Ahh, Tomb Raider. I'll admit that traditionally I'm not a fan of the series. The outdated and ridiculously over-sexualized main character, uninspired gameplay, cumbersome controls, and patched together plot kept me from ever really getting into the games. Guardian of Light was the first attempt to deviate from the standard formula and it was actually a good bit of fun but doesn't fit in with the rest of the series, it's more of a one-off arcade style game. Something had to change, and Square Enix decided it was time for a reboot. When I saw the original promo pictures of the new Tomb Raider I was impressed. Gone were the tight clothes, short shorts, and bolted-on boobs; in its place stood a much more normal looking character with a grizzled edge to her, it was a definite upgrade in my book. So how does the final product feel? Can it still be "Tomb Raider" yet deviate from the worn out path enough to be a solid game? Well lets find out.
The first thing you need to know is that the new Tomb Raider is a separate story from all the previous titles and Lara Croft's backstory has been modified accordingly. As I mentioned the new Lara Croft physically appears much more normal and you can tell that Square Enix are really stressing this point. Within the first 20 seconds of the game's opening video clip you see a close up of her new design without the unnecessary oozing sexuality. On top of that she has lost her seeming invincible persona; she feels vulnerable and even innocent at times, which is a good step at making Lara a more believable character. Unfortunately the game doesn't do a very good job of sticking to these character traits but I'll get to that later. The game setting is pretty straight forward, you're at sea and your ship begins to sink. You escape only to be washed up on a mysterious island and from there you must learn of your surroundings, the indigenous people, as well as reconnect with the ship's crew. As you play your adventures will take you all around the island, from jungles to snowy mountaintops to beaches and even temples. While the game environments are overall quite open and look great with large areas to view it's sad that the game path is quite linear. There are preset paths and areas that you travel to and there isn't really and deviation of exploration apart from them.
As you begin your adventure you'll encounter wildlife to hunt and plants to forage, but they don't really add any substance. This is one of my gripes in the game; there are several unnecessary gameplay elements that serve no apparent purpose other than filler content. The developers have included the mechanic to hunt and salvage material from animals and enemies that you kill but it doesn't really play any role in the game other than giving you something to do and presenting an arbitrary way for you to upgrade your equipment. Lara never gets hungry so why even add this element in? As you progress you'll run into bad guys who want nothing more than to cause you bodily harm and it's up to you to keep them from doing so. I have mixed feelings about the enemies, on one hand they at least seem to be doing something instead of just standing around waiting for you to run into them, they have a purpose on the island, and overall they feel realistic enough, but the flip side of this coin is that they aren't particularly interesting. You'll fight enemies who have swords, you'll fight enemies with guns, there are enemies with dynamite, and you'll fight armored enemies, but in the end they all look, sound, and feel the same. Also, to earn experience which levels you up and unlocks more combat and survival skills there are random challenges through the game. Most involve "find X number of objects" or "destroy X number of objects" and like the hunting minigame they really only exist to fill time. Most are very easy to complete (although they can be tedious) but a few of them are absolutely absurd with one or two of these objects you need to destroy so far off the beaten path that you can look for hours without finding them. Thank goodness for YouTube guides or this would have become a point of major annoyance.
When it finally comes time to deal with these enemies you've got a few options: you can fight the enemies or you can try avoiding them. Unfortunately there is zero reward for using stealth and avoiding enemies, you gain experience by defeating enemies so to increase Lara's survival skills as well as her equipment it behooves you to kill everything that moves. As I mentioned above this clashes with the character feeling that Square Enix initially be goes with. When Lara first meets an enemy she is overpowered and scared, the first sees a gun she almost looks like she doesn't know how to hold it, yet within 10 minutes she's killing everything that moves like she's been taking lessons from Steven Segal and it doesn't seem to irk her whatsoever. She goes from barely surviving to sniping enemies in the head at 200 yards with a bow and arrow in the blink of an eye. I want to know where she learned these skills and where her innocence went. I rather like the softer side of Lara, I want to see her vulnerable and real. I'd settle for the developers offering a better transition between innocent as a lamb Lara to rough and tough Lara as opposed to the apparent on/off killer instinct switch she possesses, unfortunately even that is too much to ask for.
Square Enix wants the story to be more believable but one aspect that takes away from the realism is the sheer level of trauma directed at Lara. It's to the point that I wonder if they they might consider changing the title of the game to "Domestic Violence Simulator" as there doesn't seem to be a point in the game where she isn't falling, being beaten, impaled, or shot. Most of the game she is covered in blood and the rest of the time she is covered in mud and grime. I understand adding a gritty nature to the game to help erase the impenetrable persona of the "old" Lara. In every other Tomb Raider she never seems frazzled, she's always prim, proper, and looking her best, but I think they took it a little too far in this game to the point where it's off putting. Play for a few hours, and the tenth time you find yourself falling you'll feel it's getting old. What's funny is for being such an amazing survivalist she apparently isn't intelligent enough to take a coat off of a fallen enemy when she's walking around shivering.
Lara can use a unique skill called Survival Instinct which is akin to Detective Mode in the Batman: Arkham games. This will highlight enemies and points of interest in the environment but unlike Batman as soon as you move this is deactivated. To me this makes sense so you don't spend the entire game missing out on the beauty of the environment. Also, what good would being a Tomb Raider be without a little raiding of tombs? There are several tombs scattered throughout the world, entering these and reaching the treasure room will rewards you with a good amount of experience. All of the tombs involve navigating a series of obstacles. I wish there were more tombs and that the obstacle courses were longer and more challenging, maybe along the lines of the Prince of Persia games.
All in all, the story takes about 10 hours to complete, but the game as a whole isn't very difficult. I should have put the combat on a harder difficulty but in the time I played the game I died in combat maybe twice on normal difficulty. My final gripe with the story is that as you work your way through and the plot unfolds a good bit of supernatural elements are introduced yet the game never does a good job of fleshing out "how" and "why" they exist. You get a crude explanation of them but it doesn't really go beyond that. I can't go too far into it without spoiling things but suffice to say I think the game would have been better sticking with a more believable story but that's all personal preference.
Those gripes aside though, the game really does play well. It's an enjoyable experience that as a whole can't be brought down by the unexplained killer instinct or weirdness of the story. The controls are very good and the game is very fun to play and it moves at a decent pace. As you play and collect salvage from dead enemies, animals, and crates strewn all over the landscape. Couple these along with random weapon parts and you can upgrade your weapons to give them new abilities or increased damage. The progression of these is linear which I like, up until the very end of the game you're constantly finding new and better gear. The fellow crew members of the ship exist as NPCs that you can have light interactions with. They don't really add much to the story and they are never really fleshed out to become believable characters but they don't take too much away from the story either. Graphically the game looks pretty sharp on the Xbox and has no apparently frame rate drops. The sound is decent although I wish they'd have given Lara a few more phrases.
But, what about multiplayer? In case you've forgotten this game comes with a fully fledged multiplayer mode complete with a host of usable characters, several maps, level progression, and multiple game modes. Unfortunately while this all sounds good the end result is downright awful. I could only manage to get through three games of multiplayer before I had to quit, it is definitely an afterthought compared to the level of polish of the story mode. Characters run and jump all over the screen and around gunfire, it seems that killing an enemy is more about luck than skill. The mode it isn't even remotely fun.
At the end of the day if you get rid of multiplayer and can overlook a few of the more annoying nuances you're left with a highly enjoyable game that you can get really get into. Is that game worth $40-60? That's a more difficult question to answer, there's not really much replay value thanks to the lackluster multiplayer mode and the relative short length of the story mode, but if you can get it on sale I'd say it's definitely worth it.
