REVIEW -- Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game developed by Eidos Montréal in conjunction with Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix. It continues the narrative from the 2015 game Rise of the Tomb Raider and is the twelfth mainline entry in the Tomb Raider series. The game was released worldwide on 14 September 2018 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, with a further release on macOS and Linux set for 2019.

Set shortly after the events of Rise of the Tomb Raider, its story follows Lara Croft as she ventures through Mesoamerica and South America to the legendary city Paititi, battling the paramilitary organization Trinity and racing to stop a Mayan apocalypse she has unleashed. Lara must traverse the environment and combat enemies with firearms and stealth as she explores semi-open hubs. In these hubs she can raid challenge tombs to unlock new rewards, complete side missions, and scavenge for resources which can be used to craft useful materials.

Development began in 2015 following the completion of Rise of the Tomb Raider, lasting until July 2018. Shadow of the Tomb Raider was designed to conclude Lara's journey begun in the 2013 reboot, with a key theme being descent both through the jungle environment and into her personality. The setting and narrative was based on Mayan and Aztec mythologies, consulting historians to design the architecture and people of Paititi. The gameplay was adjusted based on both fan feedback and the wishes of Eidos Montréal, incorporating swimming and grappling while increasing difficulty tailoring. Camilla Luddington returned to provide voice and motion-capture work for Lara.

Gameplay:

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is an action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective; players take the role of main protagonist Lara Croft as she explores environments across the continent of South America. The game's hub is set to be the largest in the franchise which also reveals the hidden city of Paititi. Players can participate in side quests and missions and learn about Paititi which provides a richer experience. A new barter system allows players to trade resources, salvage parts and weapons in Paititi. There are numerous adjustments made to gameplay, which is otherwise identical to Rise. The controls for swimming have been completely revised, as Lara is now able to hold her breath underwater for a longer period of time due to the introduction of air pockets. She also gains the ability to rappel down a cliff using a rope. Stealth becomes an important part of the game, with Lara being able to disengage from combat when she escapes from enemies' line of sight by covering herself in mud, hiding in bushes or against walls.

Like its predecessors, the game allows players to hunt wild animals, craft materials using the resources collected, solve puzzles and explore optional tombs. The game also features more tombs than the previous installments in the reboot series. Players will now have the option to tailor their gameplay experience as exploration, puzzles and combat have their own difficulty settings. A new Immersion Mode enables players to hear the background conversations of the locals in their native languages, when turned off the conversations are made in the players' chosen voice over language. - Wikipedia

Plot:

In the two months since Rise of the Tomb Raider, Lara Croft (Camilla Luddington) and her friend Jonah Maiava (Earl Baylon) have dedicated themselves to stopping the activities of paramilitary organization Trinity. The two track a cell to Cozumel in Mexico that is led by Pedro Dominguez (Carlos Leal), the head of Trinity's High Council. Slipping inside nearby tombs being excavated by Trinity, Lara discovers a temple containing the Dagger of Ix Chel and references to a hidden city. Murals adorning the walls allude to the Silver Box of Chak Chel and warn of "the Cleansing", a Mayan apocalypse culminating in a permanent solar eclipse. Lara ignores the warnings and takes the Dagger to prevent Trinity from acquiring it. Dominguez catches her and reveals that by taking the Dagger, Lara has triggered the Cleansing. He takes the Dagger, intending to unite it with the Box to stop the Cleansing and use the power it grants him to remake the world in his image. Lara and Jonah escape a tsunami that destroys Cozumel and foreshadows the coming apocalypse.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider doesn't skip a beat when it comes to the action-packed set pieces that this reboot trilogy is known for.

Despite growing tensions between them over her actions, Lara and Jonah pursue Dominguez into the Amazon. Their plane crashes in the Peruvian jungle during the second cataclysm—a massive storm—and the two find their way to Paititi, the hidden city shown in the murals. Exploring local tombs reveals that piercing the Box with the Dagger will grant the user the power of the god Kukulkan, which must be used to halt the Cleansing. Lara witnesses Trinity soldiers being slaughtered by strange humanoid monsters. When Lara saves a boy named Etzli (Kamran Lucas), she and Jonah are brought into Paititi by his mother Unuratu (Patricia Velásquez), queen of the city. Lara sees Dominguez is the leader of a cult dedicated to Kukulkan and Unuratu reveals he is her brother-in-law Amaru, who was taken by Trinity as a child and raised to complete the ritual and reshape the world in their image. Unuratu directs Lara to the Box, but Lara finds it is missing. Believing the cult already has the Box, Lara and Unuratu attempt to steal it, but Unuratu is captured. Lara also encounters the creatures again and learns they are the Yaaxil, guardians of the Box.

