REVIEW: Tomb Raider (2013)

After a series of rather mediocre and god-awful (Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness) games over the past decade, gamers were beginning to wonder if Lara Croft would return to her peak as one of the queens of bad assery in video games.

The newly formed partnership between Crystal Dynamics (pretty much what's left of Eidos Interactive) and Square Enix has cherished this reboot of the beloved Tomb Raider franchise. This tale acts as an origin story of sorts for a much younger Lara Croft, as players will be experiencing the events that mold her into the heroine that we know and love.

What do I think of Lara Croft's return to gaming? Read on to find out.

Note: This review ONLY covers the single player campaign. If you're looking for coverage on the multi-player modes you will have to look elsewhere. 

The Plot (full spoilers): 

The game begins with Lara setting out on her first expedition about the ship Endurance, with the intention of finding the lost kingdom of Yamatai. By her suggestion and against Whitman's advice, the expedition ventures into the Dragon's Triangle, east of Japan. The ship is struck by a violent storm and split in two, leaving the survivors stranded on an isolated island. Lara is separated from the others when she is captured by a strange, savage man and trapped in his cave home. She manages to escape while her captor is killed as the cave collapses around them. As Lara tries to locate the other survivors, she finds more evidence that the island is inhabited, complete with strange carvings, dead bodies, and ritual sacrifices of animals. She eventually finds her friend Sam and a man called Mathias, who claims to be one of the passengers. As Sam tells Mathias the legends of Himiko, Lara falls asleep; when she wakes, Mathias and Sam are nowhere in sight.

When Lara finally reunites with the other survivors, she and Whitman decide to break off from the main party and search for Roth, who is still missing, while the rest of the group (Reyes, Jonah, Alex and Grim) set out to find Sam and Mathias. As Lara and Whitman explore, they discover that the island's inhabitants are worshiping Himiko, confirming that the island is, in fact, Yamatai. Upon discovering a shrine erected in Himiko's name, they are captured by the islanders and taken to a settlement along with several other survivors of the Endurance wreck. When the survivors attempt an escape, the captors turn on them, hunting them down and killing them. Lara is separated from Whitman and tries to hide, but is found by Vladimir, one of the leaders of the inhabitants. Vladimir attacks Lara, but she fights back and is forced to kill him to save her own life. She fights off the remainder of the inhabitants as she desperately works her way up the mountainside to meet up with Roth. Eventually, she locates an injured Roth in a nearby abandoned village. Using Roth's equipment, Lara sets off for a communications relay at the very top of the mountain, in hopes of contacting the outside world and calling for aid.

After successfully hailing a plane that was searching for the Endurance and setting a signal fire for them to follow, Lara witnesses a fierce storm materialize out of a clear sky and strike the plane down, accompanied by a mysterious voice saying "No one leaves" in Japanese. Feeling responsible for the fate of the pilots, Lara is powerless to stop the island's inhabitants from killing them. Lara is contacted by Alex and Reyes, who reveal that Sam has been kidnapped by the island's inhabitants, a violent cult known as the Solarii Brotherhood. Lara, who is closest to Sam's position, tries to rescue her, but is foiled by Mathias, who orders her killed. Lara is saved by the intervention of strange samurai-like creatures—referred to by the islanders as 'Oni', demons in Japanese folklore—and taken to an ancient monastery in the mountains. Escaping again, Lara stumbles onto a ritual chamber, where she learns that a "fire ritual" was used to choose the successor of Queen Himiko as part of a ceremony called the "Ascension". A terrified Sam manages to contact Lara and informs her that the Solarii intend to put her through the fire ritual, which will burn her to death if it is unsuccessful. Lara makes for the Solarii fortress, with support from Roth, but as she tries to infiltrate the palace, the Solarii threaten to murder Grim unless she surrenders. Grim attempts to overpower them, but is killed in the process. This allows Lara to venture into the palace, where she witnesses Mathias putting Sam through the fire ritual. Lara interrupts the ritual by trying to save Sam, but she is overpowered by Mathias and his men. The ritual continues, but Sam is not harmed by the flames, which are extinguished by a great gust of wind, marking her as the rightful successor to the Sun Queen's throne.

