Shadow of the Tomb Raider; most under-rated game of the year?

im finally getting around to playin this since it is on sale on steam... and im loving it as much as I did Resident Evil 2. granted im playing with a 1080ti in 4k, and a lot of the advances made in the series seem to be on facial expression and visuals in general. anyways, i feel for these characters more than i did anyone in red dead 2. performances and subtle facial expressions feel like what Mass Effect Andromeda WANTED to pull off. its very impressive when done right.

in addition, the exploration sections remind me of renting tomb raider for the ps1 from blockbuster (yup). it was still novel just to move around and find secrets in 3d at this point in gaming history, and somehow this game makes that fun again. i feel like SotTR does what the remake of RE2 does in breathing some modern life into the roots of a classic franchise. just my opinion, im sure there's someone out there who feels the same :)

I feel like the entire rebooted Tomb Raider franchise has been generally overlooked. Personally I slightly enjoyed the first game than the second, simply because of the environment, but still haven't gotten around to the third. The mysterious island with all the wreckage from different eras and varying biomes was a real treat to explore as were the metroidvania elements. That realization that you've passed these roped up logs a million times before taking them as set dressing but they're actually a traversal mechanic was really great. My main complain with Rise was that the snow became a sort of a bummer. While the first game was quite vibrant, the sequel was varying shades of blue and white, a lot more muted. The gameplay was top notch as ever though. I do own Shadow so this post is actually a good reminder that I should fire that up and give it a whirl. For whatever reason when it came out something about it just didn't grab me the same way I was excitedly awaiting for Rise of the Tomb Raider after loving the heck out of the first one.

i also liked the first one more than the second, so if our tastes align, you may like 3 a lot. 2 was very repetitive and dragged on and it didnt have the emotional story beats and performances this one does.

Lara grated on me so much in Shadow. Even Jonah is pretty sick of her whole behaviour and selfishness in this game compared to the first two -- in the first five or so hours, at least -- and the fact she starts murdering so early on really bugged me. I also found the gameplay a bit less polished (the game itself in general, in fact), the underwater stuff super dull, and the story wasn't grabbing me at all. Weak writing. My list of problems with it just started to grow and grow and grow. I think the first two games in this rebooted trilogy are better than most Uncharted games put together, I'm a huge fan, but this is a much weaker game to me, and the most pointless so far. I wouldn't say I hate it, but I can't stand playing it, and wouldn't call it underrated.

I liked the 2013 Tomb Raider a whole hell of a lot. At the time, I was saying that it was way better than its closest competition, Uncharted.

I was less keen on Rise of the Tomb Raider. It plays well, maybe even better than its predecessor, but a lot of stuff didn't work all that well for me. I really didn't like the writing in the second game, though, so much so that when I tried to replay it in the middle of last year, I put it down. I almost never put down a game because of bad writing, but something about Rise of the Tomb Raider's stupid, boring, inane characters sucked so much that I didn't want to play any more of it. That, combined with Uncharted 4 having better gameplay than the rest of the series and a much bigger focus on the story and characters that were always that series's strong point, made me back off on praising this new Tomb Raider so much.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider looks like it has writing about on par with Rise of the Tomb Raider. I'll probably eventually buy it and play it, but man, I don't look forward to that story. The general response to Shadow of the Tomb Raider seems to be that it's kinda mediocre in comparison to 2013 and Rise, so that doesn't really help my impressions from what I've seen.

I thought the characters were tolerable at best and the story didn’t go anywhere interesting. That one part where Lara goes ”edgy” made me laugh out loud and I’m not sure when was the last time I did that with a moment that was supposed to be serious.

I didn’t care for the story and characters in Rise either, but I still really liked playing it. This just felt like Rise 1.5 and I kinda wanted more after almost three years.

The scenery also kinda felt like a bunch of leftovers from a generic jungle game and there was maybe one or two parts that stood out at least a little.

But hey, if folks have Game Pass, they can test it themselves RIGHT NOW.

For me it was the worst of the 3 reboots.. characters and story were boring. Gameplay was getting old and repetitive. Also you could see not enough time/money went into this one with the just jank throughout the game.. bugs here and there. If you play on Xbox One the game can't even suspend and come back! Was a disappointment for me.

I liked it, I thought it was a good game apart from a weird section in the middle that didn't really fit and lasted way too long. I enjoyed Rise more but shadow was solid

Well. Just started playing it last night and they lay the set pieces on a little heavy in the beginning. Seems very much same ol’ same ol’ which can be a good thing and a bad thing.

One thing I did notice is the framerate. This is my first game on my newly bought XB1X where they let me choose graphics or performance. With the resolution option the game feels like there is a TON of input lag between what I press on the pad and what happens on screen. It looks absolutely stunning but I don’t think I can stomachs this sort of performance.