Exhilarating
Lara's newest adventure took us back to her origins, shipwrecked on the mythical island of Yamatai and out to save our crew members. Right away, the plot sounds a bit cheesy, but it's not so much the story you'll find yourself fascinated by, but instead Lara's stellar character development, information about the island, and drive to save the others. That being said, you could debate that Lara's character development is really what makes the plot tie together. While you're stuck on the island, you really find yourself feeling for her as you endure the hardships of losing her scholar-type innocence, learning to be more than just a survivor, but a fighter as well. You go from "Please! Why are you doing this?!" all the way to, "That's right! Run you bastards! I'm coming for you all!" as well as uncovering the island's secrets and exposed myth. Never before have I felt that Lara is truly an archaeologist, not just one to get the loot and go home. Even in a scene that she says, "I hate tombs," (ironic for a Tomb Raider to say) you automatically see her become a massive nerd, observing the paintings on the wall and being fascinated by the final resting place of the sun queen, Himiko. However, that quote does carry some significance. The lack of tombs to raid is quite unfortunate, and I constantly felt that they were just a small side thing for Lara (because they were) and that for "hidden tombs," they were quite obvious. The one good thing is that the tombs at least made an attempt to compensate for the lack of puzzles throughout the game, though most of them were quite quick, obvious puzzles that only took you a while due to the fact that they were mostly timed puzzles and you'd jump at the wrong time and have to start all over. Now, here's where the exhilarating parts comes to play, the entire game. The music so well synced with action sequences, making me feel incredibly immersed as I dodged (sometimes unsuccessfully) bullets, arrows, and molotovs, and played with new mechanics like rope arrows, fire arrows, and more. Moments that required the stealthy bow were the moments I favoured, but even in high octane fire fights with the Solarii, a group of zealots, I was put to the edge of my seat. Even the QTE's were well done, truly making me go "OH NO!" as time slowed down and I had to hit a button or be thrown off the edge of a cliff. To keep this concise, I'm going to skip to the last con: lack of character development in secondary characters. The game's writer Rhianna Pratchett addressed the reasoning for this and it was mostly due to time constraints and a larger focus on the bigger picture, and while I loved the characters, they did seem quite generic at times, like Whitman clearly being the bad guy. Other than some remarks or sacrifices made by other characters, such as Reyes or Alex, I didn't have much reason to love the characters. Small dashes of their lives were very briefly described or hinted at, but nothing major made me say, "I want to save them" other than Lara's own personal conflicts. Out of 10, I would rate the game at a 9.3 and hope the franchise continues on a good path, fixing their mistakes and adding new features for the consumers to enjoy and I look forward to the holiday of 2015.