This review contains spoilers
The reboot has a bit of a history within the pantheons of the Tomb Raider series, one of which starts soon after Tomb Raider: Underworld in 2008. The title apparently was called Tomb Raider: Ascension and would be considered a bit of a cross-breed between a survival horror title as well as taking influences from games like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. The game would’ve included a fully open world, horseback riding, a small female sidekick, and apparently a doppelganger version of Lara. A lot of the development cycle would be released under “Final Hours of Tomb Raider”, a documentary which chronicled the early years of the reboot. Whatever the case, this iteration didn’t end up working out and would later form into the beginning of the “Survivor Trilogy”; darker reboots of the Tomb Raider series that would deal with PTSD, Trauma, Survivor’s Guilt and other fun themes. This trilogy would go under the tagline: “A Survivor is Born” and would form itself as an origin story for a younger, less experienced Lara Croft. Gameplay trailers would start showing up at the beginning of 2012 and would continue to be promoted on schedule until March of 2013.
Tomb Raider (2013) as well as its sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, were honestly my only introductions into the Tomb Raider series as a whole. I’ve heard of and I’ve seen the original games but I’ve never sat down and actually played them nor have I experienced much in the way of anything else in the way of Tomb Raider media. I originally played this on the Xbox One back in the latter 2010s, as it was released for free for a limited time due to the Xbox Gold strategy at the time (for those not in the know, free games every month). I sat down, played it and enjoyed my time with it, but I haven’t really sat down and analyzed what I really liked about it other than it felt great as well as the fact that Lara’s accent in game was COOL AS S H I T but I’m also a simp for cool accents. I’d later go on to play Rise on Steam (shoutout to Realmofwolves for the copy) separately and enjoy that too, but I ended up picking this game up for free due to Steam giving it out for some reason. Having recently found some opportunities to stream for a friend of mine, this was the first game that she wanted me to stream for her. So how did I feel about the game for the second time around? Did the entry point into the “Survivor” arc feel better the second time around?
The story begins with a young Lara Croft, who takes her first voyage upon The Endurance having just gotten out of college in order to find the lost kingdom of Yamatai. The crew for the Endurance is composed of Lara herself, her father figure/sailor Conrad Roth, her best friend Sam (whose family is descended from Yamatai and helped fund the expedition), Dr. Whitman (a celebrity archeologist who is about to go through a bad divorce), Reyes (a single mother/mechanic), fisherman Jonah, electronics guy Alex and angry Scotsman Grim. The beginning is paved with decent times, as the crew get along (or in Lara and Whitman’s case, not so much) and talk about the trip, along with filming B-Roll footage on fish before the ship abruptly starts to tank and everything goes awry. The crew manage to make it out alive amongst the heavy storms, however on the beach where the others have set up camp, Lara gets knocked the hell out before she’s able to reach her friends. Waking up in a decrepit cave hung upside down, she manages to break out and escape from the scavenger with the cave crushing everything behind her.
Making her way through forests and creepy shacks, she manages to contact Roth on the radio before picking up the pickaxe in the basement of the creepy shack. Bypassing that, she finally runs into Sam along with a mysterious stranger named Mathias who seems fascinated by stories of Sam’s heritage, having been descended from the enigmatic Queen Himiko herself. Lara proceeds to fall asleep during this story, only for her to wake up and find that her friend and the stranger have disappeared entirely. Trying to follow the trail, she walks straight into a deadly bear trap and has to kill a bunch of wolves before being saved by Reyes and the rest of the group. Telling the group about Sam’s disappearance, the group splits up with Lara and Whitman going to find Roth while the rest of the group follow the trail to Sam. Following a trail, it leads them to a sort of gate that shows signs of worshiping Himiko, confirming that they in fact found Yamatai before they’re surrounded by men aggressive with guns. They’re okay at first until Whitman takes the coward’s way out and tells Lara to do whatever they say, which involves crew members of the Endurance (not the main ones) being executed piece by piece while Whitman is taken elsewhere. Of course, there’s this uncomfortable tension between Lara and her captor, however that ends real quick as Lara makes her escape before murdering him in a struggle. She freaks out a bit before she makes her escape again, shooting through multiple dudes and reuniting with Roth, who is wounded and surrounded by dead wolves after John Woo-ing the hell out of them.
Lara lays Roth down safely and travels to find the medkit needed to bandage Roth up from the wolves who survived the assault. Traveling into the cave and nearly getting almost murdered, she makes it back down the small mountain and heals Roth’s wounds. However, Roth lays something down on her real fast: in his condition, he needs her to bring up some equipment needed to hack into a relay and contact the outside world for a pickup. Shooting and stabbing her way up some cold ass mountains (and not picking up jackets from ANYONE’s corpse), she manages to climb her way up the relay tower and ACTUALLY call for help from the outside world. However, this doesn’t go very far before the giant cargo plane (with absolutely nowhere to land by the way!) gets struck by lightning and crashes into the forest below. Lara slides her way down the mountain and nearly dies, while one of the two survivors of the plane gets mucho deado by nearby cultists. She makes her way back to Roth, who somehow was able to climb up the mountain before insisting on saving the remaining surviving pilot as well. The others tell Roth and Lara that they tracked Sam to some sort of ancient city before Lara finds the pilot, who is nigh dead and is ambushed into a trap. Matthias appears and taunts her before the nearby “Oni” murder all of his goons, conveniently thinking Lara to be dead.
She wakes up in a room filled with dead bodies like it’s a mafia owned pork store in New Jersey and barely manages to evade the Oni herself in the escape. She finds the “tomb” of Himiko, and learns of a fire ritual while narrating to herself in an AHA moment. She finally comes to the conclusion that Himiko’s “fire ritual” is actually transferring power, as in the power of reincarnation. She’s barely able to make it out alive before she’s contacted over the radio by Sam, who tells her about the fire ritual and that she’s “fucking terrified”. Believing her to be about to be sacrificed, she and Roth make their way over to the “palace” as the others have been captured as well. Sam’s caught by guards and Lara tumbles her way down a waterfall using her training from slip and fall school before conveniently parachuting her way down to the shanty town where this fortress holds Sam and the others (though not before getting nigh injured). She heals her own injuries via a fire arrow and heads out into the Shanty Town, killing goons in the process. Here she finds Grim being held hostage, who sacrifices himself and takes some goons down with him into the abyss below. Afterwards she continues to climb up, with Roth providing surprise sniper cover fire while she slowly climbs across the bridge. Of course it’s here where someone sees her and attempts to kill her but that doesn’t work, as she makes a quick getaway across a bunch of collapsing shanties. Making her way through a cave, she spots a ritual between Matthias, Sam and all of the Solarii cult and decides of all things to pull out a bow instead of murdering everyone with the automatic rifle or the shotgun she has. This fails, and Lara is captured to watch her friend die; however it turns out this ritual is supposed to prove if someone truly is a relative of Himiko and when Sam survives, the cult turns to the next plan as Lara is led out of the area.