Lara narrowly escapes captivity once again and doubles back to help her friends, whose attempts to reach Sam have resulted in their capture. Aided by Whitman—who has managed to negotiate some degree of freedom with the Solarii—Lara returns to the palace to rescue Sam as Roth commandeers a helicopter to get them out. Having witnessed the storm that forced the search plane to crash, Lara sends Sam to escape by land and tries to force the pilot to land as a second storm brews up, striking the helicopter and forcing them to crash. Lara is nearly killed in the accident and is revived by Roth. However, Mathias and the Solarii arrive, and Roth is killed by a tomahawk meant for Lara. While mourning over Roth, Lara accepts that the storms are not natural, but are somehow connected to the Sun Queen and designed to prevent anyone from leaving the island. She meets up with the other survivors, who have evaded the Solarii long enough to secure a boat and escape the island, provided that it can be repaired. They are joined by Whitman, who claims to have escaped, though Lara begins to suspect him of working with the cultists. Lara and Alex head for the wreck of the Endurance to salvage the tools needed for Reyes to repair the boat. They find what they need, but they are attacked by the Solarii and Alex is trapped under wreckage. Alex decides to trigger an explosion and sacrifice himself so that Lara can escape with the tools.

Finding an account of a Japanese military expedition to the island that sought a way to harness the power of the storms as a weapon, Lara decides to explore an ancient tomb on the coast, where she finds the remains of a high-ranking samurai who committed seppuku. It is revealed, in a message he left, that he was the general of the queen's Stormguard, the Oni that defend the monastery, and that the Queen's successor took her own life rather than receive the Sun Queen's power, leaving the Sun Queen trapped in her body after death, and her rage has manifested in the form of the storms. Lara realizes that the Ascension is not a ceremony to crown a new queen, but rather a ritual that transfers the Queen's soul into a new body, and that the process will destory the host's soul. Himiko's spirit wants to escape its current body, and Mathias plans to offer Sam as a new host. Lara returns to the survivors on the beach to find that Whitman has betrayed them, abducting Sam and handing her over to Mathias.

Lara, Jonah and Reyes give chase, heading up a river to the monastery. After fighting her way through the queen's guards, Lara arrives at the top of the monastery in time to see Mathias start the Ascension ritual. She works her way to Mathias, confronting Solarii and guards alike. Lara kills Mathias when she shoots him from the roof of the monastery, sending him plunging into the abyss below, before destroying Himiko's remains to save Sam. With the storms dispersed, Lara, Sam, Reyes and Jonah leave the island and are picked up by a cargo ship. As she and her friends sail home, Lara decides that there are many more myths to be found and resolves to uncover them, stating that she isn't returning home just yet.

NEW Lara vs. Classic Lara

This new face for Miss Croft was modeled after model Megan Farquhar. Finally, Lara Croft is down to reasonable proportions instead of raiding tombs looking like something straight out of a Playboy magazine. I think we can leave the slutty tomb raiding to Tia Carrere in Relic Hunter right?

I got to say, Lara's come a LONG way from being a set of breasts with arms and legs to finally actually looking like a real person after all of these years.

Gameplay:

Lara can scan her environment for helpful clues with her "Survival Instincts" that many players will find reminiscent to Detective Mode in Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City.

Gameplay is divided from platforming reminiscent of the Uncharted series or Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, with QTE (quick time events) to react to the action going on in the staged set pieces, to stealth sections (no penalty for being discovered other than the area turning into an overwhelm fire fight) and bit of duck and cover gunplay, like that found in Gears of War.

Everything that Lara accomplishes in this world nets her experience points that lead to Skill Points that players can use to improve Lara's survival prowess, brawler, or effectiveness with weapons. Searching the corpses of dead savages and animals allows Lara to obtain salvage that can be combined with parts found throughout the game to upgrade Lara's weapons to various degrees.

