Tomb Raider 2013 – this “reboot”, as its been dubbed, is an account of Lara Croft’s 1st adventure before she became a more hardened veteran of the action adventure cyber world. Its a 3rd person shooter incorporating survival, some puzzle solving and exploration. This game is a lot of fun with a balanced variety of goals and game-play that keep you continuously interested. You will (and easily can) want to see the game to completion.
Lara is just a young archaeologist on a seemingly simple expedition to locate the lost Japanese kingdom of Yamatai. This mysterious land, home to Himiko the Sun Queen, is engulfed in an equally mysterious weather phenomenon inducing unexplained storms. Like the TV series Lost, once you’ve arrived on this island, you cannot leave. Any attempt to do so is suicide. As soon as you try to leave by air or sea you will be up against a fierce storm that will scupper any attempt to get off the island. So Lara quickly realises the only way to get off is to stay on..
The main game revolves around Lara exploring the island, discovering artefacts and relics to try to make some sense of what is going on here in between defending herself from the cruel intentions of other inhabitants of the island. Once you start peeling away the layers it becomes clear that you are not the only people there, and the remnants you discover from thousands of years of history holds clues to the true nature of the island. Corpses are left strewn across the landscape, from the ancient civilisations of Japan to soldiers from the 1st world war, they have all met their doom here.
Some of the areas have seen a lot of attention to detail and are superbly decorated with piles of body parts and decaying structures. One particular scene where Lara falls into a river of blood stands out in my mind, she gets soaked to the bone in the stuff. It is graphically impressive in parts, though not as polished as it could have been overall in my opinion.The combat system is tight with good enemy AI and not too many guns and weapons, but as you progress various attachments and upgrades become available. To make best use of these try and locate every box and chest that you can, be sure you loot all the dead animals and enemies as well you will need to collect a lot of salvage to build up your own arsenal. Trust me, by the end of the game you will need it, so get exploring!
The game is very well structured, with a good plot line. You feel part of the evolution of the story, and can expand on the main plot line by engaging in the side missions which are simply exploration with a bit of puzzle solving thrown in.
In all honesty most (if not all) of the puzzles aren’t really that taxing to solve and using your trusty survival-instincts mode (L2 on PS3) you will be given enough clues to easily get through the levels. Some of the combat will test your abilities, so if you prefer a steeper learning curve I’d change the difficulty setting to Hard at the beginning, you can always backtrack if you need to.
This Lara Croft is a very likeable character, not cocky at all, and has no confidence in her own ability – this she gradually explores and learns to trust her own instincts, evolving from a young vulnerable girl into a serious fighting force to be reckoned with. The part is played well and this digital actress will no doubt be back in a sequel or two. I look forward to seeing her again.Some say that the Uncharted game series is basically Tomb Raider with a male hero, for me this game plays exactly like Uncharted if you are more familiar with this series and like it, you will also love this. The games are sooo similar it is hard not to notice (or mention it). I loved all the Uncharted games as well as previous TombRaider games so it doesn’t really matter. This is a great game and a worthy part of the Tomb Raider
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