Is Tomb Raider Game of the Year so far?

Hell no.

nope, that fight as of right now is between last of us and bioshock infinite.

Too much money was spent on making it look cool from every cinematic angle possible for it to have much substance. It was fine for what it was, but for me it was nothing more than empty calories.

I'm gonna say it will be a three way fight between Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us and Saints Row 4. Maybe Tomb Raider will make one of the guys personal top ten.

Nope. The Last of Us is. But I did enjoy Tomb Raider quite a bit.

No? I didn't even really think of it that way. It's a nice game though. I can imagine fully respecting someone choosing it as their game of the year later on. :)

@mrfluke said:

Pretty much this, although I haven't played Bioshock Infinite so at the moment my GOTY is The Last of Us.. Saints Row IV could potentially be a strong contender as well, but we'll have to wait and see when that comes out.

Great game, but not game of the year material..

Short answer; no. But it's damn close. I think Last of Us pulled ahead for me personally. But before that game I was torn between Tomb Raider and Infinite for my personal GOTY. The gameplay is great and I love how they handle Lara. But the overall story and supporting characters are lame and the hub, fight, hub, fight design started to wear on me toward the end. But is a fantastic game overall. It had the gameplay where Infinite had the story. Last of Us is the best mix of both for me. Though all three have their issues.

Barring Infinite and Last of Us, there's also DMC and Heart of the Swarm, not to mention Metro: Last Light, Antichamber, Guacamelee, and MGS: Rising each of which I could see placed above Tomb Raider in a Bombcast GOTY fight.

I thought it was a pretty good game. I did find it to hold your hand a little too much in some areas, even if the Metroid-vania-open-world design carried some twists that opposed them. The only dynamic part of the game was the combat, and I wish the rest of the game's aspects like adventuring, platforming, and tomb raiding were as challenging and gamey. Sadly, Tomb Raider falters by not taking any risks to thwart the throne of third-person-movie games.

The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite are both games with quite a bit of substance to their plots (at least the latter is and by all accounts the former is as well). Tomb Raider's plot is OK at best and pretty dumb at worst. It works as a good vehicle for the pretty fun gunplay, the generally good set pieces, and the decent platforming, but none of these things are particularly amazing for video games. Tomb Raider is a very fun game but it will be a downer of a year if that is considered the best of everything else.

Personally, I don't think that Bioshock Infinite really deserves it either. I can't speak for The Last of Us, but Bioshock Infinite is a good-not-great shooter wrapped in an amazing world and brilliant story. It's the former bit that bothers me - I want a game that is well-remembered for its interactive parts to be the GOTY. Tomb Raider's interactive parts aren't quite interesting, inventive, unique, or well-executed enough for me to consider it the best game thus far. It's just a really, really fun game.

Nope. I'd give it to Fire Emblem. Though it not being "AAA" I feel like it'll be ignored in favour many other games.

/cynicism

I'm in the middle of playing BioShock Infinite and I'm surprised to see so many mentions in this thread to be honest. It's not bad but certainly not GOTY material so far.

You obviously don't own a PS3 or have played The Last of Us.

Nah, excellent game though.

I agree, but I would understand why someone would say Tomb Raider is better than TLOU. As great as that game is, it has significant gameplay issues. Tomb Raider didn't really have many issues with the gameplay. If a person wants gameplay over everything else then I could see someone picking Tomb Raider. Same thing against Infinite. I think of the three, Tomb Raider has the most solid, consistent gameplay.

So far it's probably between Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us for me.

Nah man, it's a great game for sure but personally I'd put Bioshock Infinite or maybe Last of Us if I had a PS3 to play that.

No, so far DmC is the best thing I've played all year. I put 90 hours into that game.

Not at all. Tomb Raider II's better than the first game, but that alone doesn't make it GOTY material.

It's true that the major strengths of both Infinite and The Last of Us are things other than the gameplay (though in my opinion The Last of Us has much better gameplay than Infinite), if I were to choose a GOTY based solely on gameplay I'd go with Metal Gear Rising, not Tomb Raider.

It has a terrrrrrrible story. So no. Infinite, Last of Us, and DmC are all better thus far. Assuming DmC came out this year... I can't even remember but you guys already mentioned it so I won't research. I'd throw in Metro Last Light as well above Tomb Raider even tho I thought it had some really bad parts (most of it was good tho).

It's kind of odd that the one point that you bring up about how awesome Tomb Raider was was the same point that I felt they failed miserably at.

Tomb Raider was great but it's hard to argue against the emotional impact of Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us.

Let's not forget about the potentially amazing slew of games coming out for the new consoles.

@mrfluke: and fire emblem that game fucking rules but with out patrick it might not get what is deserves

The Last of Us would be the "normal" and "the gaming press can feel good with themselves with naming it goty" choice.

DmC is a ton more fun though but who cares about fun anymore! Especially if it's kinda dumb.

The Last of Us is great and all but all it really makes me think about is how much i hope we'll get this level of quality in writing and acting in games more than 2 or 3 times a year at best and instead get that 10 or 20 times a year so the stupid gaming press will stop throwing away any critical thinking they've got left out the window every time a game comes around and has a better than average story. They keep saying games aren't movies but they sure can't help themselves and throw glowing praise at any game that succeeds at being like a movie.

