Tomb Raider

Despite having owned, and still owning, every generation of Playstation consoles I don’t really have any affection for the Tomb Raider franchise. Though the original game and its sequels were released on multiple platforms I have always considered Tomb Raider as a Playstation franchise, at least in its early years, but I could never get into the games back in the old PS1 days. Mostly because I hated the controls of the first TR games. Even back in the nineties I found the platforming and shooting controls to be clunky, imprecise and frustrating and I never got into the whole Lara Croft as a sex symbol thing, mostly because I was a little too young for that kind of thing and I also thought it was weird to find a bunch of blocky polygons hot. I just didn’t understand the appeal in more ways than one. Given that I didn’t have any nostalgia for series and Square Enix’s less than fortunate press coverage for the game I really didn’t expect anything from this game. Therefore I was all the more surprised that it actually ended up being one of my favorite games of 2013.

It’s almost ironic that a series I originally avoided because of its, in my opinion, frustrating controls ended up being one of the best playing games from the previous generation and replaying it on PS4 a little over a year later only reinforces that notion. Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition is one of the best playing third person shooters ever, only beaten by Max Payne 1 and 2 on the PC in terms of fidelity. But on consoles there is no better playing third person shooter than Tomb Raider. That was my opinion in 2013 and I still stand by that opinion. The speed of which you are able to maneuver in combat and pull of incredibly precise headshots or leg shots is unparalleled. It’s super easy to dodge an enemy attack only to shoot said enemy in the leg to cripple him and then move in close for a kill. Also executing headshots is really satisfying regardless if you accomplish it with bow and arrow, pistol or machine gun. I can’t believe any game hasn’t copied TR’s shooting controls yet. In my opinion TR is to third person shooters on consoles what the Arkham series is to 3D third person combat. It just plays great.

And so what if the story isn’t perfectly executed? Sure Lara isn’t a trained killer in the beginning of the game but quickly turns into a mass murdering expert after her first traumatic kill but you know what? Almost every single video game character in an action/adventure game is a mass murderer. I feel like TR got A LOT of shit for something every game does. Only TR actually tried to address it through its story and therefore everyone ganged up on it when it didn’t succeed completely with what it originally set out to do. The game would have been really boring if we had to spend two hours with Lara Croft having a breakdown. Now that might have been more realistic but it wouldn’t have been a fun gameplay experience. If the alternative to that is a story that gets to the action faster, and let’s be honest video games still does action better than it does emotions or at portraying psychological trauma, I prefer getting to the action faster. Until video game developers figure out how to better make engaging emotional stories that are also engaging to play you just have to accept that 90% of all big budget games focus on the action cause action still sells better than psychological trauma. But hopefully we will one day reach the point where we can have more psychologically nuanced games. But if you expected that from a Tomb Raider game… boy oh boy have you come to the wrong place. Luckily TR is just a really awesome action/adventure game and it doesn’t need to be anything more than that.

I would also like to praise the metroidvania, I apologize for using that phrase but until someone comes up with a better one that everyone knows what means I’ll have to stick with that, style exploration of constantly giving you new weapons and equipment that allows you to access new areas. It also adds a lot to the combat constantly getting new upgrades/weapons. It really makes the game feel fresh and fun the whole way through. All in all it’s a greatly paced game.

Now if I do have a small criticism with the game it’s not with the game’s story but it’s with the game’s unnecessarily gruesome death scenes. I have no idea why they went into so much detail with the deaths in this game. It’s a bit much to be honest and it just seems unnecessary. Also the first hour of the game really isn’t the greatest. It’s filled with a lot of quick time events and easy deaths, but once you get through that it only gets better and better.

So despite a few flaws Tomb Raider is such a great game, and especially for being the first game in this rebirth of the Tomb Raider series, that I can’t help but give it five stars. If you like action/adventure games you have to play this game.