Tomb Raider (2013) is a perfect reboot

God damn this game is devouring my time. I didn't even get what the long term aim was until just now when I reached a fireplace that was a point of no return. So, now I'm looking back at all the other camps and I get what this whole thing is about. I say this after cringing through the first half of the game because of how weirdly formulaic it was, albeit with some nice shooting mechanics.

There are times when I am playing this game, looking for random treasure when I feel the distinct nostalgia of the OG TR minus the crucial and beloved side-jump and was bewilderingly left out of this version. The fact that the entire shooting / combat layer is linked to exploration through weapon upgrades doesn't do anything new but that doesn't really matter because its addictive and I need more salvage now.

However, the original Tomb Raider for PC with the Nude patch is highly recommended as well.

I really enjoyed it. Worthy reboot.

My game of the year.

Prepare to hear "narrative dissonance" a lot from people that hate fun.

It's a fantastic game

I never really got the dissonance. And yes, I absolutely loved this game.

@markm: I also thought it was fantastic, went into it not having played the series since TR2 on psone. @humanity: or hipsters/lemmings that let gaming blogs do their thinking.

Yea. Had a blast with it, and it now cost peanuts on PC (5$ when on sale) for those who haven't played it yet.

Great game, though as a reboot the "perfect" status might be limited to it being better than other Tomb Raiders since it doesn't follow the exact structure of them.

It was definitely one of my favorite games of 2013. I also thought that everything in the game was done remarkably well, with a lot of polish and dedication to detail unseen in many other titles. In my opinion it plays much better than Uncharted, with more interactive platforming and varied combat against enemies that weren't complete bullet sponges.

@humanity: Don't forget kneecapping people with the Pistol to set up executions!

I would not say perfect reboot, but i think its a nice starting point. I would love for actual tomb raiding to return. Also i would want a better story and making Lara a more interesting character.

This game was so close to being perfect for me, if only they added the original theme somewhere in there. Maybe it could have come in when Lara picks up her signature dual pistols at the end, I don't know, a few more throwbacks could have been nice.

I wouldn't say it's perfect for me personally. It is really good, but it's also such a product of its day that it strays away from my favourite aspects of the old games to be more of a shooter. You could take the gunplay out of the old games completely and I'd still really enjoy the platforming and puzzle solving. It wasn't a series that was ever about the shooting for me, so it's actually a little saddening in a way to see that the biggest hit they've had with the series in a long while takes it in a different direction. There wasn't really anything else like what they were doing with those games before and now it's become a bit more generic and I don't really see them making another Tomb Raider game in the style that I like any time soon.

@fredchuckdave: or putting a shotgun under their chin, or shoving an arrowhead in their eye sockets or gutting them with the ak..yah it was awesome.

@csl316:

I didnt play a lot of games released last year, but i did play TR and it was also my personal GOTY.http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/me3639/blog

Just reminds me of this. The nuclear option:

I agree with everything except the Uncharted statement. Uncharted is probably my favorite game series ever, so I was just glad that Tomb Raider was more then competent at an Uncharted style game. It is a good alternative but not necessarily a good replacement.

Uncharted is great, but TR is just a better shooter in every way.

It's alright. The story/tone are completely at odds with the gameplay--more so than most games even--but it's still a fun time. I look forward to seeing what the sequel will resemble; hopefully they'll balance the shooty-shooty with some more puzzles and actual tomb raiding this time.

My only complaint is that it made no sense that there were so many dudes on that island. But I really liked the game.

I think I read that they play the old theme if you collect all of the somethingorothers.

I really thought tomb raider was a great game. Definitely one of the best action adventure games I have played in recent memory. One thing that got on my nerves was the amount of collectables and the amount of pointless backtracking if you wanted to get them all. They were annoying to get, added not much substance to the game and were too easy to find to be challenging. I did wish there was more of an exploration element to the game away from the main story and more elaborate tombs to explore. But damn some of the set pieces and action sequences in the game are top notch. I thought lara was a strong character as well for the most part, better than the protagonist in most games. I don't think the story is dissonant or whatever. I mean it starts off as a really harrowing escape and rescue from pirates, in a way that feels pretty grounded. Then the game sort of slowly transitions to a more traditional video game story that does end up falling a little flat for me personally, but the game hints in this direction from the get go. So I didn't have a problem with that. It is a bit jarring going from a scared and inexperienced lara trying to get away from the overpowering pirates to having lara kill 100s of them. They probably could have done that a bit better I think. Why bother making a big deal about trying to ground the game in some sort of realistic context if none of that is backed up by the actual game? In my opinion this is a gameplay and mechanical issue and not really a narrative one.

Probably the thing I appreciate most is that they actually tried to make lara into a dynamic character; one who changes for good or ill over the course of the game. I think they managed to pull it off for most of the game. Well its ok character development for a videogame at least. I do think that the effort makes lara croft a more interesting character to play as. In fact, lara as a character is more interesting to me than any of the story beats that are actually in the game.

@veektarius: I found every collectible, don't remember anything like that at all.

I would have preferred a closer game to that of the first few Tomb Raiders. I have to admit that I never finished this game so I can't say too much about it. I like the idea of there being more of an isolated environment with more wild animals than humans. I always remember the wolfs in the first Tomb Raider and although they didn't threaten me as a player, I like that instead of the waves of human enemies in this game. I only made it half way so could have missed the best parts.

Also, I thought there could have been more tombs to raid but I may just be picking up on what others said about it lacking in that department. I considered buying it for my PS4 but I think I will hold off for the probable Tomb Raider 2.