However, Lara has other plans and gets the jump on her captors before jumping into the river of blood below, peeking her head out like a scene from Apocalypse Now. Fighting her way through the caves, she manages to save her friends before blowing up a gas leak below, letting everyone escape (barely) but in the process wreaking havoc on the entire palace above. Climbing through the wreckage, she finds a room where Matthias has been planning this transfer (between questioning why he’s so interested in it, even if the text in the middle of the screen says VESSEL). A bit later she runs into Dr. Whitman again, who finds these cult guys to be fascinating and tells Lara to “keep a lookout and holler when it’s safe”. Matthias rants at Samantha and giving his motive: he wants to do the ritual so he can leave the godforsaken island. Lara kills Sam’s guard and almost rescues her, finding Dr. Whitman again who is supposedly “held hostage”. The fire ranges as well as a bloodbath that accentuates the carnage as Lara and Sam are split up. Lara goes to war and takes down a whole lot of goons before barely escaping a burning bridge as Roth and the others come around on a helicopter. I forget how they get the helicopter but this isn’t a great idea as the helicopter attempts to escape without the others, before Lara holds a gun to the dude’s head. The helicopter crashes, only survivors being Roth and Lara; however Mathias catches up and just throws an axe into Roth’s spine, killing him permanently. The others make their way back and frustrations are at an all time high with the blame game, however they all agree to find a safe place and make funeral arrangements.
Lara insists that the storms are meant to keep them on the island, though Reyes stubbornly disagrees and thinks she’s crazy. Mourning at Roth’s grave, the others make their way back to the beach in order to salvage a boat to head off the island. Lara instead plans to use it to go back to the monastery filled with Oni from before, planning on stopping the Solarii cult once and for all. An action set piece filled with makeshift elevators later and she’s down at the beach, where Whitman suspiciously comes back unharmed. Jonah also tells Lara about how Alex went to go and find some tools, so Lara proceeds to go back to where it all started: the wreck of the Endurance in order to find Alex and the tools. He stubbornly refuses to help, as he’s so intensely focused on impressing Lara due to a hidden crush that he ends up dying, though he makes a sacrifice for Lara (getting a kiss in the process). Lara makes her way back to the others and after more tense words with Reyes, she and the others chill out and eat at the campfire. Lara (having found intel about the Japanese military trying to control the storms), is led to believe they may have found answers at an old base beneath the cliffside. Infiltrating it, she finds the dead body of a samurai and learns that the guy (who was a general) unalived himself due to his failure in stopping the unaliving of the next in line priestess used for the reincarnation ritual. Himiko has been trapped inside of her body the entire time in her ritual chamber, screaming and waiting for release. Over the radio, gunfire goes off at the base camp and the Solarii get the drop on everyone including Lara, who shoots her way back to base camp.
Whitman has taken Sam and brought her back to Mathias, and with basically everyone dead now except Jonah and Reyes, they all agree to stage a rescue operation at the ritual chamber. Jonah and Reyes stay behind to stop any Oni, and Lara climbs up to the monastery, where she sees Whitman and Mathias carrying Sam. The cult leader tells him to greet the Oni as a savior for bringing back the sacrifice and the dumb fuck actually believes it, getting killed and providing a distraction while thinking in her ego that he’s going to be a hero. From here it’s a mad dash up the mountain monastery, between shooting cult members and ducking a giant army of undead Oni. She finally manages to climb her way up and kills all manners of beings before she finally confronts Mathias in the final ritual. One quicktime battle later and Mathias gets a pickaxe to the back and John-Woo’d off of the ritual chamber entirely before stabbing Himiko’s corpse, saving Sam and clearing up the weather phenomenon plaguing the island. The sun proceeds to shine harder than a Jesus savior complex and she carries Sam out of their bridal style onto the boat, where the four sail their way out to a rescue ship. Over the course of the story, Lara has dismissed her father’s adventures as crazy, and the media publicity had apparently led him to unaliving himself. However, Lara vows to find answers to the world’s mysteries to live up to her father’s legacy, hoping to eventually clear his name. The final frame shows the words: “A Survivor is Born”, before an eventual cut to black.
With the recap done, how do I view this plot? Honestly I enjoyed it, and compared to the Uncharted titles which has a bit more of an upbeat vibe, I appreciate the darker turn that this game gives on Lara’s character. In a lot of ways the development of Lara as a character had a pretty good start here, dealing with the themes of trauma, which I feel like I’ll explain better in the atmosphere section. However, what doesn’t get stated are the undercurrent LGBT tones between Lara and Sam. It’s not like a super huge thing of course, but it’s clear that they deeply care about each other and they’re pretty good foils for each other. Sam is very much supportive of Lara and gets her out of her shell and is more of the extrovert while Lara herself is the introverted and reserved friend who appreciates what Sam brings to her life. How they talk to each other, how Lara carries her to safety towards the end of the game, it’s something that was intended to be built upon according to writer Rhianna Pratchett. It was originally the plan to have them be a couple, and while it was dashed due to the higher ups, it would’ve been interesting to see Lara in a different light then before. Her relationship with Conrad Roth is pretty warm and caring, with Roth being supportive even if he doesn’t agree with her ideas (such as attempting to save the pilot even though that could get her killed). I think for the most part the rest of the crew members are okay: Grim you don’t see much of, Alex is there but the whole crush thing on Lara comes out of nowhere and doesn’t really add up to anything, Reyes is the stereotypical hardass and Jonah is nice though how they decided to keep him and not go with Roth I’m not too sure. The main hate sink is Dr. Whitman, who is played as such an unbelievably narcissistic asshole that it’s not even funny, though sometimes it kind of is with how stupid everyone comes off believing him. Originally there was supposed to be another crew member named Steph who was found in concept art, though this was scrapped due to the amount of characters already on screen. Matthias as an antagonist is pretty okay for the most part, he plays the role well though and through backstory you learn of how he was stranded and eventually turned into the crazed cult leading puppet in Himiko’s Solarii Brotherhood, desperate to escape the island that he was stranded on for thirty years or so. As for the mystery behind Himiko herself, I love the idea of this warrior queen who constantly reincarnates, conquering other lands and rulers and commanding this supernatural reign over the elements only to be trapped in a decayed corpse and driven mad due to the ritual needed to sustain life. One thing that intrigues me a bit is time, like how long does time last on this island? According to TVTropes it’s most likely anywhere between two to three days, and while that’s probably accurate just due to the sheer scope of the paranormal phenomenon it feels like it could take weeks or even longer. I doubt that of course, but the sheer sense of time scale is interesting to me since it was brought up because transition wise it honestly feels pretty smooth even with segments cut between time jumps. Overall however, Tomb Raider was a dark yet enjoyable satisfying time; it’s not perfect in all of it’s choices but for the most part it sticks the landing and created an enjoyable adventure, even if it wasn’t the most memorable the first time around.
