Random Article


 
Must See..
 

Tomb Raider (PC) Review

 
tomb-raider-crossroads-e3-2012
tomb-raider-crossroads-e3-2012
tomb-raider-crossroads-e3-2012

 
At a Glance...
 

Formats: PC
 
Genre:
 
Year:
 
Publisher:
 
Developer:
 
Final Score
9.0
9/ 10


User Rating
no ratings yet

 

We liked?


  • Looks stunningly good throughout, especially on PC
  • Solid, entertaining and well paced storyline
  • Plenty to see and do throughout the island
  • Gameplay and controls have been expertly tweaked

Not so much?


  • Character progression for Lara goes against the gameplay
  • Multiplayer is perfunctory at best
  • Can get a little monotonous towards the end as it turns in to a kill-fest


Final Fiendish Findings?

Tomb Raider. Tomb Raider…. What does that franchise honestly evoke in the average gamer these days? Poor recent outings, troubled development cycles, a corporate buy-out and a reasonable download-able title? Or perhaps the name Tomb Raider was long ago transposed by the eponymous character of the game’s larger than life star, Lara Croft? One thing was for certain, Crystal Dynamics had its work cut out rebooting a franchise so engrained in popular culture.

0
Posted March 13, 2013 by

 
Full Fiendish Findings...
 
 

Tomb Raider.  Tomb Raider…. What does that franchise honestly evoke in the average gamer these days?  Poor recent outings, troubled development cycles, a corporate buy-out and a reasonable download-able title?  Or perhaps the name Tomb Raider was long ago transposed by the eponymous character of the game’s larger than life star, Lara Croft?  One thing was for certain, Crystal Dynamics had its work cut out rebooting a franchise so engrained in popular culture.

Tomb Raider brings us a young Lara Croft.  Not long out of university and starting to forge her own career as an archaeologist – following in the wake of her father’s impressive career.  Lara is on a voyage with a film crew, a fame hungry archaeologist, and her alumni friend Sam.   Lara and friends are investigating an area known as The Dragon’s Triangle.  Entering the area a fierce storm comes out of nowhere leaving Croft and the crew stranded on separate areas of a nearby island.

It’s here that they suddenly encounter a brutal civilization of sun god worshiping psychopaths.  Lara, dazed from the wreck and the punch to the face that knocked her out on the beach wakes up upside down in a dingy cell.   Corpses of former captives fill the room.  A brief swing around and she breaks free… but not cleanly.  She lands with full force on a metal rod that impales her.  She gets up, crying in agony and pain as she pulls the small rod from her side…. normal Tomb Raider this is not!

tomb-raider-2013-new-screenshot-646x325

Tomb Raider presents Lara as a fresh faced woman.  Intensely gifted and focused on her craft, but she lacks and real world exposure.  She’s had the basic survival training.  Done the firearms courses but we’re not talking theoretical now… Lara must take her first life to survive.  A lot of emphasis has been placed on this progression from innocent to hardened survivalist.  In previous games the fact that Lara bounced around happily murdering “bad guys” and tigers was never in question.  Here though it’s all thrown in to question because Crystal Dynamics wants you to think about the transition.  And in that comes the biggest issue about the game – the premise and the gameplay don’t gel well as the game progresses… and to be honest I’m not sure they ever could have.

The initial narrative is fabulous.  Lara is innocent, scared, and just clawing and fighting for her life.  She feels inexperienced.  There is panic in her actions , in her eyes (great looking game… but we’ll get to that!).  Spills and near death scrapes ensue and throughout those first few hours of the game Lara slowly starts to grow.  Overcoming the horrors of killing her first animal.  Then taking down her first human opponent.  You do feel like you want to protect Lara, to steer her through this horrific ordeal.  Then comes the rub… once you’ve started to take on opponents, you need to take on more, and more, and more until by around 8 hours in you’re turning in to a one-woman killing machine with a body count to make Nathan Drake blush!  Totally understandable from a gameplay point of view, but it diminishes the effects of the character arc Lara takes and can make the lamenting in the superb cut scenes seem a little out of place.