Lara infiltrates the cult's temple and overhears Amaru telling Unuratu that the Box was hidden by Andres Lopez, a missionary sent to Paititi by Trinity during the Spanish conquest of South America. Lara rescues Urunatu and realises that Amaru does not fully understand the ritual: the power of Kukulkan is not enough to prevent the apocalpyse; rather, the ritual sacrifices Kukulkan to prevent it. Unuratu is shot by Commander Rourke, Amaru's second in command. Before she dies, Unuratu implores Lara to complete the ritual, but warns her to not let the Box influence her. Lara and Jonah are attacked by Rourke and separated as they leave Paititi to decipher the next clue. Believing Jonah to be dead, Lara goes on a rampage that destroys an oil refinery and slaughters everyone there except Rourke, who escapes. She momentarily breaks down when she finds Jonah alive, but he manages to calm her down and they decipher the Box's location. Driven mad by the Box's influence, Lopez established a mission near Paititi where he trained acolytes to complete the ritual. Lara and Jonah find a secret catacomb beneath a church that leads to Lopez's tomb and the Box. Amaru finds them and forces Lara to surrender the Box. He admits that he ordered her father's death to prevent him from finding Paititi and revealing it to the world. Lara tries to persuade Amaru to use the Cleansing ritual to benefit the world. He refuses, as the Cleansing will only affect Paititi. Amaru has used his position in Trinity to manipulate them into preventing it. He leaves Lara and Jonah to escape the third cataclysm, a massive earthquake that causes a landslide and destroys the mission.

Back in Paititi, Lara and Jonah help the newly-crowned Etzli lead an assault on an underground temple complex at Paititi's center. They plan to disrupt Amaru's ceremony while avoiding the fourth and final cataclysm, a volcanic eruption that will destroy the city. Lara is forced to go on alone when Trinity cuts off Etzli's forces. She encounters the Yaaxil and their leader Crimson Fire and convinces them to help her stop Amaru. Lara takes on the symbolic role of Ix Chel while Crimson Fire is Chak Chel. While the Yaaxil kill Rourke and the Trinity High Council, Lara makes it to the temple summit. She fails to stop Amaru from piercing the Box and absorbing Kukulkan's power as the sun is blocked by an eclipse. Lara overpowers Amaru after a lengthy battle; accepting defeat, he transfers Kukulkan's power to Lara as he dies. True to Unuratu's warning, she is tempted to use the Box to revive her parents, but instead lets "Chak Chel" symbolically stab her as "Ix Chel". This sacrifices Kukulkan's spirit and stops the Cleansing. In the aftermath, Unuratu is laid to rest and Jonah decides to take a vacation. Lara stays in Paititi to help Etzli restore the city to its former glory. A post-credits scene shows Lara planning her next adventure at Croft Manor, acknowledging that her role is not to solve the world's mysteries, but to protect them.

The Verdict:

I honestly had to go back and re-read my reviews on the last two outings in Square Enix's reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise. I picked this up as a weekend Redbox rental and completed the main campaign and majority of the side quests/optional tombs done with about 78% completion within the span of a weekend. This review will be strictly focused on the single player campaign.