Tomb Raider's probably number 3 behind The Last of Us and Rogue Legacy right now, definitely a solid game though.

I like Tomb Raider a lot. Much more than I expected to, in fact. Won't be a tiny bit surprised if it's in my Top 10 list at the end of the year ... but it's not GotY so far, IMO.

I need to play Tomb Raider, but my GOTY nominees so far are Super House of Dead Ninjas, Depression Quest, and Animal Crossing New Leaf.

Also, I like BioShock Infinite enough to consider it. The Last of Us...fucking clickers, man.

Nah. It's pretty good but it's not game of the year.

The Last of us wasn't game of the year either. It's pretty good but it's been over hyped and over rated. They didn't do anything that special, and they hit beats I already saw in The Walking Dead not long ago so it had less impact for me. I feel a lot of people over hype it due to it having such a morally ambiguous ending. The actual game play was nothing special and has been done better in other games before it.

Bioshock Infinite was pretty great, but if something better came out it could still be dethroned- not easily but it could. There's still a lot more of this year to go before we could say. Right now it's Bioshock infinite.

The best thing Tomb Raider had going for it was the humanization of Lara Croft. For once, in all my years with the franchise, I could relate to and sympathize with her. Beyond that and the gameplay being pretty solid, the praise kinda ends there for me.

The story and characters are not particularly well written, the "optional" tombs are kind of a joke, and the combat is pretty rote. I enjoyed the time I spent with it, but I would not call it Game of the Year.

I'm pretty sure the fight at the end of the year is going to be between Bioshock, Last of Us and GTAV, with Bioshock ultimately coming in third.

Fine game, but no. It'll be a fight between The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite, personally it's Bioshock Infinite.

In my personal top five so far along with the Last of Us, haven't beaten Infinite yet so I really can't speak for that game.

@smashecontrollers said:

It's not even a fight. Narrative of the year? Hands down Last of Us. Game of the year? Bioshock Infinite all da way.

Nope . Great game , but my favs are The Last of Us , DmC , and The Swapper .

I wouldn't even consider it in the top ten so far. One of the most boring games I have played in a while and couldn't care at all about the story.

What? No. Don't be crazy. I mean, it's a great game, but... no.

I liked it a lot but it's just a good game. It doesn't bring to the table what Bioshock Infinite and Last of Us do.

It comes close, an amazing update and a sure classic, but LoU has kinda changed the game.

no, just no. there are so many games that imo are way better tomb raider was a bit blah.
looked great played fine but was just the same thing over and over again. the story was not really interesting and just got more boring the further you went.
the thing that was fantastic about it was the humanization of Lara Croft and the development she went though

No. And BioShock Infinite isn't either, nice art design shouldn't cover up woeful gameplay.

Bioshock Infinite was a whole lot more than just art design and the gameplay wasn't that bad. It was too easy and could use a little more enemy variety but it was still fun to play. It's not the best playing FPS ever but it's better than most.

The main thing Bioshock has going for it is a fantastic story from beginning to end that gets better the more you pick at it.

Tomb Raider was great but no. The title of Game of the Year will most likely land in the hands of Watch_Dogs or GTA 5, at least for me.

I really liked it and it was a great reboot for the franchise, but it's not GOTY by a long shot.

It's in the top three of the year definitely.

Really good game, and it's in my Top 10 of the year (so far) but right now The Last of Us is the game of the year. The Swapper and Gunpoint are up there too, as is Rogue Legacy but I have yet to beat it (3 bosses down!) and am too in the midst of the game to be critical.

For fun, my best of the year in rough order from best to worst: The Last of Us, The Swapper, Gunpoint, Rogue Legacy, Bioshock Infinite, DMC: Devil May Cry, Ni no Kuni, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, and Tomb Raider

It would never win it but I'd throw Metro: Last light in as well.

Tomb Raider thus far is this year's Darksiders II for me. Both games I loved the gameplay of and how the characters handled in space. Both with near non-existant stories and characters that weren't nearly developed enough to really engage me. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed playing it though, even the combat I found really enjoyable. A pleasant surprise, but won't be in serious consideration for my GotY.

It probably would have made it somewhere on to my GOTY list last year, but I've enjoyed so many games this year, that if it's on there I can't imagine it being very high.

God no. It's a mind-numbing slog of shallow gameplay and ridiculous hand-holding, and an exercise in overly cinematic fluff (running on falling architecture, anyone?). There's so little substance in that game, especially in the characters and cutscenes. I've never been a cutscene-skipper (I love MGS for fuck's sake), but I was so bored to tears, I very nearly did just skip every single one (and probably should have too). Major character deaths? Who gives a shit? They were so painfully unimpactful. They just got in the way of me putting an end to that experience for good. The budget on that game was way too high, and they didn't know what to do with it but overproduce everything for no particularly good reason, hence why it sold over 3 million copies, yet was considered a failure for them.

/rant

I'm not actually as angry about it as my comment would suggest, but just ugh. It felt like a waste of time. It is an undeniably competent, well produced game.