That mismatch aside Tomb Raider is a superb action adventure title.  Mixing in elements familiar to fans whilst updating the game to the new genre standards set out by the Uncharted series.  Tombs are optional side quests that garner rewards of extra scrap (used for the weapon upgrade system) and XP (used to level up Lara’s abilities).  The game does a wonderful job of opening up zones of the map as the player progresses.  Not truly open world, at least for most of the game, the game moves from a fairly linear starting few hours whilst you get to grips with Lara and the world and transitions in to a more open environment.  Areas are blocked off until Lara has obtained the relevant skill to traverse them.  For example getting rope arrows will allow her to traverse large areas she could not reach before.  This traversal of the world is smooth and great fun to do.  Exploring each area for the hidden tombs to raid, lost GPS caches, scrap, weapon parts and relics.  You also find various diaries around the island.  This will help fill in the back story of this mysterious an increasingly magical island mystery.

tomb-raider-02

Tomb Raider looks stunningly good.  A great show piece for your shiny new rig and a pleasure to look at still or running.  Lara herself is beautifully animated and rendered in such startling lifelike efficiency that the grisly death scenes that befall her are more than a little uncomfortable to watch.  Environments are luscious and varied with plenty of architectural changes to the ruins and various domiciles around the island.  Crank the game up to Ultimate settings on the PC and the new TresFX system kicks in changing Lara’s chunky ponytail in to fully rendered individual locks of hair, tossing and bouncing around in a very realistic fashion.  Enabling them does cause a serious performance hit so you’ll need a top end i7 and top of the range graphics cards to get any benefit from them.  There have been issues with Nvidia cards running the game, but my Nvidia 650m had no problems and my ATI 6870 ate it up for the most part.. unless I turned on TresFX that is!

Sound design is equally well done with some superb scoring and sound work only bettered by the superb voice over work.  True the panting and squealing from Lara can get a little too much, and a little like you’re watching a porno to those listening nearby (my wife called out “What the hell are you watching!” at one point…).  The scripting, well thought out cut scenes and pacing all do great justice to Rhianna Pratchett’s original script/story.  All voice work is well delivered, great emphasis and believable conversations.  It might not quite reach the levels of Uncharted, but it’s the closest anyone else has come.

Multiplayer is here as an afterthought.  You might get a few hours of enjoyment from the light combat play but don’t expect anything lasting – it feels lightweight at best.  Those familiar with the Uncharted multiplayer will know what to expect in the most part.  It’s almost obvious that this was not written by the same team that wrote the main game – the work being handled by Square Enix’s Montreal studio.

The jarring of the gameplay drivers with the story elements can be off putting.  Especially as Crystal Dynamics go out of their way to make sure you know Lara is a real person, in a real situation.. she then turn in to Rambette and starts taking down guys in close quarters combat with an arrow head thrust in to the neck.

original

Tomb Raider never stops being fun though.  From the first spectacle of brutalised Lara, through the countless stunning set pieces on to the glorious ending.  The whole game hangs together with such confidence and quality  you just know how much love and care Crystal Dynamics have heaped on this project.  Tomb Raider has been influenced by so many titles through this generation it’s clear to see that on every frame.  That said the developers have taken those elements and combined them in to gloriously produced whole that put Tomb Raider, and Lara Croft, right back towards the top of the action adventure genre it helped to create.

Tomb Raider is the example of how a reboot should be handled.  Real care has been taken to present something new whilst trying to hold on to examples of the game’s roots.  It won’t please all old fans, many wondering why it’s not just tomb after tomb.  Those looking for a true progression to the series though will eagerly consume all the game has to offer.

A few niggles with the juxtaposition posed by the “innocent” Lara coming to be the woman we all know from the original games and the combat heavy later stages.  The multiplayer is forgettable, but not offensive.  There is also an element of repetition that comes towards the end as you progress more and more into combat scenarios.

Tomb Raider looks stunning, sounds great and has gameplay and story to match.  Spectacular set pieces, intense combat, a truly iconic central character along with a roster of well defined supporting characters.  This is the game that Crystal Dynamics and Tomb Raider fans have been striving and hoping for all these years.  Uncharted has a rival at last, how ironic and poetic it comes from the game it took most of its inspiration from.


Zeth

 
Zeth is our EU ninja and Editor in Chief. He's been writing about video games since 2008 when he started on BrutalGamer. He's pretty old and has been a gamer since he played Space Invaders as a young boy in the 80's. His genre tastes lean towards platformers, point-and-click adventure, action-adventure and shooters but he'll turn his hand to anything.


0 Comments



Be the first to comment!


You must log in to post a comment