Right off the bat, I have to say that this game is a major setback in terms of gameplay compared to Rise of the Tomb Raider. In that review, I mentioned how I loved that Lara started off with everything from the initial quest in this reboot trilogy and they didn't pull a Metroid/Castlevania where you trip up or something of that matter where it causes you to lose all of your abilities/weapons. In the introduction section of the game, you have all of Lara's equipment and weapons from Rise but you find yourself once arriving to the main South American focused part of the game that Lara is stripped of all of her equipment due to an abrupt plane crash landing and you have to acquire everything all over again. I felt that this was completely unnecessary and felt like poor design in terms of depowering Lara like this all over again. They could have made the excuse of that she didn't bring all of her combat equipment from her last adventure, but to even script her down of her traversal options (climbing gear until much later in the game along with the fully upgraded bow, that was your meat and bones in the previous two games in terms of survival equipment, and the climbing axe to name a few) and bring her back down to basics for this last hurrah felt like a major step backwards in comparison from coming from Rise to this one. My only explanation for that from what I can assume is that they wanted to throttle back on how "powerful" Lara came across in her last adventure. Gameplay had her as a walking weapon of mass-destruction in Rise and I guess they wanted to scale that back a bit, despite the developers crediting that they were influenced by the Rambo films when approaching this title.

Don't get me wrong. I did have fun playing this game, even though there were a lot of moments where it felt more tedious than what the previous outings felt like. There were far too many fetch quests this time around for meager to "okay" rewards, but I felt inclined to do most of the optional tombs and hidden crypts because they always had an otherwise impossible to acquire new ability on the skill tree or part of survival outfit that I would want to better utilize Lara's skills that I was using. While I enjoyed the increased number of optional tombs and the addition of hidden crypts in this sequel, I never felt like they were as well thought out nor as captivating as the ones in the previous two games in this reboot trilogy. It felt like during the first two-thirds of the game, you were fighting nothing more than the wilderness and own survival instincts while sneaking around tombs and catacombs. The last third of the game throws stealth section after stealth section at you with a few action set pieces that even Rambo and Michael Bay would blush at from the sheer amount of explosions going off in the environment and tactic prowess required by Lara to survive these ordeals.

I felt the underwater sections were a little hit or miss. A lot of them felt forced on the gameplay in a few moments while others fit with the natural exploration of the environment. The constant threat of maintaining Lara's limited air supply while evading underwater predators (namely piranhas and electric eels) kept these moments tense, but they never felt cheap in my honest opinion from the few times I did occur a death or two in these sequences. I thought it was rather silly that you have next to no means of combating these underwater threats. Even in the original series back on the original PlayStation, Lara could at least arm herself with a bow gun to deal with those threats. I guess Square Enix said you had enough weapons to juggle in this game, no need to muddle up the weapon wheel with one more.

Speaking of the weapon wheel, I have a minor complaint. You can craft items on the fly for use in combat/stealth, but here's my major problem with it. Lara crafts these items very, very slowly. After playing games like Horizon Zero Dawn and Monster Hunter World, where this process is almost instant and second nature, it just comes across as cumbersome and poorly executed in this game. To say this game encourages you to craft so much stuff, they sure give you a lot of junk in terms of materials to use as resources, but at the same time, you generally have more than you need unless you're hoarding out on resources for your weapon upgrades. Upgraded item pouches for more storage space for these precious resources tend to be the first obvious choice to purchase from the in-game vendors, but those tend to get full pretty fast as well. 

The story comes across as a muddled mess, even though they had some pretty good intentions even though the execution was poor. The core emotional dilemma that Lara Croft has to deal with in this game is the consequences of disturbing all of these ancient artifacts and the impact and potential destruction of the cultures that hidden them away in the first place. For the first portion of the game, it seems like Lara Croft has learned her lesson after seeing what her tomb raiding has done in the opening act of the game, but her desire for stopping Trinity once and for all and avenging her father's death drives her to seemingly put those concerns on the backseat for the greater good.

There's an excellent flashback section of the game, where players are tasked with exploring the Croft mansion while playing as Lara when she was young child. You start off in the courtyard and playground before making your way through the hedge maze, solving puzzles along the way. You get a sample of where Lara's knack for climbing and traversing all types of surfaces comes from before landing into a hidden room of the Croft mansion where all of the artifacts and treasures that Lara's father has discovered are stored for save keeping. If you didn't pay attention to the clues that Lara comes across on the way getting here that mention her mother and her internal dialogue(s), then this puzzle isn't going to be fun at all, but if you did, then this is a rather pleasant distraction from roaming around the jungles and tombs of South America.

