One of my most vivid gaming memories came on my 13th or 14th birthday. I don’t remember exactly which it was, but it was some time around then. I’d had some friends round to play games on my PlayStation, and one of them had loaned me his copy of Tomb Raider III. As a special birthday treat I was allowed to stay up late, so I sat, beavering away at Lara Croft’s third adventure, perpetually dying in Nevada.
Of course, a lot’s changed since then. In a similar way to Sonic, Tomb Raider rapidly rose before staggering and falling, producing games that frequently left fans disappointed. However, unlike Sonic, it seems like a reboot to the series may have done the trick.
This year’s reboot had a lot of hype going into it’s release, along with some rather strange attempted rape controversy that quickly vanished, and pretty much managed to live up to its build up. It currently sits at 86 and 87 on Metacritic (for Xbox 360 and PS3 respectively), and although we didn’t do a scored review of the game, Alex was pleasantly surprised by the early sections of the game.
Of course, before we get to the meat of the game, there is the fairly odd issue of missing tombs. Despite being right there in the title, Alex says that tombs “are mostly out of the question”, and are “Relegated to a few hidden, optional elements”. Although that’s not in and of itself a bad thing, the lack of a focus on the raiding of tombs does seem to have annoyed some fans of the series.
Crystal Dynamics aren’t lunatics though, and while the tombs are less of a focus, the game seems like it retains a lot of the mechanics and feel that sit at the core of any Tomb Raider title, with Alex saying that “It’s the same modus operandi, but largely outdoors, and it works brilliantly.”
Alex goes on to say that “the game works best when it’s you against the platforming”, which is pretty much how a Tomb Raider title should be in my opinion. In fact, this element of the game is so strong that he says that “Tomb Raider has regained its crown in this area and Uncharted 4 will do well to take some pointers”, which is praise indeed.
Although Alex wasn’t convinced before playing them the game, it certainly seems like he came away happy, wrapping up his look at the game by saying:
So whilst it might not look and feel too much like Tomb Raider games of old (although look out for at least one nod in that direction) at first the important thing is that it feels modern enough to play as you’d expect it to whilst still retaining everything that made those games so pivotal in generations lost past. Crystal Dynamics have reinvented Lara whilst sticking to genre staples, with just enough ideas of their own to keep things fresh. From where I’m standing, that’s a success.
This is WeView though, so the question is do you agree with him? Did you feel that this year’s reboot refreshed the series, or did you miss the Lara of old? Did you long for the tomb based play of some of the older games, or did you prefer the more open approach that Crystal Dynamics took this time?
No matter where your opinion lies, we’d like to hear from you. If you feel like taking part, all you need to do is drop a comment below by Sunday, remembering to include a rating on the Buy It, Bargain Bin It, Rent It, Avoid It scale. Then we’ll try and sum up the community’s views in Monday’s verdict article.
Finally, as WeView took a short break last week, the poll for next week’s game sits in today’s article. Red Faction: Armageddon, Super Stardust Delta and Transformers: Fall of Cybertron all retain their place in the poll, while
psychobudgie
It was a very good game but alas, not the amazing, wonderful, reboot a lot of reviewers would have us believe. It is Tomb Raider as in, it has Lara Croft in it. It is, however, not a Tomb Raider game. It has elements from other successful franchises shoe horned into a generic action shooter raising it above it’s generic roots and giving it a bit of oomph. Like others have said, the multiplayer is awful so for me it’s a bargain bin which is no bad thing.
hazelam
wow, how’s that for timing, i just finished the campaign for this yesterday.
great game, definitely up there with the best Tomb Raider games.
the addition of the whole metroidvania aspect was a great idea, allowing you to go back to previous areas with new tools, though it’s less of an open world game, more a game where you can revisit levels.
when it does the typical Tomb Raider stuff, it does it brilliantly.
the trouble is, it seems like the devs desperately wanted to turn it into an Uncharted game.
if you played a drinking game with this title and took a drink every time it did an uncharted thing you’d die from alcohol poisoning, hell, you could die from water intoxication if that was all you were drinking.
don’t get me wrong, it does those bits well, it’s just it does them WAY too often.
it seems like every five minutes there’s a slide, a section where you’re running from either a collapsing building, a hail of gunfire or a rapidly spreading fire, often all three.
or there’s the gauntlets, where you face wave after wave of enemies.
where do these hundreds of men come from anyway?
it’s an island in the middle of nowhere, and any plane or boat approaching is likely to crash or sink, how are there that many people on the island.
i don’t know if it says more about me or the game, that i don’t have a problem with the supernatural elements, but i just can’t get over how many men there are with automatic weapons on this island where any vessel approaching it is likely to be destroyed.
suspension of disbelief only stretches so far.
these kinds of things have more impact if they’re used sparingly.
think of your favourite song, now imagine that every other song played on the radio was that song.
before long you’d stop looking forward to hearing it and you’d be thinking, “not again”
because that’s how i was by the end.
