First things first, I want to clarify that I'm reviewing the latest Tomb Raider by Square Enix.
I don't really know how to review a videogame, so I'm just going to make points about the things I liked and disliked.
Graphics: Stelar. The best I've seen in some time. The animation was great too. But it was motion capture, and I don't you can really mess that up. My one nitpick (there will be a lot in this review) is that her ponytail was really out of control. It was whipping around like crazy, even when there wasn't any wind. They also have a simulated camera effect. When Laura is in the water it gets wet, when she is shot it gets blood on it. At first I thought it was weird, but it grew on me. It was a unique feature.
Premise: This is a prologue. I've never played any other TR games (well, I can't really remember, there was this game on the gameboy...) but I feel like this game didn't do that good of a job of explaining Laura. I still have questions; mainly: What happened to her family? How did she get this job (it seems pretty prestigious for a college grad)? How did she become a mild bad ass (this game does follow how she progressed into a super bad ass, but never explained how she got other skills like hunting, making a fire or climbing with a hook)?
Setting: An island off Japan. I wonder if this is in any way historically accurate. Oh well. Also on that note, yes this game is like Uncharted. You wander around in the jungle, sometimes fighting, sometimes finding priceless artifacts. But I mean that in a good way, because Uncharted is an awesome game.
Weapons/Skills: Throughout the game you gain skills and weapons that let you get to new areas and make you even more of a bad ass. You find salvage from looting bodies or in salvage crates. I really admire that the gamemakers made the bow a useable, and even my favourite weapon. Usually things like that are the starter weapon, that are then discarded once you get a "real" weapon. But the bow was awesome, especially after you purchase upgrades.
The skills are earned when you "level up", but your stats don't change so its not really a level. There are skills like taking less falling damage or getting a kind of kill cam when you kill people close range. There are skills to find the collectibles more easily, an initially I thought that was kind of cheating, but the game was still pretty hard.
Plot: (spoilers, duh) It was okay. I feel like the supernatural element wasn't fully explained. So what I understand is Methias wanted to Sam to be the next vessel for the Sun Queen so he could... leave? control the island? If it was the former he should have just destroyed the Queen's body like Laura did. If it was the later I really don't understand. Why would Himiko care about him? Either way I don't understand why it had to be Sam. She's related to the Sun Queen (probably), but so what? If you collected the journals, one set followed a priestess who was to be the Queen's next vessel. But she was just a priestess, not the Queen's daughter or even a cousin. The plot line that I was kind of hoping for was the Queen coming back, but rejecting (probably killing) Methias because he's a man. In the beginning their society gave off a sort of Amazonian vibe, and I'm sure they said Himiko's top people were only women. That would also mesh with the fact that the protagonist is indeed a woman. I think they tried to make Laura less sexy and more of a person, and I'm extremely grateful for that, no matter what the fanboys say. (Actually the upset-ness of the fanboys amuses me, but thats for another time).
Violence: I'm sorry to sound like a sissy, but this game is really violent. Sometimes I wonder why games get the ratings that they do... not this one. I'm probably desensitized to violence to other people, especially when its done by me (in games okay! I'm just being honest), but the violence against Laura really bothered me. Whenever she died they made sure it was in a really grisly way. Why? I can't figure out what the purpose of that was. Did they want to punish you for messing up? Did they want to appeal to masochists/sadists (are you Laura?)? It just bothered me.
Extra stuff: The tombs were really cool. They weren't part of the main game, so you didn't have to play them if you're stupid and don't know how to play a video game. All of them contained a puzzle (that were quite puzzling, I liked it) and usually a treasure map. The map revealed all the locations of the relics, documents and GPS... things in the area. Yeah, I really didn't care about those things. The Documents were cool because they gave you back story, and the relics just looked cool, but the GPS things... why? Occasionally you unlocked a gallery when you found them all, but that was it.
As I said earlier, initially when I found out about the treasure maps (especially when I found them in cheap locations) I thought it was kind of cheating. But every area also had one or two additional set to collect, like burning posters or exploding mines. This was actually hard, because they never appeared on any map, I only finished some sets (the completionist in me was crying).
Research Base: I just want to make a note that this was the worst area in the game. So many glitches. Thats what I get for straying from the PC.
DLC/Multiplayer: idk. I didn't do either.
TLDR; this game was really fun, and you should get it, especially considering how cheap it is new.
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