Quick Look: Shadow of the Tomb Raider

For the life of me I couldn't tell any of the 3 Tomb Raider reboot games apart at a glance.

Wait this isn't a quicklook for a metroidvania with roguelite elements appealing to the faux nostalgia of millennials!?

Those piranhas just love taking a bite out of crime.

That crime being tomb raiding... the illicit antiquities trade represents one of the biggest crises for cultural heritage in general.

Jesus Christ is this a record for number of times Brad dies in a quick look? lol

@meauntienora: You should see what they do to poachers... by that I mean they work with local governments to curtail illegal export of animal skins and bones by introducing other avenues of commercial trade for local communities.

Also waging hefty fines and confiscation to wealthy exporters that are facilitating the illegal enterprises in the first place.

I feel like some aspect of my growth as a person is represented by the fact that I can now watch Brad and Jason trying to solve a video game puzzle in real time without yelling at the television at all.

@mosthigh: There's some backtracking. It's sorta like a metroidvania if you squint.

can someone make a gif of that weapon swapping

Jeez, her stringing a dude up by his neck and then shooting a guy in the head, then she has the gall to ask "who are they afraid of?"

why is video only in 360p

The deaths in these reboot games have always been gruesome but this time Lara is the killer more often than the dead.

Hold on , some of this seems a bit confusing. Do they really start in Mexico?? Cause the map there said "Peruvian Jungle" ( That's the Peru Amazons...Capybara are also endemic from there and definitely not mexico) If they are, then why would there be Mayan ruins? That was part of the Inca empire... I was under the impression that Mayan extended only up to Guatemala.

I guess the game could just make things up and say " actually, Mayans extended that far out!! that's the big discovery" But Crashing your plane in Mexico and then walking to Peru is odd. ( Unless those are two completely different story points)

@msoven: I always find that really weird and kinda unhealthy when people say that. Who really yells at their tv like that? Also pretty sure if those same people saw their own supposedly perfect gameplay played back to them they would end up feeling the same way.

I'm a fan of Laura Croft, but not her games.

I'm with Jason on this one. Loved the original reboot, didn't quite like Rise of the Tomb Raider as much. Can't even say why exactly - the first one felt like a more cohesive A to B story while, as Brad phrases it, Rise had a bunch of "tooling around" that felt somewhat superfluous to me in a game that isn't really an open world experience. There is nothing wrong with a shorter and more concise single player game. You don't need always have to pad these games out with needless stuff.

The box-art for this game is pretty friggin' dope.

@ripelivejam: It seems kind of odd to me that your comment contains both "it's no big deal" and "actually you're the scrub," but your mileage may of course vary.

I was more making the point that I have come to see the humor in someone chasing their tail a little bit. Please don't kink-shame me.

Piranha stealth? I'm in.

This has to be a record for Brad's trademark "uuuUUM" usage. I lost count. I love it.

Also, it breaks my heart to think of Brad reading shitty comments...

Does the FOV look strange to anyone else? Maybe a fish-eye effect or something?

I really like the first two games, but this game has so far felt kinda... strange and different. It's still on my radar, but one thing I straight up don't like, is the way they force a cutscene when you assassinate a bad guy. I didn't like it in Deus Ex and it still feels weird.

This game has also this "Arkham Origins" feel to it.

Why does Lara look like a different person in all 3 of these reboot games?

@matiaz_tapia: you start off in Mexico for the tutorial mission and then it leads you to Peru. The plane crash is when you're in Peru. And yea, they explain why there are Mayan ruins in Peru.

I'm roughly 3 hours in and it's been tremendous so far. Absolutely gorgeous on the One X. The gun play has been fun, the stealth is actually fun instead of annoying, and the greater focus on puzzles has been a nice departure. The increased number of movement skills and the story have been my main highlights so far though. As someone who liked the reboot and loved Rise, this has been an ultimate realization of their mechanics for me.

Can't wait to play it, these new games are made for me.

But fuck, man, getting attacked by underwater shit in the old ones was so fucking scary. The first one had its moments in the Tomb of Tihocan, but starting 40 Fathoms in 2 surrounded by sharks damn near gave me a panic attack. So these piranhas can kiss my ass.

Something tells me the cart opening up at 29:19 is the piece of info Brad needed to move past the puzzle he got stuck on.

@doncabesa: I’m about two hours in and I feel the same so far. I’m playing on hard and it’s been a nice change of pace for how these games usually go since you have to actually pay attention to the environment to figure out where to climb and stuff.

I hate this lara croft so irrationally much haha, its something to do with her constant whining/ acting like a victim despite more than clearly being the most ridiculous badass around in gameplay. The way the voice actress also puts emphasis on certain things drives me up the wall. Like the vo direction was nothing but: Ok, that was great Camilla, but now try with even MORE conviction".

