A Reboot done right! Well mostly.
Tomb Raider (2013) is a full-on Reboot of the classic Tomb Raider franchise and serves as the origin story for Lara Croft on her first real adventure on the lost island of Yamati in the middle of the Dragons Triangle.
Gameplay: This is a 3rd person shooter, action thriller game with a semi open world map. The game follows Lara as she is shipwrecked on this mysterious island with her friends and fellow explorers. The gameplay has some Stealth elements but switches between high paced action and puzzle solving. The Puzzles involve a lot of climbing and platforming to find or move switches and platforms, explore environments to figure out how to get from point A to point B and collect artifacts, collectibles and upgrades. All of the gameplay and combat is pretty fluent and satisfying though I will say a few of the areas and puzzles I had to Google to figure out. Most of the gameplay involves you fighting enemies with guns, undead creatures and animals. Speaking of animals, there is a hunting mechanic in this game where you can hunt animals like deer and wolves for materials and then go to one of the many firepit locations around the map and save, craft gear and upgrades. The map is mostly linear but there is a back tracking and open world element to the Island which allows you to go back and solve puzzles you could not figure out before. The whole gameplay loop is pretty solid and fits in well with the idea of what Tomb Raider was all about and is probably the most successful element to this reboot.
Graphics, Voice acting & Music: This game graphically looked great for 2013 and still doesn’t look half bad at all in today’s day and age. The environments all look and feel very realistic and spooky with ancient caves, a shanty town made out of shipwrecks and the large cave and mountainous regions all fit well with the theme. The new cast of characters all sound fantastic, Voice acting from everyone around the board is smooth and give great performances though I will say a few of the NPC enemies have the same voice from time to time and I wanna say whoever that voice is also voiced Cyborg in Teen Titans but I could be wrong just sounds a lot like him. The music and environmental themes are all pretty great but also isn’t anything too amazing either, but it certainly fits and gets the job done.
Story/ Minor spoilers: The story is another fairly strong point for this reboot as it sets up this universe and gives us a more realistic version of Lara Croft. What they did here reminds me of how the Resident Evil Remakes changed those characters. We see a human and not over sexualized version of Lara and I know a lot of people didn’t like this approach and I am usually against making changes like this, but I actually found this version of Lara great and really didn’t have an issue with it at all. Lara is younger and less experienced here and I could totally see them doing an adult Lara trilogy where she is the dual gun slinging Lara people are used to in time. Basically, in this story we see Lara and her colleague exploring this mysterious island with savage and crazed survivors, mysterious ghostly ruins and undead phantoms of ancient Samuri and the inclusion of an unsolved mystery involving a sun queen and a supposed curse. All interesting stuff that I think worked super well for what it was. I don’t want to spoil anything about the story because it was all pretty solid and works well. Overall, I really loved this reboot, had great gameplay, a fresh take on Lara, good characters (for the most part, some of the side characters were a little one dimensional and cringe but they don’t take up too much plot for it to be a problem for me) and a good map and story, lots of replay value. It’s not a perfect game and I know this is a version of Lara that’s a bit more grounded, but I personally found it very enjoyable. 8.5/10
Tomb Raider (2013) is a full-on Reboot of the classic Tomb Raider franchise and serves as the origin story for Lara Croft on her first real adventure on the lost island of Yamati in the middle of the Dragons Triangle.
Gameplay: This is a 3rd person shooter, action thriller game with a semi open world map. The game follows Lara as she is shipwrecked on this mysterious island with her friends and fellow explorers. The gameplay has some Stealth elements but switches between high paced action and puzzle solving. The Puzzles involve a lot of climbing and platforming to find or move switches and platforms, explore environments to figure out how to get from point A to point B and collect artifacts, collectibles and upgrades. All of the gameplay and combat is pretty fluent and satisfying though I will say a few of the areas and puzzles I had to Google to figure out. Most of the gameplay involves you fighting enemies with guns, undead creatures and animals. Speaking of animals, there is a hunting mechanic in this game where you can hunt animals like deer and wolves for materials and then go to one of the many firepit locations around the map and save, craft gear and upgrades. The map is mostly linear but there is a back tracking and open world element to the Island which allows you to go back and solve puzzles you could not figure out before. The whole gameplay loop is pretty solid and fits in well with the idea of what Tomb Raider was all about and is probably the most successful element to this reboot.
Graphics, Voice acting & Music: This game graphically looked great for 2013 and still doesn’t look half bad at all in today’s day and age. The environments all look and feel very realistic and spooky with ancient caves, a shanty town made out of shipwrecks and the large cave and mountainous regions all fit well with the theme. The new cast of characters all sound fantastic, Voice acting from everyone around the board is smooth and give great performances though I will say a few of the NPC enemies have the same voice from time to time and I wanna say whoever that voice is also voiced Cyborg in Teen Titans but I could be wrong just sounds a lot like him. The music and environmental themes are all pretty great but also isn’t anything too amazing either, but it certainly fits and gets the job done.
Story/ Minor spoilers: The story is another fairly strong point for this reboot as it sets up this universe and gives us a more realistic version of Lara Croft. What they did here reminds me of how the Resident Evil Remakes changed those characters. We see a human and not over sexualized version of Lara and I know a lot of people didn’t like this approach and I am usually against making changes like this, but I actually found this version of Lara great and really didn’t have an issue with it at all. Lara is younger and less experienced here and I could totally see them doing an adult Lara trilogy where she is the dual gun slinging Lara people are used to in time. Basically, in this story we see Lara and her colleague exploring this mysterious island with savage and crazed survivors, mysterious ghostly ruins and undead phantoms of ancient Samuri and the inclusion of an unsolved mystery involving a sun queen and a supposed curse. All interesting stuff that I think worked super well for what it was. I don’t want to spoil anything about the story because it was all pretty solid and works well. Overall, I really loved this reboot, had great gameplay, a fresh take on Lara, good characters (for the most part, some of the side characters were a little one dimensional and cringe but they don’t take up too much plot for it to be a problem for me) and a good map and story, lots of replay value. It’s not a perfect game and I know this is a version of Lara that’s a bit more grounded, but I personally found it very enjoyable. 8.5/10