Tomb Raider (2013)

A beautiful looking game. Mediocre story and kind of forgettable, but it is enjoyable. The difficulty is way too easy (EVEN ON THE HARDEST DIFFICULTY) and a five year old can solve the games terrible puzzles. Lara is a boring character and her personality revolves around screaming other people's names and moaning. However, the gameplay is awesome; even better than the first three Uncharted games which it takes high inspiration from. It is a very fun game for the first playthrough.

With the Tomb Raider “Definitive” Edition being released, I figured this was an excellent time to catch up and give my thoughts on the Tomb Raider “Promoted As Totally Good At The Time But Now We’re Kind Of Shitting On It” Edition. Square Enix, if you ever end up going back and changing the name I expect a royalty check. It should be noted that I played Tomb Raider on PC, which most people seem to consider to be about equal with the Definitive Edition anyway, and I played after they released several graphics drivers that did wonders to un-break the game, so results may vary.

Tomb Raider is yet another late addition to my 2013 game catalog that is a full reboot of a classic game series (DmC Devil May Cry was the other). Much like DmC, I have never really played any of the other Tomb Raider games, so we’ll be looking at this with relatively fresh eyes. In terms of initial impression I like the new Lara Croft quite a bit and I appreciate that her appearance and attire has taken great leaps towards “functional and realistic” and away from “Super Sexy Short Shorts”. With that said, I think the celebration of her as less sexualized is a little overblown. Yes, she’s wearing more reasonable clothes and no story elements go out of their way to sexualize her, but her character model is still insanely, almost impossibly attractive. That’s fine, there are plenty of attractive, capable women out there, but let’s not pretend her attractive appearance is a total coincidence here, alright? It’s an odd double standard that isn’t exclusive to video games.


Nope, nothing sexy about her at all!

That point aside, Tomb Raider doesn’t make an attempt to sexualize Lara at all. If anything, they almost went too far in the other direction. During one early demo of the game the developers showed a scene with Lara and a captor that bordered on getting a little rapey. They ended up dialing that scene down quite a bit by release, which I actually think is a shame. The double standard is a little frustrating and puzzling. I would celebrate a game that addresses the potential for sexual abuse in a thoughtful way. Instead, they replaced that scene with a sequence where, if you fail, Lara just gets straight up choked to death, which for some reason is better?

Let’s not dwell on that topic though, because there could literally be conferences held on that single issue in this game and games in general. the point is, the new Lara looks a bit more realistic, dresses and acts much more realistically, and it’s all pulled off in a game that looks absolutely amazing. I haven’t seen any screenshots of the Definitive Edition, but if it looks anything like it did on my PC, new console owners upgrading from 360/PS3 will be very pleased with how this game looks.


The game knows it looks good. This shot was placed in the first couple minutes and was clearly meant as a showcase.

If you’re like me, when you play a PC game the first thing you do is go to the graphics settings and start screwing around with them. Well people like me are in for a nice surprise with one option being labelled as “Hair Quality”. AMD has implemented a new hair tech called TressFX that basically gives each strand of Lara’s hair it’s own attention in the rendering and physics process. This taxes most graphics cards HEAVILY. It’s a noble first effort, and when it works it looks incredible, but we’re not there yet. Sometimes the hair just flips out as if propelled by some unknown gale force breeze. The non-TressFX hair looks better much of the time, but I’m really interested to see this tech implemented in future games.

Alright, on to the gameplay. This game is super duper incredibly Uncharted-esque. I will note that I’m not suggesting Tomb Raider copied Uncharted. If anything Uncharted took cues from the original Tomb Raider games and everything that followed is just further evolution of the same style. For the uninitiated, that means there are traversal elements, but they are relatively linear compared to something much more open like Assassin’s Creed. There is also a bit of melee combat and quite a bit of armed combat. In both games, I felt like the open combat mechanics are a little weak and I wish there was a bit more emphasis on stealth or traversal. I just don’t think the role of uber killing machine suits Drake or Croft particularly well. They should be avoiding and subverting combat whenever possible, not gladly taking on swaths of trained combatants.


