucky discovery. When I finished the story an icon said, “Yay! You’ve completed 60% of the game!” You get the option to continue to explore the island after you finish the campaign to look for stuff you missed (apparently 40% of the stuff), which is nice, but gets really dull soon due to the almost complete absence of enemies. After that, there’s the multiplayer, but that’s only fun for a round or two, then you realize you’d rather be cauterizing your wounds with a flaming arrow, so you replay the campaign, which is still a worthy experience the second time through.
Lara Croft is not to be taken lightly, and with Crystal Dynamics’ dark, gritty reboot of the series, it’s clear she never will be again. The string of a great series has been drawn back to its origin and the arrow jettisoned into a bitter, realistic look on a character whose notoriety pitifully originated from a boss fight with a Tyrannosaurus Rex. With its strong lead, heavy exploration, enjoyable gunplay, and wowing cinematics, Tomb Raider kicks down the door of the action adventure genre, stating; “There’s a new sheriff in town!” And she’s got a bow.
Lara Croft is 21. No pistols, no tomb raiding… yet. However, on an expedition to the lost Japanese city of Yamati, a colossal storm hits. Shipwrecked on an island hidden off the coasts of Japan, novice explorer Lara Croft must clench her fists against the harsh and feral landscape, embracing danger to survive. A strange cult hunting her and powerful storms trapping her, with bow and arrow Lara must become something she’s not to unearth secrets, fight the supernatural, and raid tombs to save her friends and save herself.
The actual plot of Tomb Raider is nothing special, nothing that will wow you like the epic tumbles down waterfalls or parachutes through forests the game thrills you with. Stranded on an island, trapped by supernatural storms from leaving, island cult, it’s all been done before, and Tomb Raider doesn’t add any inventions to this worn plot. It’s not cliché, perhaps, but it doesn’t really get anywhere, even if you do move through it nicely.
Where Tomb Raider really shines and shimmers is in Lara Croft herself, who is given a great amount of depth. Camilla Luddington provides a brilliant and always remarkable voice for Lara Croft, so whether she’s whispering, grunting, or screaming to her death in one of Tomb Raider’s many brutal death sequences, you’ll always want to listen to what she’s got to say. This is amplified during one of Lara’s many emotional moments in the game, like when she must first kill someone, or when she cauterizes a wound with the burning tip of her arrow. Lara Croft, not so much the plot, is and should be the highlight of her adventure.
The gameplay is occasionally put apart from the story, though. For example, Lara chokes down tears and is emotionally torn from herself when she kills a man in self-defense, but right as you regain control of her, you’re off and killing ten more people with nearly no emotional response from Lara. I’d watch as Lara silently strangled a man to death with the string of her bow, and say, “Um, Lara, are you okay with this?” And upon her silence I would just forget about it. Luckily, it’s an easy fault to look past, and usually the gameplay and plot meld seamlessly.
Compared to Lara, the whole supporting cast is drastically underwhelming. It seems they exist only to be Lara’s ‘buddies’, in need of help, and to fill their respective stereotypes: the computer geek, the stubborn one, the cranky sailor, the burly but loving ‘strong man’, who incessantly calls Lara “little bird”, among other unoriginal characters. The only unique one among them is Roth, an old friend of the Croft family, and I’m thankful he’s the featured character among the bunch. To give the cast credit, a few of the characters do eventually evolve past their stereotypical-selves, but only when they’ve proven they’re too bland for us to care about.
Tomb Raider sets you loose on nature’s grand stage with a variety of weapons and methods to traverse the environment. Pry open crates to collect parts to upgrade your weapons, and gain experience to spend skill points on certain ‘perks’. For weapons you’ll equip the standard pistol, bow, shotgun, and assault rifle. You’ll quickly pick a favorite, and I’ll be darned if it’s not the bow, which makes the most snappy and metallic sound when shot to please your trigger-happy forest rampage. All the weapons, except maybe the rifle, have real ‘punch’ to them, and enemies jerk back with believable force when hit. During certain firefight areas, the game uses a cover-system I really like, where instead of pressing a button to lock yourself behind cover, Lara will naturally position herself against cover if you’re next to it, and will still pop up to fire like any other cover-based-shooter. This system makes moving between cover, as well as getting into it, extremely easy and natural. Perks collected from spending skill points at checkpoint campfires can heavily influence how you play, allowing you to find collectibles, get more experience from stylish kills, or even unlock new moves for melee combat, like throwing dust into an attacker’s eyes. Upgrading guns is a fairly pointless activity, though. After you’ve given you’re pistol a silencer and your bow some fire, all that’s really left to change are reload speeds, ammo clips, the normal jargon that is hardly noticeable in combat.
Tomb Raider is full of cinematic action sequences and set pieces that make you feel so breathtakingly awesome. Sliding down waterfalls and mangled planes and rock cliffs is thrilling, and though Tomb Raider has gotten some criticism for its quick-time events, they work really well with these perils. It’s also nice to see some variety in the quick-time events, as Tomb Raider has me bobbing the left stick back and fourth and alternating pressings of both trigger buttons, as opposed to games like Dead Space, that just want you to break the ‘A’ button on your controller and throw variety out the window. The Hollywood style jumps and falls become something different in the hands of Tomb Raider, though, and this is due to the fact that Lara gets hurt by them, badly. While Nathan Drake from Uncharted can jump out of a sinking cruise-liner and calmly fix his hair afterwards, Lara Croft is grounded in reality, and must cauterize deep gashes and stitch up her cuts. It’s this extra realism that gives great balance to the impossible stunts she executes.
If you thought Tomb Raider was all shooting you’ve been ignorant to the vast world Crystal Dynamics gives you. Sticking true to the name, there are tons of ancient tombs and collectibles for Lara to find and raid around the island, each with it’s own unique puzzle for you to solve. One time I wandered through a cave, torch lit, still thinking I was progressing with the campaign, only to solve a few quick puzzles and be told that I just raided someone’s sacred tomb. “What!?” I said. Then the experience bar shot up and I made peace with my lucky discovery. When I finished the story an icon said, “Yay! You’ve completed 60% of the game!” You get the option to continue to explore the island after you finish the campaign to look for stuff you missed (apparently 40% of the stuff), which is nice, but gets really dull soon due to the almost complete absence of enemies. After that, there’s the multiplayer, but that’s only fun for a round or two, then you realize you’d rather be cauterizing your wounds with a flaming arrow, so you replay the campaign, which is still a worthy experience the second time through.
Lara Croft is not to be taken lightly, and with Crystal Dynamics’ dark, gritty reboot of the series, it’s clear she never will be again. The string of a great series has been drawn back to its origin and the arrow jettisoned into a bitter, realistic look on a character whose notoriety pitifully originated from a boss fight with a Tyrannosaurus Rex. With its strong lead, heavy exploration, enjoyable gunplay, and wowing cinematics, Tomb Raider kicks down the door of the action adventure genre, stating; “There’s a new sheriff in town!” And she’s got a bow.
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