“oh look, another bloody slide”
but like i said, well done, just overdone.
the tombs, also disappointing.
i can live with them being optional, though when you make a game called Tomb Raider you kind of expect more of a focus on tombs.
what did really disappoint, was how small they were.
often only one room, often preceded by a long section where Lara is forced to walk slowly, i suspect a way of hiding the loading.
in previous games the tombs often made up whole levels, where every room was a new puzzle, and some where the whole level was a puzzle, the cistern level in the original was one of my favourites.
now they’re just one room and one puzzle.
i’ve been pretty negative so far, but i really did enjoy the game.
the controls work really well, the camera works, anybody who has played the last few TR games will appreciate that, i think i only died once due to the camera, there are few 3d platforming games i can say that about.
and the story is actually very good.
Lara has a definite arc, she’s almost a different person at the end.
i’ve got to say though, Lara could be a bit quicker on the uptake, i figured out what the villain wanted long before she did. ^_^
i even had a quick go of the multiplayer, and i liked it.
i don’t know if i’d play it a lot but i will probably play it again.
could do with a bit of balance though, my first few games put me in with mostly level 60 players.
anyway, my verdict.
buy.
for all it’s faults it’s a bloody good game.
one of the few games recently i’ve actually played to the end, and beyond actually, i’m going back through the game to find all the stuff i couldn’t access the first time round.
i’d love to see a sequel, but one that’s more Tomb Raider and less Uncharted.
more raiding of tombs and less set pieces.
wall-o-text™ Hazelam.
^_^
Eldave0
Should have been a great adventure/puzzle game with a strong focus on survival. Instead its just a mindless shooter, albeit one with some nice visuals. RENT IT.
SpikeyMikey23
Enjoyed it but if it was a choice between the Uncharted Series and this, then Uncharted all the way.
Would be more fun with a ‘Naked Lara’ cheat ;)
One main gripe I had was with the hunting and her reaction to it. Sick to her stomach killing one animal, but then absolutely fine with the massacre she leaves in her wake……..
SpikeyMikey23
Buy It
gaffers101
Years of dedicated Tomb Raidering prevent me saying anything bad about the re-boot. It was great game, I even grew to love the multiplayer thanks to the forum meets.
Buy it.
transbaconist (formerly bacon_nuts)
This game, very simply put, is rather bad.
In more detail however, it’s clear that the developers were trying something new, which is great, I don’t feel it worked, which isn’t. Primarily my problems lie with the awful story and main character. Lets take a look at the supporting cast for a minute. Here they are:
– Angry black woman who’s also a single mum
– Friendly fat guy
– Father figure
– Nerd that fancies Lara
– Angry Scotsman
– Clingy and annoying girl that can’t do anything for herself and desperately needs saving
– Insane evil guy that at first appears friendly
– Backstabbing traitor that you can see coming from the start of the game. Yeah, it’s that guy
So as you can see it’s tedious and cliché from the outset. The story then progresses with a stupid progression as you attempt to save your overly clingy friend. Who is presented as utterly useless, even though she agreed to a long voyage and exploratory archaeological trip. Lara herself is an awfully written character, and she too is pretended badly and in an overly sexual way, even though admittedly her ‘assets’ have been toned down. At ever opportunity she crouches in front of the camera, or pushes out her chest and arse to squeeze through gaps. She also refuses to put on any extra clothes, and tight trousers and a low cut strappy top are of course perfectly suitable. It’s not like any of the hundreds of men she’s killed along the awful story aren’t wearing big fur coats… Most annoyingly for Lara though, is her ending, she goes through hours of atrocities, then instead of packing it all in and going home, she decides to go out for more. I understand it’s a prequel so she had to, it’s just badly written.
Speaking of the enemies. There’s only about 5. At one point one shouts “You killed my brothers!” I knew he meant the other generic enemies, but the fact that they’d used his character model in several cut scenes before, and prominently too, made me feel like I’d killed his two identical brothers.
In other areas, the game had annoying glitches like invisible enemies, tombs not loading so I fell through into a bottomless grey pit, and sound glitches. These are however, forgivable.
All in all, the story is awful, the game is far too easy, (even on hard mode the final boss didn’t kill me once) the characters are unbelievable and the gameplay is average at best. It’s a grey, bland, rushed, mess with an awful story. The only reason to play is to look at Lara, so just use google images. Avoid it.
transbaconist (formerly bacon_nuts)
Also, I forgot:
The Tombs are all optional, and all completely forgettable. Only one was at all puzzling, and still barely. This game feels dumbed down.