I don’t know what it is about archaeology and treasure hunting that tends to attract trained marksmen.

There are other gameplay elements that seemed like a good idea, but needed more commitment. In the beginning Lara is stranded and the game is really about a struggle for survival. Shelter, heat, and food are your top priority, and the game tutorializes you through setting up a fire and hunting wild game. It gives you the impression these things will be important gameplay elements, but they aren’t, AT ALL. I killed the deer the game asked me to at the beginning and then I didn’t kill a single other animal that wasn’t actively trying to rip my throat out. You just don’t need to. Lara never gets hungry, or cold.

The Lara you play as in this iteration differs from the classic Lara because she’s not a willing participant in her adventure. Her ship is wrecked and she finds herself immediately in way over her head. It offers a bit more realism and sympathy for the character when you know she didn’t choose to be a part of this. In retrospect, Nathan Drake chooses to go on these trips that result in him killing hundreds of people. He seems to enjoy it, which is really messed up if you think about it. Lara is far from having a good time, as made clear by the nice little touch of dialog “I hate tombs!” that she proclaims at one point. I don’t blame her either. She takes an absolute BEATING along the way.

The first thing that happens to Lara is she is hung upside down for probably at least a day. When she regains consciousness she shakes herself loose only to fall about 15 feet and impale herself through the side with a stake about the width of a broomstick. From that point forward she gets battered and bruised constantly in her attempt to break the record for number of times surviving a 3-story fall. Her perseverance is incredible and really makes you root for her, but jeez. At some point you want to stop playing just so she doesn’t need to suffer anymore.

Things get really dark too. Lara finds herself in some situations so grim and morbid that even her PTSD is going to have it’s own major case of PTSD. Nobody would ever be able to come back from the things she has seen and done. I love that though. It is clear by the end of the game she is a changed and hardened person, which is much more realistic than the nonchalance expressed by most game protagonists in the same situations.


It’s a little tough to integrate back into normal life after something like this, I’d imagine.

Tomb Raider is a game that, in the state it’s currently in, was just the right length. It’s the kind of game that I would have enjoyed playing for hours and hours, and probably doing multiple playthroughs, if they had fleshed out the hunting and crafting elements in a meaningful way. As it stands though, the game is short enough to be entertaining and fun from start to finish and long enough to feel like a full experience. It really is an experience too. I feel like Lara and I have been through war together, and I would happily play a sequel, especially if some significant gameplay leaps are made.

I’ve been a long time Tomb Raider fan. The earliest memory I have of playing the franchise was Angel of Darkness, I believe, which was around the early 2000s. I’ve never played the much older ones before, though. My love for Tomb Raider started the first time I played Tomb Raider: Legend, the 2006 reboot of the franchise. I was addicted to that game back then, and especially loved the Croft Manor feature where you could explore Lara’s massive house and uncover its many secrets. I had a lot of fun. Following the release of Legend was Anniversary, a re-imagining of the very first Tomb Raider game that was a bit lackluster for me, but I still fairly enjoyed nonetheless.

And then there was also Underworld that came out in 2008, the first ever TR game with next-gen graphics, and I was blown away the first time I saw the trailers and gameplay. Underworld was the sole reason I wanted to get a next-gen console, because I’d originally bought the PS2 version of Underworld and it was abysmal. It looked NOTHING like the Xbox 360/PS3 versions, and I was not going to stand for that. I needed the full experience. So in a rash decision I sold my PS2 (something I still regret doing to this day) and got a 360, and it was worth it because I loved Underworld so much.

So seeing as how big of a fan I am of this franchise, you can imagine how ecstatic I was when the newest reboot was announced.

