I got into this thanks to my father, of all people. To that point, he wasn't one to get into this type of game, but a friend recommended this to him, and he had a wonderful time.
As did I! I love the Uncharted series, clearly influenced in part by the original Tomb Raider games, so a Tomb Raider title paying Uncharted back in kind hits a real sweet spot for me. This game clearly learned all the right lessons from how Uncharted handles its set pieces and intersperses gunplay with exploration/tomb raiding. I know the waterfall airplane bit is better remembered - it's what was adapted into the Roar Uthaug movie, after all - but my favorite part is easily the "Cry For Help" sequence. That slow fight through the World War II bunker, followed by Lara's first real moment of success with the radio tower climb and callout, only for it to turn into a great wreck-the-set chase sequence.
There's a conversation around whether this game is exploitative, and Lara Croft being brutalized is the director's poorly-disguised fetish. I think this was more of a concern around when the game was coming out - that's where this article comes from (http://platypuscomix.com/interactive2/doomedraider.html). I'll be honest, I wasn't paying attention to this game around the time of its prerelease promotional tour, so I don't have an opinion on how the game was marketed. Looking at the product itself... I don't have an issue with it. I don't deny that the game is glad to quickly and brutally kill Lara if the player screws up, almost to the point of self-parody (she impales herself on a tree branch while hang-gliding and pierces her heart? Can you even do that?). But it's all in service of her character arc. Lara is supposed to go from a meek little uni student/heiress to the cool-under-pressure Tomb Raider we know and love. We see this play out throughout the game's many encounters and through how each new weapon is contextualized - she goes from constructing a bow for hunting to taking out a thug with his own handgun in self-defense to stealing a shotgun and chasing bad guys through a burning building. If the narrative wants to make its "Survival" theme mean something, you need the fail conditions to represent real stakes. The important thing is that, even when beset upon by real peril, Lara becomes someone who emerges, bloody and victorious.
I'm just saying, Joel fell on a piece of rebar and was out for months. It was practically the first damn thing to happen to Lara, and she walked (well, crawled) away from it. Lara's a tough kid.
The game's combat kicks ass, plain and simple. It is largely a cover-shooter - maybe not your thing, but always rock-solid - but then you have the optional stealth segments. They really landed on something here with how the bow handles, because even after unlocking higher-grade weapons, I gladly went back to picking people off one-by-one á la Arkham Asylum whenever the game set me up to do so. Again, it's part of what makes Lara as a survivor so compelling - the slow expansion of her kit as she turns utility items like her bow and pick-axe into brutal weapons for paying her enemies back in kind. But the bow is balanced by being a poor fit for direct fights, so there's still practical use of your other weapons as you get them. There's a lot of very careful pacing and use of the game's abilities and equipment, enough so that you could easily mistake the game for a Metroidvania (...it kinda is, tho).
2013 was a pretty stacked year for new releases - this came out contemporary to The Last of Us and BioShock Infinite, both beloved critical darlings. But this was my runaway favorite of the three, no questions.
As did I! I love the Uncharted series, clearly influenced in part by the original Tomb Raider games, so a Tomb Raider title paying Uncharted back in kind hits a real sweet spot for me. This game clearly learned all the right lessons from how Uncharted handles its set pieces and intersperses gunplay with exploration/tomb raiding. I know the waterfall airplane bit is better remembered - it's what was adapted into the Roar Uthaug movie, after all - but my favorite part is easily the "Cry For Help" sequence. That slow fight through the World War II bunker, followed by Lara's first real moment of success with the radio tower climb and callout, only for it to turn into a great wreck-the-set chase sequence.
There's a conversation around whether this game is exploitative, and Lara Croft being brutalized is the director's poorly-disguised fetish. I think this was more of a concern around when the game was coming out - that's where this article comes from (http://platypuscomix.com/interactive2/doomedraider.html). I'll be honest, I wasn't paying attention to this game around the time of its prerelease promotional tour, so I don't have an opinion on how the game was marketed. Looking at the product itself... I don't have an issue with it. I don't deny that the game is glad to quickly and brutally kill Lara if the player screws up, almost to the point of self-parody (she impales herself on a tree branch while hang-gliding and pierces her heart? Can you even do that?). But it's all in service of her character arc. Lara is supposed to go from a meek little uni student/heiress to the cool-under-pressure Tomb Raider we know and love. We see this play out throughout the game's many encounters and through how each new weapon is contextualized - she goes from constructing a bow for hunting to taking out a thug with his own handgun in self-defense to stealing a shotgun and chasing bad guys through a burning building. If the narrative wants to make its "Survival" theme mean something, you need the fail conditions to represent real stakes. The important thing is that, even when beset upon by real peril, Lara becomes someone who emerges, bloody and victorious.
I'm just saying, Joel fell on a piece of rebar and was out for months. It was practically the first damn thing to happen to Lara, and she walked (well, crawled) away from it. Lara's a tough kid.
The game's combat kicks ass, plain and simple. It is largely a cover-shooter - maybe not your thing, but always rock-solid - but then you have the optional stealth segments. They really landed on something here with how the bow handles, because even after unlocking higher-grade weapons, I gladly went back to picking people off one-by-one á la Arkham Asylum whenever the game set me up to do so. Again, it's part of what makes Lara as a survivor so compelling - the slow expansion of her kit as she turns utility items like her bow and pick-axe into brutal weapons for paying her enemies back in kind. But the bow is balanced by being a poor fit for direct fights, so there's still practical use of your other weapons as you get them. There's a lot of very careful pacing and use of the game's abilities and equipment, enough so that you could easily mistake the game for a Metroidvania (...it kinda is, tho).
2013 was a pretty stacked year for new releases - this came out contemporary to The Last of Us and BioShock Infinite, both beloved critical darlings. But this was my runaway favorite of the three, no questions.