Tomb Raider GOTY

While an extremely casual experience, this is the better Tomb Raider game of the survivor trilogy. Not because it's particulary good, but rather because it doesn't attempt to waste your time with pointless openworld fluff. If we ignore the stupidly easy optional puzzles (a farcy from the district-size Tombs from the original PS1 games), Tomb Raider 2013 is a thrilling action game set in an almost entirely hostile island, with none of the collectathon bs that plagued the later entries in the series. Reach new area, kill bad guys, maybe collect upgrades, next area, watch cutscene, repeat. Simple as that. No irrelevant optional content, no distracting side-quests, no empty maps, none of that.

My frame of reference for Tomb Raider notably comes from the original games released for the PC and consoles. Tomb Raider GOTY is completely different to what came before. It's pretty evident that the creators wanted to do something different with the IP, and what we got is a prequel/remake, that interprets the character as a survivalist action-horror movie protagonist. Gone is the meditative cavern exploring and puzzle solving. Instead, you traverse hyper detailed environments, farm ammo and currency, all of which you use against the numerous villains that litter the maps. For the most part, it is successful. Weapons feel great, and there is an incentive to upgrade them. The shooting system is intuitive, and the way Lara handles feels smooth and uninhibited. The story itself is neither here nor there. It follows classic action movie tropes, with the young Lara questioning herself, becoming the reluctant action ubermensch, and then being traumatized by it. I felt the climbing sections of the game really stood out, harkening to her roots. The system has been modernized, and you can get her to perform all kinds of feats. The shooting elements - especially the use of the bow - felt great and very natural to use. Unfortunately, although the graphics were rich and environments highly detailed, I think what it lacked was a sensibility and this idea of taste. Maps have a tendency being littered with mass graves, literally everywhere. Blood and dirt covers everything. What should be a few small huts is multiplied by 10,000. Everything that's represented is maximized and exaggerated to the highest degree. It's a game that shows a lot of technical skill and effort in construction. But is quite a simple game for the player, with everything explained and being linear. Respect must be given to the attempt at creating something epic and explosive, but it does lack the sensibility of the earlier games.

Im not a Tomb Raider fan at all. Heard of the games throughout my childhood but i never got into them. This review is not in comparison with older games, its just about this game alone. There are some great visuals, for me mostly in the average forest scenery because i dont care so much for big set pieces, it could still pass as a relatively newly released game. Not that i consider this title old yet. Controls were fluid so was performance. What i really didn't like were quite a few things that kinda started to drag the game down for me. So many over-used scenarios i've seen too many times from games around this exact era. The mission with a bunch of guys with flashlights looking for you. Its short but im noting it anyway. The place that catches on fire everywhere. A place full of unrealistic amounts of unusually fresh human flesh. The escape setpieces, where you have to cinematically escape an area, they bore me to no end, lack of interraction just takes me out of the game and i feel no excitement. Thats my personal opinion ofcourse. The dumb and very generic main enemies and their boring side chatter, the hordes of basically hobos thrown at you in a few places bored me (how do they survive? Where do they get all that ammo? ) there were generic fights i've had in several other games before, Bulletstorm and Rage perhaps, their magical awareness of where Lara is, both plotwise and in terms of gameplay was also stupid. "She is up there" they say in a room full of strong wind and high noise. Lack of facial animations is another thing ive grown tired of, the in-game cutscenes varying from looking good to stiff and very "videogamey". Half Life 2 could pull of better animations at times than this. To this day, lifeless facial animations are still common. Pros: Visuals. Controls and their fluidity. Cons: Story wasn't that interesting. Cliché main villains. Boring hordes of dumb AI thrown at you. (An army of hobos with how much ammo on that island? )

Like a dumb popcorn-movie, but very entertaining! Stupid consoleish gameplay, full of QTE button mashing, and totally on-rails scripted AI/fights. But it's all very triple-A - great graphics, great voice acting, very movielike experience with loads of crazy (and brutal) action. The "exploration" feels pretty cool, like when you jump from one ledge to another, or climb the mountain sides with your axe. When you die (and you will) there is almost always a autosave like 20 seconds back, so you won't get too frustrated here. Also no backtracking required, unless you're going for 100% completion. The optional tombs are pretty nice too, with its relaxed puzzle solving, and a nice change from the hectic action you'll encounter everywhere else. I'm too old for hectic QTE-games like this, but playing it on easy was just right for me. For the price on sale it's very much worth it, for a entertaining experience that lasts maybe 15h or so. Sometimes it feels like the game is playing you rather than the other way around, but I guess some like it that way...

The Tomb Raider relaunch trilogy is a bastardization of what the franchise was originally all about. Lara Croft is supposed to be confidant and capable woman who has a passion for discovery and exploration, and is well armed for the occassional pack of wolves or bear. The edgy reboot trilogy is none that. We have instead been given a survivor of unfortunate circumstances who turns into a total psychopath. A lot of people seem to have bad habit of glorifying survivors as brave heroes. They're not heroes. Survivors are survivors, nothing more, nothing less. In Lara's case, however, all it took was one kill and she got the fever for it and goes on a killing spree. This isn't Lara Croft. This is some crazy bloodthirsty mass murderer who just happens to possess the same name as one of my favorite video game characters. If this entry in the series had been under any other name than "Tomb Raider," I might have actually liked it. It's not as though these games aren't fun to play, they're simply not the Tomb Raider I know and love.