At first, I was in despair, because due to…region issues…my 360 console can’t play any newly released games anymore and can only play old ones. I’m still not sure exactly why this is, and I’ve looked everywhere for answers, but I’m just going to blame it on my country because that’s usually why I can’t have nice things. Anyway, I was in despair because, how in the hell else was I going to be able to play this game? Would I ever even be able to? I couldn’t possibly play it on my PC because A) I would have no idea how to play this game with a keyboard and mouse, and B) Was my computer even strong enough to play such a high-graphic game?

I started to get my shit together, though. I got a new computer with much better specs, I got a wireless receiver that can detect my 360 controller so I could use it to play games, and then around July or August I finally got my hands on this game.

And it is probably one of the best games I’ve ever played in my entire life.

I cannot find a single flaw with this game. Not one. It doesn’t even compare with the old games of the franchise, this is on a league of its own. It is an absolutely masterpiece.

One of the main things I always had a problem with in the Tomb Raider franchise was the combat. It was always so tedious to me, so much that eventually I even used a cheat so that the enemies would get one shot kills. But in THIS game? The combat is just seamless. There’s such a wide variety of weapons to use as the game progresses. I’m obsessed particularly with the bow and arrow, because the stealth in this game is so damn fun! Stealth is usually the main focus of this game. Lara will automatically duck and hide every time an enemy is nearby, and you can take this chance to headshot his ass with an arrow, or if there’s only one enemy with his back to you, you can sneak up behind him and do a stealth kill. If you’re going to play this game, I strongly prefer you to be stealthy and not just jump into combat, unless you’re feeling confident you won’t die. I wouldn’t feel too confident though, cause there are some enemies that have assault rifles, and those can really get your ass handed to you a lot of the time.

You earn a huge variety of weapons as you progress further into the game, and if you’re a thorough explorer you’ll even get extra weapon upgrades that can really turn your weapons into beasts. They’re fuckin’ awesome, and I’m not gonna spoil any of them to you cause you should experience it yourself.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a Tomb Raider game without platforming and puzzles. I do wish that you were able to sprint like in Underworld, but that didn’t bother me too much. The platforming still felt very fluid and fun. As for the puzzles, these appear in the form of secret hidden tombs that you can explore and find rewards in. There aren’t really ANY puzzles in the actual story progression. But these tombs really are a lot of fun to do, and they have very clever puzzles that, I’ll admit, I had to look up how to complete at times. xD Don't judge me, I was stuck!

The story is fantastic. I’ve always loved the stories in all the other Tomb Raider games, and even though the one in this game is a complete reboot and has nothing to do with its predecessors, I still loved it just as much, if not more. I felt a lot more connected to this Lara, and I loved watching her grow from a girl who was helpless and afraid to a fearsome warrior and a badass bitch. Many people have said that her transformation can be a bit jarring in that the first time she kills someone she cries and feels horrible but then afterwards she’s just killing everyone left and right, but I don’t really find that a problem because she’s killing all the bad guys as self defense. Afterwards she even confesses how frighteningly easy it was to kill a person.

I liked the characters in the story, but it was obvious that Lara was the focus. The others weren’t even close to as developed as she was. But in the game there are these journals you can find that gives you some more details on the mythos of the island, and some of these journals are written by the side characters and you can get more insight on them and what their life was like before they got stranded on the island.

And yes, I think it goes without saying that the graphics in this game are unbelievable. I have the PC version and there’s actually a feature in the options called TressFX, where you can toggle if you want Lara’s hair to look as if every single strand is rendered and flowing in the wind, or just the usual bobbing Lara Croft ponytail. I ended up turning it off because it tended to get a little glitchy and weird during cut scenes, and it just didn’t look as good as I thought it would. But the game definitely had that Square Enix-ness to it in its amazing graphics.

All in all, this is definitely one of my all time favorite games, and I have no idea how the folks over at Crystal Dynamics are gonna top this addition to the franchise. I give Tomb Raider a glowing 10/10!