Lara's adversaries range from the animals in the wild (wolves, boars, etc.) to undead samurai warriors to the variety of savages occupying the island. Each encounter will be different from the last as enemies look to for multiple opportunities to flank Lara and expose her from beneath cover in battle; often times tossing Molotov cocktails, grenades, and dynamite to her location.

Lara starts the game off with no equipment other than her wits at first, but quickly obtains a bow, which will literally become the focal point of most of your exploits of this adventure. While Lara acquires a handgun, rifle, and even a shotgun over the course of the game, but the bow is the weapon that most players will gravitate towards the most. When you first acquire it, it's just an ordinary wooden bow, but Lara quickly upgrades it with parts found scattered across the island and it later acquires the ability to shoot ropes for Lara can climb down or use to pull enemies off cliffs. By the end of the game, this thing allows you ascend ropes with lightning speed, fires flaming tipped, grenade tipped, or even armor-piercing arrows at your foes for devastating results. Lara pretty much makes The Hunger Games' Katniss Everdeen look like wuss in comparison.

Not to take away from the other weapons, but players will be upgrading their favorite weapons to their hearts' desire, as parts are scattered across the island to bring each weapon to their maximum potential. Unfortunately, these upgrades cost a lot of salvage points so players will be hunting for every collectible and completing every challenge just to acquire them all.

Lara can take breaks from the main campaign and embark on exploring the seven optional tombs scattered across the island. Unfortunately, these optional tombs can be completed in roughly 5-10 minutes with minimal effort. On the bright side, all of these collectibles, challenges, and side quests are available to Lara after clearing the game as the entire island opens up for players to freely explore with minimal concerns from the island savages.

The Verdict: 

I want to start this off by bringing up the HUGE controversy that seems to be just swept underneath the rug by all of the reviews once this game hit the shelves. 

During an interview with Kotaku, executive producer Ron Rosenberg stated that during the game, Lara Croft "gets taken prisoner by scavengers on the island. They try to rape her, and- [...] She's literally turned into a cornered animal. And that's a huge step in her evolution: she's either forced to fight back or die and that's what we're showing today." The suggestion of a possible 'attempted rape' in the game soon caused outrage and controversy. 

Studio manager Darrell Gallagher later denied the 'attempted rape' suggestions, stating that one of "the character defining moments for Lara in the game, which has incorrectly been referred to as an 'attempted rape' scene is the content we showed" where "Lara is forced to kill another human for the first time. In this particular selection, while there is a threatening undertone in the sequence and surrounding drama, it never goes any further than the scenes that we have already shown publicly. Sexual assault of any kind is categorically not a theme that we cover in this game." The creative director Noah Hughes later further clarified that they "wanted to create an emotional investment, to draw people into Lara and her point of view. We wanted to draw you in, make you care, put you in Lara's shoes and have this be an intense moment you were experiencing with Lara, not from an outsider looking in perspective." 

In an interview with story writer Rhianna Pratchett, she explained that the scene wanted to show Lara's reactions, rather than her assailant's actions. Pratchett was critical of the way the game's trailer cut out Lara's reactions to focus on the attack rather than the aftermath, and that when seen in context, the scene took on an entirely different meaning that was originally intended. Pratchett also expressed dismay that, as a female protagonist, Lara had been misrepresented as a victim of a sexual assault. -- via Wikipedia

No means no, fellas.

Mind you, this alleged scene has been removed for the most part but after that first encounter with the savages of the island where Lara helplessly struggled against this overpowering threat and had to resort to violence to survive, I couldn't help feel that was the reaction intended for players - between the lines, in a sense - to feel in that situation. Throughout the entire game, I couldn't help but shake off that feeling that something could jump out at any moment and this poor young woman wouldn't be able to handle herself. As a result, I got a sense throughout the game that it was up to me, the player, to protect her from what harm may come her way.

Before I get a shitstorm of bad press on that comment, you can't help but feel this way concerning Lara in this game when almost every 'dynamic' encounter ends up with a male conveniently positioned on top of Lara's body (i.e. look to the gif on your left here). Mind you, Lara doesn't come off as weak as Samus Aran did in Metriod: The Other M in terms of how the narrative portrayed that heroine in that game, but one can distinguish the change in her own confidence of her own abilities from the start and after the adventure has ended. Lara Croft makes a transformation throughout this tale, gone from the clever, yet weak unsure girl to becoming a confident, versatile, and resourceful woman.