Im really surprised that still seems the case as this one was made by different devs/written by someone else.

Hey-o! Guess thats ludonarative disconance for me :p. Never minded it with uncharted, as there, im having a fun dumb time and so is nathan drake.

The gameplay for this one looks pretty good though and I also love that you can turn off "the white stuff" and can let the enemies speak their native tongue and stuff like that.

some good old fashioned pulling a brad in this one :)

i love it

"Spray into the bush." - Brad

There's something about Laras face in this one that really puts me off. It's like almost uncanny valley-ish. It's just so blank and featureless, like a barbie doll or something. Maybe it's just due to coming straight off Spiderman, but even compared to other faces in the game (which many are also not overly amazing) hers looks weird.

OK, so, I'm only three minutes into this so maybe something later on will be much better...

...but from what I'm understanding, there is a section of this game that is both an insta-death stealth section and an underwater section where you have to find air bubbles to survive?

That seems like really annoying and shitty game design! Again, only three minutes in, and chances are it's so easy that it doesn't matter all that much, but that's still just flat-out bad design.

This game looks amazing, but there's something about it that just seems so clinical and unappealing.

Not sure why the reviews are so all over the place on this one. It seems like a continuation of the previous two with some slight upgrades. If you liked the first two, (and I did) you should like this one.

But going to have to finish Spider-M first. :)

@matiaz_tapia:

On the main map, it shows the starting section in Mexico, as a separate part of the rest of the map, which appears to be Peru.

Brad does not claim he's in Mexico at that time, he's just showing that he can fast travel back there, even though his plane crash landed in Peru. I think he just meant that, due to the circumstances of the story, it breaks immersion.

@ares42: I know what you mean, it's like she stuck her face in foundation or something, she has no wrinkles or blemeshis or anything, Just one Matt skin texture.

@justin258: It seems like an especially odd choice when the previous game had unlimited underwater breathing. It’s a weird choice to regress a mechanic, but it does kind of seem like Crystal had either run out of ideas, or were too scared to try anything new.

I loved Tomb Raider 2013, didn’t really get into Rise because it felt a bit soulless and the combat was very one note. I was hopeful that Shadow would be a return to form. This just feels a bit...eh. There’s too many other games that do interesting combat and pick ups for this to be an insta-buy.

This game is grabbing me more than Spider-Man, which is crazy. They've really perfected the gameplay aspects at this point, everything feels so good in your hands. If only the writing and characterization of Lara was as good, she still feels hollow.

I like these game well enough, but modern Lara must be one of the most boring characters in video game history.

Whenever my Lara speaks in these games it makes my skin crawl.

Really liking what I've played of it so far. Really enjoyed the last two games so it's nice having more tombs with good environmental puzzles, the shooting feels better, not that it was a deal breaker for me in previous games but it's definitely noticeable. The visuals are also pretty gorgeous, thought I would bored of the jungle setting that's been a bit overdone but I'm liking how the moment to moment gives you time to appreciate the area and find the hidden away places to explore.

So glad they are finally pulling away from killing dudes and focusing more on actual Tomb Raiding, aka exploration and puzzles. It sounds like Lara's characterization or the story might not be super great, but I've personally never thought this series was particularly good at story telling anyway.

Now they just need to get some good acrobatics and platforming back in there and it'll finally be a return to form for the series a la Tomb Raider Anniversary. The ability to turn off "instinct mode", verbal hints, and white paint is a good start.

My biggest fear with this game is that it turns out to be the lowest rated and/or selling of the reboots and the people calling the shots on future games blame it on the lack of firefights.

God this looks dull.

Can anyone tell me. Can this game be played full on stealth? Like no guns mode?

@savutano:That makes sense, ! didn't think it would break immersion that much and I was trying to piece something that would make more sense in my head, I think.

@mems1224: I suppose if they explain the mayan thing, it could be the game's "mystery". I re-ckecked again and the Incas didn't really crossed into the amazons much anyways.

After having seen the E3 TLOU 2 footage this seems very flat in terms of portraying the violence and enemy behaviour.

And I'm saying this as someone that really liked the first one of the new Tomb Raider games. The second one was okay but didn't enjoy it as much as the previous one.

I really don't have any desire to play this. Maybe when it drops in price and I don't have a million other games to get through I will give this a chance... maybe.

@squiggle: FYI this game is made by Eidos Montreal, the Deus Ex team. Crystal Dynamics had a hand in it but as far as anyone knows they're busy with an Avengers game that was announced some years back.

Or, you gave up on life. Take care of yourself, self care is so important.

Just one Matt Kessler skin texture?