The middle section of the narrative has Lara be accepted as a refugee within the hidden city of Patiti, where the leader of Trinity (Amaru) has been masquerading as their false leader. She befriends Unuratu after saving her son on the outskirts of the city from Trinity soldiers attempting to find the ruins to bring forth some mythical apocalypse. From information given to her from Unuratu, she finds the artifact that Trinity was looking for and ends up giving up to Trinity to save her friend Jonah's life. Obviously, it comes down to Lara messing up another culture by potentially unleashing another apocalyptic catastrophe onto the world. In the game's finale, Lara finds herself dealing with another supernatural threat to end this trilogy and to stop Trinity once and for all. Yeah... by the end of the game, it feels like the writers were retreading familiar territory and just completely lost sight of Lara's whole mental dilemma of disturbing/destroying hidden cultures and civilizations by uncovering ancient artifacts. I get it though. They wanted to close the book on the loose ends that they left on the table concerning her father being killed by Trinity and grant Lara some sort of closure by allowing her to avenge his death. The story ends with the leader of Trinity falling at Lara's hand and another global crisis has been adverted, but at the same time, it seems that Square Enix left the door open if they wanted to do more with Lara Croft in this reboot series. I personally wouldn't mind another game in this reboot series, only if they took the time to carefully plan it out and not go for a cash grab, hot off the tails of that live-action film that tanked earlier this year. On top of that, I wouldn't want them to repeat the same formula narrative-wise for the fourth game in a row either.

(Laughs) You can't tell me something isn't going on between Lara and Unuratu when Lara's leaning in looking at her like this!

Off-topic, but... I hate to ask but is Lara Croft supposed to be understood as bisexual in this reboot? I mentioned it back in the original title that I thought there was more than a friendship going on between Lara and Sam. Most of Rise was focused on Jonah and Lara globe-trotting together, but they are clearly more friends than anything more - this sequel sets that fact into stone during the opening moments of this game rather quickly, especially once they land into the first major town in South America where Jonah meets his not-so-subtle love interest. That's where their relationship draws the line it seems between Lara and Jonah as he's there to keep her grounded. Maybe I was reading a bit too into it, but it seemed like the more Unuratu bonded in their quest to stop Trinity and stop Amaru, Lara's body language seemed more "fond" of her in terms of companionship. I could have easily misread that as mutual respect between them, but if it was meant to be the former then I think that would have been an interesting take on Lara Croft's sexuality in this reboot. Since the initial outing in 2013, I haven seen this iteration of Lara Croft as a woman forced to rise to the challenge of the circumstances and challenges/obstacles around here. That is what has molded her into the woman, or rather the heroine, she is today at the end of this trilogy. It wouldn't be far-fetched to see her having a sense of fondness or rather admiration (or could be read as mutual respect as I mentioned earlier) in another woman that she sees as her equal, forced to rise to challenges in her own life and society - in this case being Unuratu. Enough of me trying to play the psychological analytic on this review...

Following the Game Awards last week, Square Enix is hosting a special promotion that is allowing players on PlayStation 4 to try out the game as free trial/demo for a limited time. I honestly say take advantage of this free trial and use it as your means to see if the game is worth your hard earned cash or not. I believe the trial allows you to play through the first major/introductory tomb, so you'll definitely get your feet wet in terms of gameplay in more ways than one.

One thing I didn't get to dabble before taking my Redbox rental back was the three new playstyles that are unlocked once you complete the game for the first time. According to the in-game text, you can restart the game on New Game+ with all of your skills, resources, and weapons carrying over, but you will have your skills tailored for the one specific playstyle that you choose at the start of the game.

Play It or Don't Bother?

Like I mentioned earlier in this review, this isn't a bad game; it just feels like one you've played twice already. If this was supposed to be Lara Croft's curtain call in terms of her outings in this reboot trilogy, then I'm sad to say that she went out on a rather mediocre note. Players that have stuck with Lara Croft's adventures thus far will feel right at home, but there's nothing revolutionary nor gamebreaking about this title. It just completes the journey that we started with Lara Croft back in 2013 and answers the remaining questions that were left unanswered since the beginning, while leaving a few new ones at the same time. Much like the last two outings in this reboot trilogy, this game warrants a bit of your gaming time, but I wouldn't go out of my way to play it, especially with so many AAA titles and blockbuster releases out at the moment. From what I've heard and read online, Square Enix already shaved the price down on this title multiple times since launch, especially on Steam, which didn't sit too well with early adopters right off the bat. Just like the previous outings in this reboot trilogy, I plan on picking it up down the road once all of the DLC is available off the season pass as the New Game+ content peaked my interest on how the multiple alternate playstyles would change things up gameplay-wise in subsequent playthroughs. 

