Tomb Raider; a gaming icon, existing for over twenty-five years, with dozens of games in this longstanding franchise. So, with this prestigious reputation in mind, I played Rise of the Tomb Raider, with little known about the game in of itself, interested to see how I would find it.
The game starts with Lara Croft and her companion Jacob venturing up a snowy summit in Siberia, following up on her late father's lead to the Lost City of Kitezh, where a Lost Prophet and his pilgrims were said to have journeyed to centuries before, bringing with them a Divine Source capable of granting immortality. However, Trinity, an ancient militarised religious sect arrives at the same time, and it becomes a race against time to reach the Divine Source before them.
First things first; the graphics are pretty spectacular. Considering this game came out in 2013, it holds its own against competitors like the Uncharted franchise at about the same time, with detailed character models, environments and weather, creating a gripping cinematic spectacle from the very beginning.
The same can also be said for the combat and world traversal - benefitting from a more open-world style of gameplay, it allows you to hunt, scavenge and explore free from level restrictions, introducing survival elements into the genre very nicely. It is a hostile environment, and it definitely makes it feel as such, especially in the first half, making it beautifully ominous and isolating, with the world posing as great a threat to you as a squad of soldiers, even if this element faded a little to make room for the narrative later in the journey.
The inclusion of optional challenge tombs wasn't a bad one either, providing their own little set pieces and puzzles that helped to expand the world and mythology of the lost world you explore, although I have to admit that doing all of them can eat away at your time and patience if you aren't a completionist. All this, combined with excellent sound design made the experience really quite something.
What I do have to critique the game for is the character and the story, both of which are considerable components in the enjoyment of a game. Lara Croft is early in her tomb-raiding career at this point, with this being the first proper expedition that she goes on. So, it stands to reason that she is still finding her feet as the icon she would later become. However, she constantly sounds surprised or unsure of herself, even after braving near-impossible climbs and taking on waves of enemies. It would have been nice to see a few more moments of confidence and charisma, and a little less apologetic awkwardness. She is quite clearly an American actress doing a strong British voice, and so she overemphasises a lot, which adds to this effect as she often feels out of her element from her dialogue, even when she is meant to sound determined or angry (although the voice does improve quite a bit in the next entry, so I don't want to be too harsh).
It doesn't help that her entire quest is also based on her father's work and his legacy, considering he has no real significance to the character before this point in the franchise, nor does he really add anything aside from a little parental drama that detracts from the story at hand. If it was Lara Croft making her own decisions, mistakes and goals to strive towards it would have felt much more compelling, and a lot less cliched.
The villains weren't terrific, but they had just enough motivation and complexity to not be a problem for the game, but the story itself fell flat, as I never really had much of a sense of what was at stake, nor why I should care for Lara's quest, considering the problems in her character that I mentioned earlier, and a lot of the big revelations and twists came in the final hours of the game, which let the middle sink under the huge weight of exploration, side missions and optional areas, which I believe kill the pacing of the game, so unless you are willing to put the main story aside for several hours, or just come back once you've finished it for some post-game content, I'd stick to the main path, and maybe do a few extras now and again for the most enjoyment out of the game.
This game is one that I would definitely recommend giving a go, whether you are familiar with the character or not, because of the excellent graphics, gameplay mechanics, world and level design, but take into account the story and character being nothing to cry home about. It gets a 7/10 from me.
7/10
UP NEXT:
Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Then Ghost of Tsushima.
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