Tomb Raider’s gameplay in a lot of ways has been compared to the Uncharted games, and to say that it isn’t would be both blind to the trends though to completely say that it ripped it off would be false. Games inspire each other all the time, and Tomb Raider’s over the shoulder gameplay shooter style mixed in with mythological treasure hunting is pretty much basically two of the only similarities it has to Uncharted (I guess other than collecting artifacts and climbing stuff). Let’s start with the basic gist of the gameplay: Lara will be traveling through different areas, following story events, picking up artifacts and exploring side tombs while shooting members of the Solarii Brotherhood and hunting small animals. So how does that go? Let's go with the open world-esque segments: this game is definitely what you would call a “Metroidvania”. There are a set of different regions, all with their own collectibles and puzzles and some of which you can’t access until much later in the story when you find the tool needed to solve the puzzle which is standard for “Metroidvania”. The whole philosophy for this is the idea that you need to backtrack to explore areas once again, sometimes with enemy respawns and sometimes without. In games like Tomb Raider and Batman: Arkham Asylum (another game I’ve played recently), it’s basically barely any enemies. But that’s the overall concept, and you’ll pick up small artifacts which give a backstory to the goings for Yamatai Island. I’m not a particular fan of the concept of going back to previous areas as it’s often tedious and annoying to wrap up the collectibles for the 100 percent, with me in particular dreading replaying Tomb Raider and Arkham Asylum for those particular reasons. Collectibles also range from Challenges (specific things you do in specific areas like burn specific tarps or destroy mobile alarms) to GPS Caches (which when you collect them all reveal secret messages, especially once you collect them all) to the side tombs. If you want to get all the collectibles in the game, it’s imperative you get to the actual tombs as soon as possible because it’ll reward you with a treasure map revealing the location of other collectibles.
So how about the shooting and climbing aspects of the game? Well the climbing aspect of the game is fun, you climb obvious spots covered in yellow or white paints and earlier on in the game you’ll use your pickaxe to climb specific walls by jumping against the wall and pressing X or Square. Most of the time it plays pretty damn well though like other games in its genre, there are times where I feel like I slip and die; sometimes it’s my fault and sometimes it’s kinda picky and choosy though this latter part is rare. However, the gunplay and upgrade system surrounding it is what makes the heart of the core gameplay. In almost every region (at least the ones with collectibles), you’ll find campfires which you can use to save, listen to one of Lara’s monologues, upgrade your weapons with parts and salvage found as well as the ability to upgrade your skill trees. The salvage weapon system for the most part is fine, it’s cool to see how your weapons evolve over time as you upgrade them, particularly the machine gun which turns it from a WW2 submachine gun into a duct taped makeshift AK; this is particularly hilarious as Lara DOES NOT seem like the type who would know gun mechanics like that but for the sake of gameplay I don’t give a shit. I feel like the problem involved with this is the salvage mechanic, the loot system where you can upgrade these weapons with specific parts. Mainly, if you’re not diligent enough to loot EVERY corpse you come across, every little box and just everything in general then by the end it feels painful trying to unlock the last upgrades needed to 100 percent of all weapons. In fact, I doubt you’ll even be able to 100 percent the weapons as in a lot of ways, the upgrades needed are randomized with the loot boxes throughout the map. I had done it all on the Xbox One but on the PC I think I still had a weapon or two on 60-80 percent and by the end of the game I couldn’t be arsed enough to deal with that shit. In short, it feels like a grindy game but it doesn’t give you enough repetitive resources in order to get what you need as enemies barely respawn and if you kill enough animals it’ll say that an area is “hunted out” which is fucking annoying. In a lot of the ways it’s the same thing with the XP Upgrade tree, like once you’ve gone through the campaign it feels like it’s a bit of a stretch to get everything.
So what specific weapons are you using in your adventure on Yamatai Island? The first ones you’ll get are the Bow & Arrow along with the Pickaxe. The Bow and Arrow (which can later get updated twice with much better bows) are pretty solid, and over time you’ll get access to different arrows like fire arrows, piercing arrows and rope arrows which you’ll use to create ziplines. The pickaxe is cool for climbing but is also for melee and stealth, though using it as an actual weapon requires upgrades on the skill tree. I feel like this is kind of dumb because why would I need to use an actual skill tree just to swing a weapon when you can just…swing a weapon? I don’t know, it feels kind of stupid but what can you do? Other weapons include the usual Pistol (which when fully upgraded turns into a Desert Eagle), Shotgun (which can upgrade from a Pump Shotgun into a Combat Shotgun) and Machine Gun (which starts out as a Japanese Type-100 but over time turns into an AK-47 before finishing off with the “Commando Rifle” and is fitted with a grenade launcher attachment during the fortress raid). There aren’t any grenades so you’re mostly off using your wits to destroy lanterns and explosive barrels in your environment to kill nearby foes. Speaking of fire from earlier, you also have access to a torch which you can use during certain puzzles, for light or to burn certain objects but for the most part it’s not the craziest thing mechanically. The last thing I’ll bring up here is quick time events, which in this game is actually pretty used a decent amount of times. Thankfully it’s mostly tapping the X (or Square) button repeatedly or tapping Y (or Triangle) in certain instances. However, whenever the game asks you to slap one of the joysticks back and forth (heh, dad?) it gets kind of frustrating and hurts your hand if you’re not expecting it and/or trying to take copious amounts of screenshots like I usually do on Steam.
What about cut gameplay stuff? According to developers themselves and outside sources, there were a number of ideas for the game that were canned. Developers themselves would discuss how earlier builds of the game used health packs to fix Lara up, which was later on the cutting room floor due to “modernization” and instead was replaced with health regeneration. Another cut sequence was one that involved swimming through The Endurance as it starts to sink in the beginning of the game, before it was cut due “swimming not being solved”, later to be added into the sequel. Another thing to be added into the sequel? Side Quests! In earlier builds of the game, it apparently had a series of quests that made a male hunter whom you would fetch stuff for in exchange for items that could be used in the course of your adventure. I feel that it’s better that this was scrapped, just due to the fact it feels conflicting with the “us versus them” survival mentality the game’s Lord of the Flies-esque nature would build upon. The last thing was apparently a four player cooperative mode which was canceled due to the scope of the story itself, which again made sense to me as it doesn’t feel like the kind of game that needs a cooperative mode where everyone just goes ham shooting people but that’s just me. Speaking of mass murder!