REVIEW -- Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider is the 2015 sequel to the 2013 reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise from developer Crystal Dynamics and publisher Square Enix. This will be the eleventh Tomb Raider game. The game released on November 10th 2015.

Microsoft Announced At E3 2015 that Rise of the Tomb Raider will be a timed exclusive release for both the Xbox 360 and Xbox One on November 2015.

Square Enix later revealed the PC, version would arrive Early 2016 via Steam and PS4 would arrive Holiday 2016. There has been no word on a PlayStation 3 version.

Story: 

Set one year after Tomb Raider, Lara Croft's experience of the supernatural on Yamatai has been covered up by an organization known as Trinity, a sinister private enterprise pursuing the supernatural. In order to prove she is not insane, Lara becomes obsessed with finding the truth behind myths around the world. As her obsession threatens to consume her, she discovers herself in the same predicament as her father, discredited by the scientific community after an encounter with Trinity of his own, and she inadvertently leads them to Siberia and the ancient city Kitezh—built by Georgy II, the Grand Prince of Vladimir in the 13th century—which Lara believes holds some truth behind immortality. In a race against time, Lara must survive against humans, animals, and the environment in order to find the truth behind the myths and become who she is destined to be.

The Verdict:

Game Informer had a feature showcasing all of Lara's improved equipment for this new game.

I want to note that I was happy to find a copy of the Xbox 360 port of the game to rent, but I have no idea if the game is the same across the board on both 360 and Xbox One, so bare with me as this review is from entirely from my personal experiences playing the 360 version.

First things first, this is a gorgeous game to behold. From stunning cutscenes, beautiful environments, and heavily detailed character models, you can tell that Square Enix wasted no expense in terms of visuals for this game. It’s definitely up there for one of the most visually stunning titles for last-generation consoles, along with Remember Me and the first two Assassin’s Creed titles. Then there's the small things that Square Enix pay attention to in terms of detail, such as Lara's weapons showing any and all visual upgrades while she's wearing them on her body or while using them in combat or Lara taking the moment to shiver after walking around in the snow for some time and even taking the opportunity to rub her arms to attempt to warm herself up. It's small things like this that really help immerse me into game's world. Square Enix really did some top notch work here.

Lara has plenty of new toys to help her out this time around.

Gameplay is the same is what we’ve come to know from the original game, but Lara can actually melee enemies by default this time around. I thought that was an excellent decision this time around as it annoyed me to no end in the original game where Lara wasn’t as effective close range as she was in mid and long-range combat until you maxed out the skill upgrades. This ability along with an upgraded hatchet can even knock off the armor from heavily armored foes and leave them ripe for execution finishing moves.

I think that someone may have complained about the gruesome death sequences and graphic ordeals that Lara got herself into in her original adventure on the island because those sequences are far and few this time around. There were a few cringe-worthy death sequences and fatalities due to player error, but definitely nowhere as many as there were in the original game. Lara doesn’t sport as many near-fatal injuries either, but I found myself bursting out laughing as she merely rubbed some herbs and leaves onto her possibly broken and bleeding arm to make it good as new. That’s video games for ya, huh?

No matter how you approach combat, Lara ALWAYS comes off like a bad ass.

In terms of equipment, you start off with just a pistol and Lara’s climbing hatchet/axe for melee attacks, but soon enough you’ll be armed with your good friend from the original game - the bow. Square Enix did a great job of making sure this weapon stays just as exciting - if not more so, in this game. I wish that more games would adopt the “sequel approach” that Rocksteady did with Batman: Arkham City - start players off with EVERYTHING they had from the original game and build upon that arsenal. I can understand taking out the more overpowered weapons and items but we shouldn’t have Lara run into “Metroid syndrome” where she trips up and drops all of her items down some pit and has to start from nothing at the beginning of every game. I know, I know. It’s a VERY minor complaint and I’m willing to forgive them for that this time. Even Assassin’s Creed did that when they went from II to Brotherhood. You started the next game off with literally almost everything you had in the previous title.

