Hello everyone. This review was originally made for my my buddies over at Guild Umbra on March 09th.
Tomb Raider; The reboot
I have to say that this game is the very first “Tomb Raider” game I have played; I got my first “PlayStation” second hand, and I mostly played Nintendo 64 WCW vs NWO or WWF No Mercy back then. The only PlayStation game I have purchased was Metal Gear Solid. I never had a PlayStation 2–I went for the Xbox when I joined the army back in 2002 and the 360 in Nov 2005. I only purchased a PS3 for the BluRay movies. While I am not sure how much time went by during the last tomb Raider games I can say that this game was Absolutely Amazing.
I went in not knowing what to expect, having never played the previous Tomb Raider games. This game kind of reminded me a lot of Naughty Dog Studios Game, Uncharted. While I would say the Tomb Raider was much less of a platformer then Uncharted series games are, however, this could just be just me going in to the game having played just finished “Uncharted 3” a few months back.
The games pacing is amazing–the total time for me on Normal difficulty, completing every secondary quest while leaving the more annoying tertiary quests alone, was 22.5 hours. Never once did I think this game is too long – and oddly enough it did not feel too short. I always find the games I like to be too short… I find this rather odd. I felt completed at the closing of the game and a rewarding feeling overtook me. That is something I cannot say for 90% of games I have played. For example, I loved the Witcher series games by Project Red, and every time I play these games I find myself with more questions than answers and these two games were perfect, for lack of a better word.
The graphics are top notch, and from what I have seen on PS3 and XBox, they’re still awesome. The PC version is no joke; my water-cooled OC 580 GTX was not enough for this game at times. And at the time of me originally making this review in early March, NVIDIA drivers had not come out for the game yet to help fix things, like the stuttering issue. I am sure they will get there soon (they did). The game’s cut scenes are done in the game’s engine and prove again just how awesome the game’s graphics are; or vice versa, depending on your perception.
Spoiler Alert! Spoilers Ahead!
The theme of the game is ‘Lara’s First Adventure’ and how she goes from a frightened child to a hardened battle queen, or “survivor” as the game calls it. I can’t help but say this but Jennifer Hail and Fem Shep have got nothing on Camilla Luddington and Lara Croft. Sure, sure, getting launched in to space and then coming back to life is bad ass and all, but Lara gets her ass handed to her every 10-20 minutes in this game and nearly dies at least 22 times and she just keeps coming back in for more brutality and pain to save her friends and get off this Island. It’s endearing and admirable, with a hint of unknowable future, with a slight sense of foreboding that you won’t find in many games these days. The Uncharted games circumvent this by giving Drake that sense of humor and playing off his adventure because the girls love him–it’s cute and all, but ridiculous at times and I can see that going the same way in the future for Lara as well because we all know her from the others game (well, besides myself).
Overall, I give the game a 9.5/10 and the only mark down is for them adding multiplayer to the game which should never be played. It was made by a 3rd party group, and I am disappointed that they added it at all and more importantly delayed the game to make room for it.
Multiplayer Tomb Raider gets a big fat 0.000000000005/10 because it’s worthless, not fun, and only gets a 0.0000000005 because I killed someone on my first game before I died my first time. For me that’s a feat all on its own.
-Daniel Stevens