Starting out with the atmosphere of Tomb Raider, it’s a very heavy one with almost barely any levity involved and usually doesn’t give you any time to breathe. Right from the get go in the story it’ll hit you with better times before almost delivering an onslaught of near deaths, “I barely survived” moments, as well as giant onslaughts of angry cultist goons inside of this dark gray and grimy bubble. While I kind of shrugged at the “Nathan Drake bodycount” thing as I’m rather desensitized to death and shooting things in video games, I rather appreciate how the game takes it’s time to at least address that Lara goes through some rather traumatic stuff in regard to the constant killing and the hopelessness that goes on through the island. She doesn’t make funny, carefree quips or banter endlessly while shooting thugs like Nathan would, as they really go with attempting to make this a serious and as dark as possible. Dead bodies litter the world either from your own deeds, from the previous 2000 years or a couple of points of skinned corpses, victims of the undead Stormguard. I think there’s a lot of people that give the game a bit of shit for how it handled the themes: dropping a moment or two where Lara has a moment where she apologizes for killing a deer or near a breakdown point killing her first goon (total piece of s h i t by the way) before just continuing like it’s nothing. I’m sure there could be more realistic ways for the theme to continue, like having multiple moments and cutscenes where she throws up or has a moment where she calms down before sobbing uncontrollably. However, the truth is I feel when you’re in a situation like this it’s really hard to tell how everyone would react, especially considering Lara is just pumped full of adrenaline throughout the entirety of the multiple days that she stays mostly awake. According to TVTropes, the writer addressed the “inconsistency” in an interview where she said that “not every kill can be like the first one”, and that a lot of the game kind of depends on suspension of disbelief with action games. Like with most video games, I basically can concede and agree for the most part as just for the sake of video game logic there isn’t really much of a way you can get around it other than perhaps adding even more scenes and mentions in the equation other than “Killing just seems to get easier with each one”.
Regardless, between the constant grays and the decrepit buildings, the dirt and grime mixed with the rainy fog you find during your travels in Yamatai I feel like it definitely fits the “abandoned island” atmosphere that you’d certainly get out of Lost. I would classify the tone of this game as action adventure with horror elements, even if there aren’t jumpscares or anything too crazy I feel like the themes more than fit for the purpose. So how about the graphics? Originally the game came out on the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 generation of consoles and as such it’s not the craziest level of detail in the graphics. Mud will blend into the skin but look pixelated and sometimes it’ll look like the rips in the clothing are a part of the texture in itself, as if the texture itself is being swapped and not the clothing itself being altered throughout your time on Yamatai. That being said however, it doesn’t look bad graphically in the slightest. Throughout my entire time playing Tomb Raider I’ve never noticed one bad texture or anything out of place. Everything looks perfectly normal as it is and I don’t particularly see anything bad with that in the slightest. The “too long didn’t read” is, the graphics look perfectly fine and while there’s nothing crazy with it, works enough that it shouldn’t matter.
Sound Design, how is it? The environmental designs from the fire to the weapon sounds, climbing and everything else knocks it out of the park. I like how the weapons feel and sound, each iteration of each weapon feels like a joy to use and the sounds only serve in favor of it. My favorite sound is the AK-47, which has this crunchy sort of effect as the bullets tear through nearby enemy cultists though I also am a huge fan of the general sound that fire gives out. There’s another sound that you can get that apparently sounds like the older Tomb Raider games when you collect all the GPS caches, the one sound that plays when you find a secret but I also haven’t played the old Tomb Raider games (yet) so I haven’t caught that. Burning stuff in this game always sounds neat and shoots some sort of endomorphin s h i t into my brain. As for the voice acting in the game, I REALLY enjoy Camilla Luddington’s performance as a younger Lara Croft, as I feel she does a good job at portraying this inexperienced Lara who at this point is only focused on surviving for her life and getting the hell out. Also I’m a bit of a simp for UK Accents, they’re just so cool sounding and I can’t help but love it for what it is. Her father figure/mentor Conrad Roth is voiced by Robin Atkin Downes, who does a good job putting on a Scottish sort of accent even if I could recognize that it was him almost immediately due to her performance as Miller in Metal Gear Solid V. Those are the main two whom I would say have the most recognizable appearances but in truth everyone in the main Endurance crew along with Robert Craighead as Matthias do a fantastic job bringing emotional nuance and all the other good acting stuff to the table. Finally, the musical soundtrack is pretty alright, it’s composed by a guy named Jason Graves (funny for a dude who previously composed the Dead Space soundtracks to be honest) is still very much orchestral with a lot of percussion and it fits perfectly fine for the background feelings the game provides. Nothing too insane on this end but for all intents and purposes, the sounds for Tomb Raider (2013) work pretty damn well!
Now onto the multiplayer segment of the game: how is it? I’ll be honest, I don’t really know. I know people who’ve played it! They said it was fine for the most part as an actual multiplayer game but for the people who sit down try to get the multiplayer achievements/trophies? Honestly, it’s miserable as hell according to a buddy of mine (shoutout to Bad Ghosts). It apparently took him around 40 or so hours to grind it out, mostly due to the fact absolutely NO ONE played this game online. So why is it? It’s mostly just due to the fact that like many single player games, the executives deemed it so that they shoehorn in a multiplayer mode because that’s what was popular at the time, probably with the off chance hope that it’ll be popular enough to perhaps monetize it in the future. It wasn’t, and like other games, the multiplayer for this was mostly dead in the water.
Tomb Raider is one of those games that I honestly enjoyed the second time around. It’s a more short and brief title, though tonally I can understand why a lot of fans of the series find it to be a mixed reception. In a sense, it went from the unique Tomb Raider flavor to one that kind of follows the Uncharted formula, climbing around your environment as you engage with shootouts and kill a lot of people. Lara only kills like one person and feels traumatized before just moving on to shoot more goons. In all honesty though, I don’t really feel like any of that’s bothered me much? It addresses the body count a bit as a factor of survival, something she has to do to save the people that she cares about and get the hell off the island. The gameplay feels solid, nothing really groundbreaking and crazy but I wasn’t looking for that. Graphically for a 2013 game it still looks pretty damn good between the textures, character models and environmental design and the sound design has a solid foundation as well. It’s not the best s h i t since sliced bread, but that’s okay as not every game needs to be like that. Soon I’ll be going on to replay Rise of the Tomb Raider along with its DLCs and I’ll make sure to give all of them a good spin and see how it fares for the second playthrough compared to this one.
The game would release to positive critical acclaim, with over 14.5 million sales under less than ten years according to the Wikipeeds, though with the critique that the game was copying from the Uncharted series at the time along with criticism due to the game’s darker tones. Between this game and its sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, would release Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris. This title, like Guardian of the Light, would be an arcade-like Isometric experience that spun-off from the series and was unrelated to the “Survivor” series that this game would go on to continue. While this game would debut on Xbox 360 and PS3, the sequel would mainly focus on the next-gen consoles (aside from a 360 Port); however Tomb Raider (2013) itself would later get its own definitive edition re-release for the next-gen consoles as well. While doing research for the game, there was a sort of sequel comic series where Lara Croft dealt with her survivor’s guilt while apparently (saying that cause TV Tropes says yes while I can’t find anything on the Wiki) gaining a hetero boyfriend (eww), destroying a lot of fan popular LGBT subtext between her and her best friend Sam. This was all against Rhianna Pratchett’s (the writer for the game) vision along with Gail Simone, the writer of the comic books. Another novel would be released called Tomb Raider: The Ten Thousand Immortals, which has a bit of a mixed conflict between Crystal Dynamics themselves and the fanbase as to whether or not it’s canonical due to several different details conflicting with the comics. That would be it between the first and second title of the “Survivor Trilogy” for the most part, but again I’ll be taking a look into the second title here really soon.
