Solid, familiar gameplay that looks and feels great
The 2013 reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise isn't a very special or unique game, but its a good one.
If you haven't played the game, take a look at some screenshots. Both graphically, and in style, the game is very, very pretty. Particle effects are everywhere, water looks like its really flowing, and the long draw distances create landscapes so beautiful that you will consider just stopping and staring at it for awhile. This game will definitely be a definitive graphical benchmark for the next year or two.
The gameplay is familiar enough; a traditional third person cover shooter. You eventually develop a standard arsenal of firearms, any of which you can pull out of your ass at any time. Occasionally you will run into a physics puzzle, but these are rarer than I would've liked. Most of them are genuinely interesting and clever, and the game doesn't seem to be aware of that. The shooting is good enough, but this is not the draw of the game.
Firefights only make up a small portion of the approximately 20 hours playtime of Tomb Raider's single player. Most of the time is spent traversing Crystal Dynamics' well-designed environments. There are plenty of secret tomb areas (they serve as some kind of collectible) that a player could completely bypass, and discovering all of these areas significantly extends playtime. Lara acquires skills over the course of the game, allowing her to climb cliffsides, jump up walls, and slide down ziplines to access new areas. In addition to skills, Lara also upgrades her weapons and tools throughout the game through the use of scrap metal that she finds across the game world.
If none of this sounds especially new or original, that's because it's not. But everything is Tomb Raider is so polished that it stands above all the other games it borrows mechanics from (including its predecessors).
My only big problem with Tomb Raider is its convoluted story. Lara's journey starts out simple enough; an archeaology expedition finds themselves in the middle of a storm and is washed ashore a mysterious island. Lara wakes up captured by...someone...and escapes to save her friends and get off the island. Some mysterious forces prevent her from doing so, and then the story takes some weird directions. No spoilers, but I don't think the story really goes anywhere meaningful, even though its main story points could've been put together into an epic tale. It instead comes off as kind of all over the place. The whole game has a very self serious tone, but the story gets so ridiculous that nothing really fits together. The voice acting and dialogue is passable, but nothing noteworthy.
I didn't touch the multiplayer modes. I didn't hear very good things and the one time I tried the servers were abandoned.
There is no need to purchase the GOTY version or any of the DLC, as it is all multiplayer skins/weapons that cannot be used in single player.
Tomb Raider took me around 20 hours to beat, and since it is routinely on sale for <$10, I highly recommend it.