And boom goes the dynamite...

Over the course of the game, Lara acquires flame arrows, explosive-tipped arrows, poison arrows, armor-piercing arrows, and even arrows bundled with knockout gas (I personally didn’t find this one myself but that’s welcome addition as well). Lara is also able to acquire multiple weapons of the same type but she can only carry one weapon from each weapon type at any given time (bow, pistol/handgun, shotgun, and rifle/machine gun). This gives players freedom to tackle the game’s objectives as they see fit as there’s a multitude of ways to take out the adversaries standing in Lara’s way. There were several occasions throughout the game where I would manually reload a checkpoint just because I wanted to try out different way to tackle a particular obstacle or take out enemies in a different way after exploring the environment.

A great attention to detail in-game sports Lara with her pistol clearly ANY and
ALL visual upgrades to your firearms in her holsters to show
silencers and extended magazines stocked.

Speaking of environments, this is a game that rewards players for exploration and taking the time to explore the locale. Your controller vibrates when Lara’s near hidden resources and supplies that are buried underground. You can dig these resources up and use them for crafting upgrades to your weapons and inventory items. Lara can even craft items on the fly now that adds even more depth to combat. There wasn’t a single time where I felt the combat in the game was unfair as there’s always something laying around that you can pick up, craft something on the fly and help you out in the heat of battle. Players just have to pay attention to their surroundings. Resources for crafting can be found in boxes and crates littered around the environment, by looting enemy corpses, and even by hunting animals as well. At least they didn’t make hunting in this game as annoying and tedious as it is in Assassin’s Creed III and IV…

I will admit seeing bears, wolves, and mountain lions made me think that I was playing those games for a moment though or even Red Dead Redemption with that bear gunning for you like a madman. I’m sure that’s going to give some players nightmares after bumping into that fool the first time.

The tactical knife allows Lara to cut down ropes and ziplines, but also can be used
for stealth kills along with the axe. 

In terms of the narrative, it’s a bit of deja vu with a bit of “been there, done that” by the game’s finale as I honestly felt like Square Enix literally rehashed the ending from the original game in terms of the build-up to the finale - the introduction of some supernatural army of doom, the fool who wants to abuse this power for their own personal gain, and the last Rambo-esque hurrah through what seems like impossible odds versus enemy soldiers and the supernatural. The plot twist near the end is a bit TOO predictable as I saw that coming the second that character was introduced, but I will give Square Enix kudos for the tease at the end of the ending credits. I’m very glad to see that Lara’s adventures in this revival will continue.

One thing that may throw players for a loop this time around is that this game is a bit of an open world. You don’t have to stick to the main story consistently. Instead, you can venture off and explore the 9 optional tombs or partake in various side missions. Each of the optional tombs are a test of wits and applying various uses to Lara’s equipment. If you don’t have the items to necessarily solve that tomb, the game will let you know right off the bat before even entering, so that’s an added plus that the creators of this game thought of a prompt to let players know of that for they won’t feel stupid wasting hours for nothing. The various side missions can be found from the various NPCs you encounter throughout the game. Each of them have a simple task that usually details finding some items, hunting animals, or disposing of enemy forces. Nine times out of ten, the missions take place where you have gone to previously at that point of the story, so if you’re doing the side missions as you’re progressing throughout the story, it’s not that hard to accept these missions between breaks in the narrative. Most of the time, they reward you with upgrades for your weapons, so it’s beneficial to help these people out when you can as most of the time you’re killing two birds with one stone - you’re acquiring resources and parts for upgrading your weapons and inventory as well as getting rewards for helping these NPCs out. The “last” side mission can be done in post-game as one of the NPCs want you to visit and complete EVERY optional tomb in the game. She rewards you with a TON of coins for your trouble, which can be used to buy items at the Supply Shack.

From what reports are saying online, it's beneficial to complete the side missions before you complete the main story as you're unable to finish most of them in post-game after continuing the game after the ending credits.