Links:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/TombRaider2013
https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider:_The_Ten_Thousand_Immortals
https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider:_The_Beginning
https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider_Ascension_(Game)
https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider_(Dark_Horse_Comics)
https://www.unseen64.net/2011/11/20/tomb-raider-legend-beta/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/233410/Tomb_Raider__The_Final_Hours_Digital_Book/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wR1xUHm4rs
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1797530/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYV29WLphmI
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
Tomb Raider (2013) as well as its sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, were honestly my only introductions into the Tomb Raider series as a whole. I’ve heard of and I’ve seen the original games but I’ve never sat down and actually played them nor have I experienced much in the way of anything else in the way of Tomb Raider media. I originally played this on the Xbox One back in the latter 2010s, as it was released for free for a limited time due to the Xbox Gold strategy at the time (for those not in the know, free games every month). I sat down, played it and enjoyed my time with it, but I haven’t really sat down and analyzed what I really liked about it other than it felt great as well as the fact that Lara’s accent in game was COOL AS S H I T but I’m also a simp for cool accents. I’d later go on to play Rise on Steam (shoutout to Realmofwolves for the copy) separately and enjoy that too, but I ended up picking this game up for free due to Steam giving it out for some reason. Having recently found some opportunities to stream for a friend of mine, this was the first game that she wanted me to stream for her. So how did I feel about the game for the second time around? Did the entry point into the “Survivor” arc feel better the second time around?
The story begins with a young Lara Croft, who takes her first voyage upon The Endurance having just gotten out of college in order to find the lost kingdom of Yamatai. The crew for the Endurance is composed of Lara herself, her father figure/sailor Conrad Roth, her best friend Sam (whose family is descended from Yamatai and helped fund the expedition), Dr. Whitman (a celebrity archeologist who is about to go through a bad divorce), Reyes (a single mother/mechanic), fisherman Jonah, electronics guy Alex and angry Scotsman Grim. The beginning is paved with decent times, as the crew get along (or in Lara and Whitman’s case, not so much) and talk about the trip, along with filming B-Roll footage on fish before the ship abruptly starts to tank and everything goes awry. The crew manage to make it out alive amongst the heavy storms, however on the beach where the others have set up camp, Lara gets knocked the hell out before she’s able to reach her friends. Waking up in a decrepit cave hung upside down, she manages to break out and escape from the scavenger with the cave crushing everything behind her.
Making her way through forests and creepy shacks, she manages to contact Roth on the radio before picking up the pickaxe in the basement of the creepy shack. Bypassing that, she finally runs into Sam along with a mysterious stranger named Mathias who seems fascinated by stories of Sam’s heritage, having been descended from the enigmatic Queen Himiko herself. Lara proceeds to fall asleep during this story, only for her to wake up and find that her friend and the stranger have disappeared entirely. Trying to follow the trail, she walks straight into a deadly bear trap and has to kill a bunch of wolves before being saved by Reyes and the rest of the group. Telling the group about Sam’s disappearance, the group splits up with Lara and Whitman going to find Roth while the rest of the group follow the trail to Sam. Following a trail, it leads them to a sort of gate that shows signs of worshiping Himiko, confirming that they in fact found Yamatai before they’re surrounded by men aggressive with guns. They’re okay at first until Whitman takes the coward’s way out and tells Lara to do whatever they say, which involves crew members of the Endurance (not the main ones) being executed piece by piece while Whitman is taken elsewhere. Of course, there’s this uncomfortable tension between Lara and her captor, however that ends real quick as Lara makes her escape before murdering him in a struggle. She freaks out a bit before she makes her escape again, shooting through multiple dudes and reuniting with Roth, who is wounded and surrounded by dead wolves after John Woo-ing the hell out of them.
Lara lays Roth down safely and travels to find the medkit needed to bandage Roth up from the wolves who survived the assault. Traveling into the cave and nearly getting almost murdered, she makes it back down the small mountain and heals Roth’s wounds. However, Roth lays something down on her real fast: in his condition, he needs her to bring up some equipment needed to hack into a relay and contact the outside world for a pickup. Shooting and stabbing her way up some cold ass mountains (and not picking up jackets from ANYONE’s corpse), she manages to climb her way up the relay tower and ACTUALLY call for help from the outside world. However, this doesn’t go very far before the giant cargo plane (with absolutely nowhere to land by the way!) gets struck by lightning and crashes into the forest below. Lara slides her way down the mountain and nearly dies, while one of the two survivors of the plane gets mucho deado by nearby cultists. She makes her way back to Roth, who somehow was able to climb up the mountain before insisting on saving the remaining surviving pilot as well. The others tell Roth and Lara that they tracked Sam to some sort of ancient city before Lara finds the pilot, who is nigh dead and is ambushed into a trap. Matthias appears and taunts her before the nearby “Oni” murder all of his goons, conveniently thinking Lara to be dead.
She wakes up in a room filled with dead bodies like it’s a mafia owned pork store in New Jersey and barely manages to evade the Oni herself in the escape. She finds the “tomb” of Himiko, and learns of a fire ritual while narrating to herself in an AHA moment. She finally comes to the conclusion that Himiko’s “fire ritual” is actually transferring power, as in the power of reincarnation. She’s barely able to make it out alive before she’s contacted over the radio by Sam, who tells her about the fire ritual and that she’s “fucking terrified”. Believing her to be about to be sacrificed, she and Roth make their way over to the “palace” as the others have been captured as well. Sam’s caught by guards and Lara tumbles her way down a waterfall using her training from slip and fall school before conveniently parachuting her way down to the shanty town where this fortress holds Sam and the others (though not before getting nigh injured). She heals her own injuries via a fire arrow and heads out into the Shanty Town, killing goons in the process. Here she finds Grim being held hostage, who sacrifices himself and takes some goons down with him into the abyss below. Afterwards she continues to climb up, with Roth providing surprise sniper cover fire while she slowly climbs across the bridge. Of course it’s here where someone sees her and attempts to kill her but that doesn’t work, as she makes a quick getaway across a bunch of collapsing shanties. Making her way through a cave, she spots a ritual between Matthias, Sam and all of the Solarii cult and decides of all things to pull out a bow instead of murdering everyone with the automatic rifle or the shotgun she has. This fails, and Lara is captured to watch her friend die; however it turns out this ritual is supposed to prove if someone truly is a relative of Himiko and when Sam survives, the cult turns to the next plan as Lara is led out of the area.
