As soon as you begin Lara’s journey, you’ll observe that the game doesn’t spend too much time really giving you a ton of backstory and, instead, just shows you how Lara got herself in to the trouble she’s in. This is on purpose, given that a lot of your time as the young heroine will not only allow you to get to know her as a character a lot better, but will also give you context as to why you’re on an abandoned island in the first place and why the characters in the story act the way that they do. It is in this very non-traditional narrative device that I applaud the designers in spending just enough time to set up the events leading to the gameplay and being a bit controlled with their storytelling. This selection gives the whole game a ton of mystery, and that’s one thing that this game has a large amount of.
If you have to know, the gist of the story is pretty simple: Lara Croft is actually part of an expedition to find the lost Japanese kingdom of Yamatai, which was once ruled by the Sun Queen Himiko. Because of a fanatic storm her vessel, the Endurance, is shipwrecked and Lara finds herself at the shores of what seems to be a forgotten island. Not long after her arrival, Lara sees her friends in the distance and attempts to try to get their attention, only to be hit on the head by an unknown assailant and taken captive to a remote location. It’s right here that you are tasked with Lara’s get away.
While the get away proves to be a success, it’s merely a partial one, as Lara’s actions and reactions will remind you that she’s at her most vulnerable; She’s not really the incredibly well-endowed multi-millionaire adventurer that most people have come to know and love. She actually is portrayed here as youthful, sometimes naive, totally inexperienced, and often too unsure of herself and her capabilities.
But that vulnerability is what makes this Lara Croft such an interesting character to begin with; She’s not at all a superhero of sorts like Nathan Drake or her older depictions. Here, we are simply presented with a human being who’s trapped on an island with unknown dangers, separated from her friends, battling an unfamiliar enemy, and struggling to survive. Because of this humanistic and realistic approach to depicting Lara Croft, we feel for every single thing that happens to this character and perhaps now, more than ever, we can truly say that her adventure is also our very own. And while it may feel like we’re actually protecting her a lot of the time, there’s an agency to her character that makes us feel connected to her like never before.
The last games in the series gave players the ability to explore remote regions and legendary locations and, in many cases, even allowed her to face some mythical foes. The only thing Lara couldn’t do in those games, however, was to fully explore an area without being forced to go on a set path. In Tomb Raider, Lara is given a huge island to explore… where her only limitations are your drive to see her adventure through and the amount of traversal that her gear will allow her to do. The latter, a game design device known as gear gating, has existed for a very long time in video games. In fact Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, one of the Crystal Dynamics’ more well regarded titles, was not only a fantastic example of how to prevent the player from wandering into later sections of the game, but was also one that did a smooth job of developing the character’s growth and gameplay with the storyline. A good example of gear gating is Lara’s ability to zip line across vast expanses. When Lara gets a rope, she then figures out that she can actually tie up the rope to her arrow and shoot it across a wide chasm in order to get across. On the other hand, the only caveat is that she’s only able to target certain parts of the environment that are held by rope and that she can only do this while standing beside something she may tie the rope to. Later in the story, the game elaborates on this concept by giving Lara the ability to aim for areas in the environment that have a rocky patch on the side. In a sense, Tomb Raider‘s way of showing that Lara is able to figure out these more advanced traversal techniques depicts her as someone who’s getting smarter and craftier as the story progresses.
Unlike Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver nevertheless, there’s a secondary use for all the traversal gear that you run into. Crystal Dynamics managed to integrate all the gear Lara gets in to the combat as well, allowing the player to create some fascinating combat scenarios. Using the bow/rope combination as an example, Lara can target an opponent standing right next to a cliff and pull him to his doom. She can also utilize the pick axe she uses to scale rocky terrain as a deadly melee weapon. The opposite additionally goes for the weapons Lara comes across on the island. In later portions of the game, she’ll come across frail wooden fences that can be obliterated with a shot from her shotgun and barricades that can only be destroyed with her rifle’s grenade launcher attachment.
Besides the previously mentioned bow and arrow, shotgun, and rifle, Lara also obtains a pistol to use in combat. Yes, Lara’s trademark dual pistols are nowhere to be found in this game but if you’re a series veteran like myself, you’ll immediately remember that the series was never known for its combat. Tomb Raider features a fairly intelligent cover program that ensures Lara isn’t clumsily standing up to the enemy’s line of fire while trying to place herself to get a good shot. Like most third person shooters, Lara can shoot from the hip or get into a precision aiming mode in which zooms your view nearer to the target reticle. Clicking the right stick in while in this mode, on specific weapons, allows her to zoom in on her target a lot more while clicking the left stick changes Lara’s position onscreen. The latter would’ve been incredibly useful during clutch situations where you needed to pop up real fast to put a quick round into someone’s head, had the game been smart about allowing Lara to shoot out of cover with her being positioned on the correct side during precision aiming mode… however, unfortunately, this isn’t the case part of the time. Each weapon can be upgraded using salvage parts that Lara can find by destroying containers lying around in the environment, exploring hidden caches, or even picking them up from foes. Seeking these salvage parts often yield random weapon part drops that, upon collecting the entire set, will grant her access to more advanced weapon upgrade tiers. Upgrades vary from weapon to weapon, allowing Lara to increase a weapon’s rate of fire, increasing the amount of damage inflicted, or even add attachments that help with crowd control.
While the weaponry can be upgraded using salvage items, Lara will have to earn skill points to be able to learn how to utilize her equipment in battle in different ways. Tomb Raider features an experience system, not too different from games in the role-playing genre, and you’ll find that pretty much everything she does, save for traversing each of the island’s areas repeatedly, yields a good chunk of experience. By earning experience, Lara can get skill points that she can use in three various skill trees: Survivor, Hunter, and Brawler. Each skill tree is pretty self explanatory: Survivor allows Lara take more damage, get better ammo, and salvage items, Hunter allows her to hone her skills in ranged combat, and Brawler deals with her ability to deal with opponents close up and personal. All skill trees are tiered depending on how many skills you’ve unlocked cumulatively, and some skills require others to be purchased before she’s able to acquire them. Both upgrading your weapons and skill tree are done by using any of the available base camps spread across the map.

Here's my thing about your review. I think it's great that you put a lot of detail into your review. However, I think you write too much about the features and the story of the game and write too little of your own personal opinions of how you feel about the stories and the features. From what I am able to get from the review, it seems like each feature that you describe only comes with like maybe one sentence of how you feel about it, and this makes it hard for me to understand how you decide your scores for each category of rating the game. I CAN tell though that you like the game and find it to be recommendable from your review, and that is good thing that your review is clear enough that people can tell you like the game.

One final thing is that I think it would be a good idea to split up your review using spaces between paragraphs, or split up in a way that organizes your thoughts. It can be difficult to read the review in a forum format when it is a large body of text. Especially with those who don't have the attention span of reading the entire review may be put off by a big wall of text.

Other than that, keep at it! Look forward towards your next review.

BloodShadowXXX : http://gamerhorizon.com/tomb-raider-review/


I thought that I had read this somewhere before. And no, just because you change a few minor words, does not make it yours. You may reference other works, but it is not to be included by you as your own original content. That's called plagiarism, and can get you banned. I'll give you a warning this time, but the next time, you'll get a temporary ban. Don't do this again.