Crystal Dynamics did an excellent job with weaving the tale of Lara's origin story in this game, but my biggest complaints came in two flavors. First of all, the moment where Lara is urged to kill someone for the first time. As emotionally powerful as it was, the impact was diluted the moment the game switches into a traditional shooter mindset (rewards for headshots and killstreaks) and automatically expects the player to be cool with killing. Sure, players have been shooting stuff for decades now in our gaming careers, but for Lara, I would have expected another stealth section or two while she gets over her emotional shock of killing. She's not a hardened soldier like Solid Snake, a child psychopath turned samurai like Raiden, nor is she a war veteran like Master Chief. It's debatable that drawing out her shock would have made her seem more weaker, but it would have made that moment when Lara finally decides to kill regularly more significant.

Lara and Sam seem a bit close... a bit MORE than
just "friends" ya know?

Secondly, I have an issue with Lara and Sam's relationship. While Lara grew into her role as the team of the Endurance's "savior", Sam depended on Lara to save and rescue her at every opportunity instead of stepping up to the challenge like the other members of the crew. She only serves as Lara's cheap damsel in distress mechanic to drive the story onward. You can expect her to possibly reprise this role in a sequel as it seemed that the Queen "marked" her and the end of the game. I could be wrong, but still that majority of the dialogue between Sam and Lara goes like this:

Sam: Lara!
Lara: Sam!
Sam: Lara, help me!

I'm not even joking here. That's roughly 90% of their dialogue in the game there.

On a positive note, this game is gorgeous. It looks great on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but most PCs will die trying to run this at the best graphic options. From the rendering on Lara's hair and character model detail, from her outfit to the blood covering her face and body from her multiple injuries throughout this tale to beautiful environments, Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix have created a world that rivals even those found in the realm of Final Fantasy in the sheer beauty and the realism that could be on par with the Uncharted series.

As cringe-worthy as they were, I wouldn't be doing this review justice if I didn't mention the death scenes in this game. I have to say some of these are up there with and in some cases, better than the death scenes in the Resident Evil and Dead Space, making you curse your mistakes as a player and allowing these gruesome fates to become of the lovely Miss Croft. Each one of these fatal measures are more extreme than some of the death sequences in the original series, but I can't say much about the newer entries in this series since I haven't touched a TR title since Tomb Raider 2 on PC and PSX when I got past the infamous Opera House and the underwater levels and my memory card went corrupt. Long story short, that single frustration caused me to deter from this time-consuming series. Just fair warning, this is EVERY death scene in the game and I do not recommend those who are faint of heart to watch the following video:

With the frantic duck and cover gun play, Lara is highly responsive in long-range combat, but my biggest issue with the combat is her lack of melee options until near the end of the game after investing a lot of skill points in the Brawler category. At the beginning, Lara merely shoves nearby foes away from her until later she uses her ice pick to deliver fatal strikes. Ironic that Crystal Dynamics to take her fears and emotional growth into account in combat but not as much when she adjusting to killing. Lara's scramble move is decent for the most part, but it is not at it's best until coupled with execution upgrades later into the game. Most players can avoid this issue altogether by just avoiding close-quarters combat - that is until near the end of the game when Lara is faced with mostly melee-oriented foes.

Despite these minor flaws, Crystal Dynamics has revived Lara Croft onto her pedestal of greatness as one of the queens among gaming's heroines. From start to finish, Lara's adventure spans about 10-15 hours, leaving players at the edge of their seats from start to finish. Without a shadow of a doubt, this game is definitely an early Game of the Year candidate. Unlike most titles on the market with stellar single player campaigns, Square Enix has confirmed that there will be NO additional single player DLC, so players can sigh in relief that they have the complete package from start without any additional cash coming out of their wallets. I'm giving Lara's latest adventure a 9.5 out of 10. Lara's revival on current generation consoles could not have been any better than this.