However, Lara has other plans and gets the jump on her captors before jumping into the river of blood below, peeking her head out like a scene from Apocalypse Now. Fighting her way through the caves, she manages to save her friends before blowing up a gas leak below, letting everyone escape (barely) but in the process wreaking havoc on the entire palace above. Climbing through the wreckage, she finds a room where Matthias has been planning this transfer (between questioning why he’s so interested in it, even if the text in the middle of the screen says VESSEL). A bit later she runs into Dr. Whitman again, who finds these cult guys to be fascinating and tells Lara to “keep a lookout and holler when it’s safe”. Matthias rants at Samantha and giving his motive: he wants to do the ritual so he can leave the godforsaken island. Lara kills Sam’s guard and almost rescues her, finding Dr. Whitman again who is supposedly “held hostage”. The fire ranges as well as a bloodbath that accentuates the carnage as Lara and Sam are split up. Lara goes to war and takes down a whole lot of goons before barely escaping a burning bridge as Roth and the others come around on a helicopter. I forget how they get the helicopter but this isn’t a great idea as the helicopter attempts to escape without the others, before Lara holds a gun to the dude’s head. The helicopter crashes, only survivors being Roth and Lara; however Mathias catches up and just throws an axe into Roth’s spine, killing him permanently. The others make their way back and frustrations are at an all time high with the blame game, however they all agree to find a safe place and make funeral arrangements.
Lara insists that the storms are meant to keep them on the island, though Reyes stubbornly disagrees and thinks she’s crazy. Mourning at Roth’s grave, the others make their way back to the beach in order to salvage a boat to head off the island. Lara instead plans to use it to go back to the monastery filled with Oni from before, planning on stopping the Solarii cult once and for all. An action set piece filled with makeshift elevators later and she’s down at the beach, where Whitman suspiciously comes back unharmed. Jonah also tells Lara about how Alex went to go and find some tools, so Lara proceeds to go back to where it all started: the wreck of the Endurance in order to find Alex and the tools. He stubbornly refuses to help, as he’s so intensely focused on impressing Lara due to a hidden crush that he ends up dying, though he makes a sacrifice for Lara (getting a kiss in the process). Lara makes her way back to the others and after more tense words with Reyes, she and the others chill out and eat at the campfire. Lara (having found intel about the Japanese military trying to control the storms), is led to believe they may have found answers at an old base beneath the cliffside. Infiltrating it, she finds the dead body of a samurai and learns that the guy (who was a general) unalived himself due to his failure in stopping the unaliving of the next in line priestess used for the reincarnation ritual. Himiko has been trapped inside of her body the entire time in her ritual chamber, screaming and waiting for release. Over the radio, gunfire goes off at the base camp and the Solarii get the drop on everyone including Lara, who shoots her way back to base camp.
Whitman has taken Sam and brought her back to Mathias, and with basically everyone dead now except Jonah and Reyes, they all agree to stage a rescue operation at the ritual chamber. Jonah and Reyes stay behind to stop any Oni, and Lara climbs up to the monastery, where she sees Whitman and Mathias carrying Sam. The cult leader tells him to greet the Oni as a savior for bringing back the sacrifice and the dumb fuck actually believes it, getting killed and providing a distraction while thinking in her ego that he’s going to be a hero. From here it’s a mad dash up the mountain monastery, between shooting cult members and ducking a giant army of undead Oni. She finally manages to climb her way up and kills all manners of beings before she finally confronts Mathias in the final ritual. One quicktime battle later and Mathias gets a pickaxe to the back and John-Woo’d off of the ritual chamber entirely before stabbing Himiko’s corpse, saving Sam and clearing up the weather phenomenon plaguing the island. The sun proceeds to shine harder than a Jesus savior complex and she carries Sam out of their bridal style onto the boat, where the four sail their way out to a rescue ship. Over the course of the story, Lara has dismissed her father’s adventures as crazy, and the media publicity had apparently led him to unaliving himself. However, Lara vows to find answers to the world’s mysteries to live up to her father’s legacy, hoping to eventually clear his name. The final frame shows the words: “A Survivor is Born”, before an eventual cut to black.
With the recap done, how do I view this plot? Honestly I enjoyed it, and compared to the Uncharted titles which has a bit more of an upbeat vibe, I appreciate the darker turn that this game gives on Lara’s character. In a lot of ways the development of Lara as a character had a pretty good start here, dealing with the themes of trauma, which I feel like I’ll explain better in the atmosphere section. However, what doesn’t get stated are the undercurrent LGBT tones between Lara and Sam. It’s not like a super huge thing of course, but it’s clear that they deeply care about each other and they’re pretty good foils for each other. Sam is very much supportive of Lara and gets her out of her shell and is more of the extrovert while Lara herself is the introverted and reserved friend who appreciates what Sam brings to her life. How they talk to each other, how Lara carries her to safety towards the end of the game, it’s something that was intended to be built upon according to writer Rhianna Pratchett. It was originally the plan to have them be a couple, and while it was dashed due to the higher ups, it would’ve been interesting to see Lara in a different light then before. Her relationship with Conrad Roth is pretty warm and caring, with Roth being supportive even if he doesn’t agree with her ideas (such as attempting to save the pilot even though that could get her killed). I think for the most part the rest of the crew members are okay: Grim you don’t see much of, Alex is there but the whole crush thing on Lara comes out of nowhere and doesn’t really add up to anything, Reyes is the stereotypical hardass and Jonah is nice though how they decided to keep him and not go with Roth I’m not too sure. The main hate sink is Dr. Whitman, who is played as such an unbelievably narcissistic asshole that it’s not even funny, though sometimes it kind of is with how stupid everyone comes off believing him. Originally there was supposed to be another crew member named Steph who was found in concept art, though this was scrapped due to the amount of characters already on screen. Matthias as an antagonist is pretty okay for the most part, he plays the role well though and through backstory you learn of how he was stranded and eventually turned into the crazed cult leading puppet in Himiko’s Solarii Brotherhood, desperate to escape the island that he was stranded on for thirty years or so. As for the mystery behind Himiko herself, I love the idea of this warrior queen who constantly reincarnates, conquering other lands and rulers and commanding this supernatural reign over the elements only to be trapped in a decayed corpse and driven mad due to the ritual needed to sustain life. One thing that intrigues me a bit is time, like how long does time last on this island? According to TVTropes it’s most likely anywhere between two to three days, and while that’s probably accurate just due to the sheer scope of the paranormal phenomenon it feels like it could take weeks or even longer. I doubt that of course, but the sheer sense of time scale is interesting to me since it was brought up because transition wise it honestly feels pretty smooth even with segments cut between time jumps. Overall however, Tomb Raider was a dark yet enjoyable satisfying time; it’s not perfect in all of it’s choices but for the most part it sticks the landing and created an enjoyable adventure, even if it wasn’t the most memorable the first time around.
