The Tomb Raider franchise gets a long overdue reboot with the release of the latest Lara Croft game simply titled "Tomb Raider". The franchise chronicles the story of a very young Lara Croft as she ventures on an expedition to find the mysterious lost city of Yamatai which is funded by the Nishimura family. Things go south the moment the ship, aptly named The Expedition gets shipwrecked before even reaching the island. Separated from the rest of the party, Lara must now brave nature itself in order to survive.
BREAKDOWN:
- The game follows tradition and uses a third-person approach. A simple first person view is still available if you want precision shooting including during the use of Lara's bow and arrows.
- In terms of being a prequel, Tomb Raider is definitely successful in being that. The writing shows a wide range of emotions for Lara that we haven't seen in the old (new) games. She's scared witless the moment she kills her first deer and is thrice as mortified the moment she pulls the trigger and kills a man. While bloody, those moments are important in defining the Lara Croft that we know and love.
- I like that the developers managed to make the right choice in terms of weapons. Lara gets four weapons, a shotgun, an assault rifle, a handgun and the arrow. Throughout the game, you salvage boxes with the chance of getting new parts for upgrades. Around the middle, you'll already be laughing like a madman gunning down henchdudes with fire arrows and AK-47s with Grenade launchers.
- Much like another similar game, FarCry 3, killing more enemies will give you higher experience points. The more stylish and creative you off foes, the more points you get. Stealth kills still work like a charm here. Creep behind an enemy, press Y and Lara strangles her opponent quietly.
- Skills are divided into three branches - Hunter, Brawler and Survivalist. Depending on your play style, you can choose to focus on one or build on all three. Of course there are some skills that are necessary to build if you want to play smoothly. In my case I focused on Brawler together with some survivalist because I love to loot dead enemies and dead animals.
- Playing time is long. I love it. Max of 12 to 15 hours is a good thing especially since I was 'bitin' with the last game I played, which was Metal Gear Rising Revengeance. You get to explore the rest of the island thanks to the fast travel campsites. The game really kicks up a notch when you actually begin, well, raiding tombs of the Sun Queen.If you're a masochist like me, then you could probably go on a wild goose chase and look for GPS Caches littered in the island.
- The visuals are just plain beautiful and in some cases gory. Whether your walking in a dense forest, or trading gunfire in a makeshift windmill or even crawling in a corpse laden pit, you'll probably whistle at how gorgeous the game is once in a while. Heck, the graphics makes hunting deer in a forest is totally awesome.
- Overall I think that Tomb Raider is a totally awesome game. It's a welcome beacon to long time fans of the franchise and gives a warm reception to new gamers who have yet to experience the adventures of Lara Croft.
VERDICT: 10/10
(Better than Uncharted bitch)
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