Like the previous title, Lara gains experience for every action in combat and exploration. These points can be used to purchase Skills to enhance Lara's abilities and expertise in hand-to-hand combat, hunting and salvaging resources, and with her weapon prowess. My personal favorites came from the combat skills that hone her abilities with the bow, unlocking double and triple kills while zoomed in on adversaries. This ability transforms the game into Splinter Cell: Conviction with a bow, or rather Hitman for Square Enix fans. These abilities enhance Lara's abilities and weapons that she acquires throughout the game's narrative as well, such as upgrading flame arrows to napalm arrows, grenade/explosive arrows to cluster bomb arrows, or poison arrows to poison gas cloud arrows. Shotguns could even be upgraded to fire rounds that ignite it's targets into flames, combat mastery with particular firearms can be upgraded to unlock finishing moves with those weapons as well in close quarters combat. Experimenting and toying with the upgrades for each players particular playstyle is worth multiple playthroughs on its own just for joy of toying with all of these combinations. This is yet another thumbs up for Square Enix allowing players to tackle the game as how they see fit.

Unlockable costume for completing
all of the optional tombs. 

I thought the outfit that was unlocked after you complete all of the optional tombs was a pretty sweet bonus. Lara finally looks like she fits in with the rest of her Remnant allies.

Bugs and Glitches

On Xbox 360, I ran into a lot of situations where the framerate would drop to a crawl for a few seconds when there’s a lot going onscreen (explosions, tons going on in the environment, etc.). It’s not bad enough where it ruins the game, but after installing the game to my HDD, this problem happened a lot less than I would expected it would otherwise.

One of the underwater optional tombs is glitched. There’s a segment where you have to attach a rope arrow to a crane that’s underwater after draining the water out of the pool. The puzzle is unsolvable if the rope glitches into the wall and doesn’t attach to the switch. I was only able to solve the puzzle after reloading the checkpoint and returning back to this area. I had a similar situation happen when creating a zipline throughout the course of the story.

Before you acquire the Iron Grip skill/ability from one of the optional tombs, I found it rather glitchy to perform rock/ice climbing with the grappling axe. I would have Lara scale/climb walls only for her to randomly slide off the wall and fall to her death. I don’t know what was the cause of this, but I think it has something to do with some poor collision detection. I’ve had this happen a LOT over the course of the game. Once again, it’s not enough to break the game, but enough to annoy gamers and potentially turn them away from the game.

While wearing particular alternate costumes/outfits, Lara’s items and weapons glitch completely through her body to some hilarious results. For example, the Compound Bow looks like it's sawing her in half at times or coming out of her shoulders and waist. I was using the Commando and Infiltrator outfits for the last portion of the game, so I guess that’s why it was looking so weird…

After acquiring that wire tool that you can use to throw Lara’s grappling axe to help with long jumps, it tends to glitch out and make Lara fall to her death much like with the normal climbing axes. Once again, this doesn’t happen a LOT but it’s just plain annoying.

Rent It, Buy It, or Don’t Bother?

Even though I rented it, I suggest buying it. I’m definitely going to pick up a copy at some point as I would love to replay the game at a higher difficulty with the added challenge of the boost cards and skills, along with the disadvantage handicap cards.

After renting the game for 5 days, I managed to finish the game with 77% completion (100% story completion, ALL optional tombs and side missions completed). The only stuff I didn’t get around to was exploring all of the crypts and acquiring all of the collectibles and various weapons.

If you enjoyed Lara Croft’s debut adventure in this rebooted franchise, then you owe yourself to join Lara once again on this new entry in the series. You can tell that Square Enix has made this game into a labor of love with obvious influences from the Uncharted series as well as the Hitman franchise to make this game even more a joy to play as the original.

With Lara Croft & The Guardian of Light and its sequel, Lara Croft & The Temple of Osiris, Square Enix are well underway restoring the legacy of the Tomb Raider franchise with this new titles in Lara Croft’s traditional tomb raiding form. There’s enough here to keep long time fans happy while enough new paint to intrigue and amaze gamers to draw in new fans to this franchise. With various improvements over the original title and tons of replayability and extra content, Rise of the Tomb Raider is welcome addition new entry in this revival of the Tomb Raider franchise.

I know that there’s plenty of fans mad that it’s currently a Xbox exclusive, but don’t fret - PlayStation 4 and PC owners will get a crack at this game in 2016. I’m sure by then all of the DLC detailed in the Season Pass will be available all at once.

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.