Tomb Raider’s gameplay in a lot of ways has been compared to the Uncharted games, and to say that it isn’t would be both blind to the trends though to completely say that it ripped it off would be false. Games inspire each other all the time, and Tomb Raider’s over the shoulder gameplay shooter style mixed in with mythological treasure hunting is pretty much basically two of the only similarities it has to Uncharted (I guess other than collecting artifacts and climbing stuff). Let’s start with the basic gist of the gameplay: Lara will be traveling through different areas, following story events, picking up artifacts and exploring side tombs while shooting members of the Solarii Brotherhood and hunting small animals. So how does that go? Let's go with the open world-esque segments: this game is definitely what you would call a “Metroidvania”. There are a set of different regions, all with their own collectibles and puzzles and some of which you can’t access until much later in the story when you find the tool needed to solve the puzzle which is standard for “Metroidvania”. The whole philosophy for this is the idea that you need to backtrack to explore areas once again, sometimes with enemy respawns and sometimes without. In games like Tomb Raider and Batman: Arkham Asylum (another game I’ve played recently), it’s basically barely any enemies. But that’s the overall concept, and you’ll pick up small artifacts which give a backstory to the goings for Yamatai Island. I’m not a particular fan of the concept of going back to previous areas as it’s often tedious and annoying to wrap up the collectibles for the 100 percent, with me in particular dreading replaying Tomb Raider and Arkham Asylum for those particular reasons. Collectibles also range from Challenges (specific things you do in specific areas like burn specific tarps or destroy mobile alarms) to GPS Caches (which when you collect them all reveal secret messages, especially once you collect them all) to the side tombs. If you want to get all the collectibles in the game, it’s imperative you get to the actual tombs as soon as possible because it’ll reward you with a treasure map revealing the location of other collectibles.
So how about the shooting and climbing aspects of the game? Well the climbing aspect of the game is fun, you climb obvious spots covered in yellow or white paints and earlier on in the game you’ll use your pickaxe to climb specific walls by jumping against the wall and pressing X or Square. Most of the time it plays pretty damn well though like other games in its genre, there are times where I feel like I slip and die; sometimes it’s my fault and sometimes it’s kinda picky and choosy though this latter part is rare. However, the gunplay and upgrade system surrounding it is what makes the heart of the core gameplay. In almost every region (at least the ones with collectibles), you’ll find campfires which you can use to save, listen to one of Lara’s monologues, upgrade your weapons with parts and salvage found as well as the ability to upgrade your skill trees. The salvage weapon system for the most part is fine, it’s cool to see how your weapons evolve over time as you upgrade them, particularly the machine gun which turns it from a WW2 submachine gun into a duct taped makeshift AK; this is particularly hilarious as Lara DOES NOT seem like the type who would know gun mechanics like that but for the sake of gameplay I don’t give a shit. I feel like the problem involved with this is the salvage mechanic, the loot system where you can upgrade these weapons with specific parts. Mainly, if you’re not diligent enough to loot EVERY corpse you come across, every little box and just everything in general then by the end it feels painful trying to unlock the last upgrades needed to 100 percent of all weapons. In fact, I doubt you’ll even be able to 100 percent the weapons as in a lot of ways, the upgrades needed are randomized with the loot boxes throughout the map. I had done it all on the Xbox One but on the PC I think I still had a weapon or two on 60-80 percent and by the end of the game I couldn’t be arsed enough to deal with that shit. In short, it feels like a grindy game but it doesn’t give you enough repetitive resources in order to get what you need as enemies barely respawn and if you kill enough animals it’ll say that an area is “hunted out” which is fucking annoying. In a lot of the ways it’s the same thing with the XP Upgrade tree, like once you’ve gone through the campaign it feels like it’s a bit of a stretch to get everything.
So what specific weapons are you using in your adventure on Yamatai Island? The first ones you’ll get are the Bow & Arrow along with the Pickaxe. The Bow and Arrow (which can later get updated twice with much better bows) are pretty solid, and over time you’ll get access to different arrows like fire arrows, piercing arrows and rope arrows which you’ll use to create ziplines. The pickaxe is cool for climbing but is also for melee and stealth, though using it as an actual weapon requires upgrades on the skill tree. I feel like this is kind of dumb because why would I need to use an actual skill tree just to swing a weapon when you can just…swing a weapon? I don’t know, it feels kind of stupid but what can you do? Other weapons include the usual Pistol (which when fully upgraded turns into a Desert Eagle), Shotgun (which can upgrade from a Pump Shotgun into a Combat Shotgun) and Machine Gun (which starts out as a Japanese Type-100 but over time turns into an AK-47 before finishing off with the “Commando Rifle” and is fitted with a grenade launcher attachment during the fortress raid). There aren’t any grenades so you’re mostly off using your wits to destroy lanterns and explosive barrels in your environment to kill nearby foes. Speaking of fire from earlier, you also have access to a torch which you can use during certain puzzles, for light or to burn certain objects but for the most part it’s not the craziest thing mechanically. The last thing I’ll bring up here is quick time events, which in this game is actually pretty used a decent amount of times. Thankfully it’s mostly tapping the X (or Square) button repeatedly or tapping Y (or Triangle) in certain instances. However, whenever the game asks you to slap one of the joysticks back and forth (heh, dad?) it gets kind of frustrating and hurts your hand if you’re not expecting it and/or trying to take copious amounts of screenshots like I usually do on Steam.
What about cut gameplay stuff? According to developers themselves and outside sources, there were a number of ideas for the game that were canned. Developers themselves would discuss how earlier builds of the game used health packs to fix Lara up, which was later on the cutting room floor due to “modernization” and instead was replaced with health regeneration. Another cut sequence was one that involved swimming through The Endurance as it starts to sink in the beginning of the game, before it was cut due “swimming not being solved”, later to be added into the sequel. Another thing to be added into the sequel? Side Quests! In earlier builds of the game, it apparently had a series of quests that made a male hunter whom you would fetch stuff for in exchange for items that could be used in the course of your adventure. I feel that it’s better that this was scrapped, just due to the fact it feels conflicting with the “us versus them” survival mentality the game’s Lord of the Flies-esque nature would build upon. The last thing was apparently a four player cooperative mode which was canceled due to the scope of the story itself, which again made sense to me as it doesn’t feel like the kind of game that needs a cooperative mode where everyone just goes ham shooting people but that’s just me. Speaking of mass murder!
Starting out with the atmosphere of Tomb Raider, it’s a very heavy one with almost barely any levity involved and usually doesn’t give you any time to breathe. Right from the get go in the story it’ll hit you with better times before almost delivering an onslaught of near deaths, “I barely survived” moments, as well as giant onslaughts of angry cultist goons inside of this dark gray and grimy bubble. While I kind of shrugged at the “Nathan Drake bodycount” thing as I’m rather desensitized to death and shooting things in video games, I rather appreciate how the game takes it’s time to at least address that Lara goes through some rather traumatic stuff in regard to the constant killing and the hopelessness that goes on through the island. She doesn’t make funny, carefree quips or banter endlessly while shooting thugs like Nathan would, as they really go with attempting to make this a serious and as dark as possible. Dead bodies litter the world either from your own deeds, from the previous 2000 years or a couple of points of skinned corpses, victims of the undead Stormguard. I think there’s a lot of people that give the game a bit of shit for how it handled the themes: dropping a moment or two where Lara has a moment where she apologizes for killing a deer or near a breakdown point killing her first goon (total piece of s h i t by the way) before just continuing like it’s nothing. I’m sure there could be more realistic ways for the theme to continue, like having multiple moments and cutscenes where she throws up or has a moment where she calms down before sobbing uncontrollably. However, the truth is I feel when you’re in a situation like this it’s really hard to tell how everyone would react, especially considering Lara is just pumped full of adrenaline throughout the entirety of the multiple days that she stays mostly awake. According to TVTropes, the writer addressed the “inconsistency” in an interview where she said that “not every kill can be like the first one”, and that a lot of the game kind of depends on suspension of disbelief with action games. Like with most video games, I basically can concede and agree for the most part as just for the sake of video game logic there isn’t really much of a way you can get around it other than perhaps adding even more scenes and mentions in the equation other than “Killing just seems to get easier with each one”.