@yummylee said:

I disagree. Watching Lara skitter around like a spider in between caving some dude's skull with climbing axe to blasting a dudes' face into mist with a shotgun was pretty brutal. Brutality is the name of the game in this new Tomb Raider, and I appreciated above anything else that the game didn't shy away from that. The game felt dangerous, like one wrong move would put you in peril. It was a lot like playing Dead Space for the first time where the fear of death wasn't in restarting a checkpoint, but to avoid seeing the shocking death animations that Crystal Dynamics made for Lara. It was nail-biting in a way that Uncharted could never be.

TL;DR - I'm right you're wrong nyah nyah.

I thought the reboot was horrible. It was physically painful to play.

The Tomb Raider reboot was the best game I played last year. It's my GOTY.

@humanity said:

I mean, Lara's escalation to total savagery was a bit...rapid, but the whole "After all, you're a Croft" thing was basically them saying she's a natural born killer, among other things.

Ditto. The Giant Bomb guys got it wrong like usual. Gone Home is a better game than Tomb Raider??!!!!! Riiiiiiiiiiight.

I wouldn't call it a perfect reboot, but it made for a fun weekend of tomb raiding.

I like the guys and respect their opinions, but me and Jeff are always miles apart. And that's ok!

Oh, yeah of course. Love the guys and podcast. They have a right to their own opinions. No matter how wrong they may be. :)

Absolutely. Exactly what I thought when I saw this thread title. We've all a right to our own opinions. Good on yah!

"perfect"

have you even realized there's multiplayer and how much hot garbage it is?

They should have left the series alone and started a new IP.

Imo we lost TR game play to get an Uncharted clone with TR skins. So much for adventure and puzzles in large semi open worlds. Instead we get QTE game play down corridors.

I kind of laugh when people say there is narrative dissonance because the character never killed someone before and suddenly kills hundreds of people trying to kill her.

It is a game. Please describe how it is impossible for someone who never killed someone before to go on and kill hundreds of people, but it is completely valid that for someone who has killed a person before to go ahead and kill hundreds or even thousands over the course of a few hours. The dissonance comes from people misunderstanding that your first kill can be followed by another one and there is no required reflection period to take time off from doing so.

Yes, of course it is not very likely someone goes and does that. But it really isn't likely in all games that are like this. The one where it is your first kill really isn't any different. You're just giving a pass to hundreds of games and decide to criticize this one for doing the same.

@vinny_says: I enjoyed my time with the multiplayer; could do with some more variety but it was quite fun; extremely free-form environments for the most part, even moreso than the Uncharted multiplayer.

It may not be perfect but it is one of the best reboots I can think of. It's up there with Ninja Gaiden and Fallout 3.

Edit: last year also had DmC which was great.

Oh I get it. She was reluctant at first to kill dudes and then you immediately begin killing tons of dudes. Interesting.

I seem to have totally missed that, although I will admit that I pay only passive attention to story in some games.

The story is there to justify the gameplay, not the other way around. It was Crystal Dynamics who made the mistake of leaning way too hard in to the "character" of Croft. I remember lots of interviews of them talking about how we will feel sorry for her or something, or that we will want to protect her.

I don't know the origin of the idea to wring humanity out of Laura through story instead of gameplay but either way it didn't work and it doesn't work for a game like this.

Either you have save points littering the environment, XP and weapon upgrades or you have a narrative focused, less mechanical game. I really do not think it makes sense to try and do both. But in the end who cares, its a fun game and is successful on that merit alone.

I really enjoyed the the game especially the first hour. And yeah the out of nowhere killing spree was a bit off putting but it is still a game. Just like it was totally unrealistic in Uncharted when you suddenly have to kill thousands of people. But in Tomb Raider it was a bit to fast for my taste. Maybe a more Last of Us approach would have been better. Which does not let you go from fight to fight to fight with dozens of people as much as in Tomb Raider.

I also think that this game was better than the original games because the combat in these games really really sucked. And you also killed a lot of people and monster in the older Tomb Raider games. Also Lara Croft got personality while the old Lara was just a super human with no feelings at all.

I don't know if I'd call it the best game of 2013, but it sure as hell was the game I had the most fun with. It's definitely my 2013 GOTY.

The sound design is just fantastic and also has some of the best placed stingers of any game. I really liked the environments and thoroughly enjoyed the game's combat mechanics. A sequel should, however, include more elaborate tombs and puzzles, I think.

I think this is a given. This game was not about some ancient secret she wanted to uncover but rather how she became Lara Croft and how she learned all her stuff. The new game should be a bit more like lets say Uncharted or Indiana Jones with a purpose to find something very important that maybe even could destroy the world etc.

Replaying it on PS4 now. It's a great game, looks fantastic and plays wonderful. I wouldn't necessarily say that it is a better game than Uncharted 2, because ironically Uncharted 2 had more tombs to explore, but the combat is miles better in Tomb Raider. The first Uncharted and especially Uncharted 3 annoyed the fuck out of me with their terrible combat scenarios, bullet-sponge enemies and getting killed by enemies that suddenly spawn behind you. I didn't have that much of a problem with the 'narrative dissonance' in Tomb Raider. Yes, the transformation from scared 21-year old Lara to Lara essentially becoming a female version of the characters Jason Statham generally plays in his movies is jarring at first, but it didn't bother me as much as it could have. Again, circling back to Uncharted 3, the narrative dissonance in that game is even worse. Why would Drake's enemies elect to keep trying to shoot Drake rather than finding a way off of the crashing plane or sinking ship (something that is however mentioned by Drake during the plane crash scene)?