Regardless, between the constant grays and the decrepit buildings, the dirt and grime mixed with the rainy fog you find during your travels in Yamatai I feel like it definitely fits the “abandoned island” atmosphere that you’d certainly get out of Lost. I would classify the tone of this game as action adventure with horror elements, even if there aren’t jumpscares or anything too crazy I feel like the themes more than fit for the purpose. So how about the graphics? Originally the game came out on the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 generation of consoles and as such it’s not the craziest level of detail in the graphics. Mud will blend into the skin but look pixelated and sometimes it’ll look like the rips in the clothing are a part of the texture in itself, as if the texture itself is being swapped and not the clothing itself being altered throughout your time on Yamatai. That being said however, it doesn’t look bad graphically in the slightest. Throughout my entire time playing Tomb Raider I’ve never noticed one bad texture or anything out of place. Everything looks perfectly normal as it is and I don’t particularly see anything bad with that in the slightest. The “too long didn’t read” is, the graphics look perfectly fine and while there’s nothing crazy with it, works enough that it shouldn’t matter.
Sound Design, how is it? The environmental designs from the fire to the weapon sounds, climbing and everything else knocks it out of the park. I like how the weapons feel and sound, each iteration of each weapon feels like a joy to use and the sounds only serve in favor of it. My favorite sound is the AK-47, which has this crunchy sort of effect as the bullets tear through nearby enemy cultists though I also am a huge fan of the general sound that fire gives out. There’s another sound that you can get that apparently sounds like the older Tomb Raider games when you collect all the GPS caches, the one sound that plays when you find a secret but I also haven’t played the old Tomb Raider games (yet) so I haven’t caught that. Burning stuff in this game always sounds neat and shoots some sort of endomorphin s h i t into my brain. As for the voice acting in the game, I REALLY enjoy Camilla Luddington’s performance as a younger Lara Croft, as I feel she does a good job at portraying this inexperienced Lara who at this point is only focused on surviving for her life and getting the hell out. Also I’m a bit of a simp for UK Accents, they’re just so cool sounding and I can’t help but love it for what it is. Her father figure/mentor Conrad Roth is voiced by Robin Atkin Downes, who does a good job putting on a Scottish sort of accent even if I could recognize that it was him almost immediately due to her performance as Miller in Metal Gear Solid V. Those are the main two whom I would say have the most recognizable appearances but in truth everyone in the main Endurance crew along with Robert Craighead as Matthias do a fantastic job bringing emotional nuance and all the other good acting stuff to the table. Finally, the musical soundtrack is pretty alright, it’s composed by a guy named Jason Graves (funny for a dude who previously composed the Dead Space soundtracks to be honest) is still very much orchestral with a lot of percussion and it fits perfectly fine for the background feelings the game provides. Nothing too insane on this end but for all intents and purposes, the sounds for Tomb Raider (2013) work pretty damn well!
Now onto the multiplayer segment of the game: how is it? I’ll be honest, I don’t really know. I know people who’ve played it! They said it was fine for the most part as an actual multiplayer game but for the people who sit down try to get the multiplayer achievements/trophies? Honestly, it’s miserable as hell according to a buddy of mine (shoutout to Bad Ghosts). It apparently took him around 40 or so hours to grind it out, mostly due to the fact absolutely NO ONE played this game online. So why is it? It’s mostly just due to the fact that like many single player games, the executives deemed it so that they shoehorn in a multiplayer mode because that’s what was popular at the time, probably with the off chance hope that it’ll be popular enough to perhaps monetize it in the future. It wasn’t, and like other games, the multiplayer for this was mostly dead in the water.
Tomb Raider is one of those games that I honestly enjoyed the second time around. It’s a more short and brief title, though tonally I can understand why a lot of fans of the series find it to be a mixed reception. In a sense, it went from the unique Tomb Raider flavor to one that kind of follows the Uncharted formula, climbing around your environment as you engage with shootouts and kill a lot of people. Lara only kills like one person and feels traumatized before just moving on to shoot more goons. In all honesty though, I don’t really feel like any of that’s bothered me much? It addresses the body count a bit as a factor of survival, something she has to do to save the people that she cares about and get the hell off the island. The gameplay feels solid, nothing really groundbreaking and crazy but I wasn’t looking for that. Graphically for a 2013 game it still looks pretty damn good between the textures, character models and environmental design and the sound design has a solid foundation as well. It’s not the best s h i t since sliced bread, but that’s okay as not every game needs to be like that. Soon I’ll be going on to replay Rise of the Tomb Raider along with its DLCs and I’ll make sure to give all of them a good spin and see how it fares for the second playthrough compared to this one.
The game would release to positive critical acclaim, with over 14.5 million sales under less than ten years according to the Wikipeeds, though with the critique that the game was copying from the Uncharted series at the time along with criticism due to the game’s darker tones. Between this game and its sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, would release Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris. This title, like Guardian of the Light, would be an arcade-like Isometric experience that spun-off from the series and was unrelated to the “Survivor” series that this game would go on to continue. While this game would debut on Xbox 360 and PS3, the sequel would mainly focus on the next-gen consoles (aside from a 360 Port); however Tomb Raider (2013) itself would later get its own definitive edition re-release for the next-gen consoles as well. While doing research for the game, there was a sort of sequel comic series where Lara Croft dealt with her survivor’s guilt while apparently (saying that cause TV Tropes says yes while I can’t find anything on the Wiki) gaining a hetero boyfriend (eww), destroying a lot of fan popular LGBT subtext between her and her best friend Sam. This was all against Rhianna Pratchett’s (the writer for the game) vision along with Gail Simone, the writer of the comic books. Another novel would be released called Tomb Raider: The Ten Thousand Immortals, which has a bit of a mixed conflict between Crystal Dynamics themselves and the fanbase as to whether or not it’s canonical due to several different details conflicting with the comics. That would be it between the first and second title of the “Survivor Trilogy” for the most part, but again I’ll be taking a look into the second title here really soon.
Links:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/TombRaider2013
https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider:_The_Ten_Thousand_Immortals
https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider:_The_Beginning
https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider_Ascension_(Game)
https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider_(Dark_Horse_Comics)
https://www.unseen64.net/2011/11/20/tomb-raider-legend-beta/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/233410/Tomb_Raider__The_Final_Hours_Digital_Book/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wR1xUHm4rs
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1797530/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYV29WLphmI
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/