Tomb Raider (2013) review

Look I'm going to be blunt, I'm a bit disappointed in the gaming community when it comes to this game, though a part of it is my own fault. People seem to grab at the most shallow traits and then suddenly compare or bash games. This is why any kart racer is suddenly a "mario kart" clone and now it seems like any game that has a big story and 3rd person shooting is magically an Uncharted type game, even though before Uncharted was a "Gears of war" clone. The sad thing is some people, including me, will then set their expectations to that but find that they weren't impressed under this pre-determined perspective. Those describing this as a 3rd party Uncharted or even an open world game (and yes those contradict each other), really have a strange and very misleading comprehension of gameplay. Sadly these expectations worked on me the first time and was pissed at what this game had to offer (even worse though is that MS thinks the same thing, and temporarily grabbed the sequel to compete with uncharted.... despite them being totally different). I mostly finished my first playthrough for the story and atmosphere of the game rather than the game itself. However I guess I'll get around to that later on, but I bring this up because I've felt a strange shift in perspectives with this game as time goes on, and its not quite as sour of an experience anymore. Tomb Raider 2013 came out as one of the few, if only, games to get successfully rebooted with major acclaim. I... didn't agree with it so much at the time, but the game honestly feels a bit stronger with each new playthrough. I've been considering a review of the PS3 and campaign perspective of this game for quite some time, and I'm glad I waited to have more than one go at it considering I understood its better traits and influences more the second time around. However is it ever good enough to make it worth buying? Well onto the review....

Tomb Raider has undergone some pretty heavy changes without totally losing its touch within this reboot. For starters there's no more acrobatic flipping and auto-aim themed combat system this time around. Instead its a pretty normal 3rd person shooter format with a passive but completely responsive cover system. This is pretty great despite the fact it had potential to do more, but combat was never a strong point of the older series and its a good thing they made it feel more natural. The old one was unique, and is a bit more clever than the idea of auto-aim would sound at face-value, but not still very fun. Now guns feel like guns, combat has more depth, for a developer that's never done fluid combat before they sure did an amazing job with aesthetics. Both inventory systems of the past are also thrown out the window in favor of a 4 piece weapon system alongside some more passive tools and equipment that opens up more as the game progresses. Platforming and puzzles are reworked quite a bit. Platforming is sadly reduced to a very shallow cinematic style, definitely the worst change made unless you want to talk about the music (which is far more subjective). Its now pretty much the generic action game style of press jump and climb flashy pieces that stick out. That's it save for the very few timed platform collapses, but there's really no effort or thought put into it. Of course this effects the way puzzles are done. Puzzles are still present and environment based with a touch of physics at work, but without the platforming being as deep as its own puzzle your left feeling like the whole thing is a lot more basic. It doesn't help either that a special "Survivor instincts" vision is a button tap away from nearly solving the puzzles for you by coloring what you're supposed to alter. The puzzles hold themselves up only on figuring out what objects need to be interacted with or jumped on, and in what order. A couple of these have a need for timing, but I'm not really able to say much more without giving any away. However the awesome thing about puzzles is that while a few will be crossed every hour or so in the campaign's line of things, the real bulk of puzzles are off to the side in tombs and tease the player with awesome incentives.... but I'll get to rewards and progression later.

Of course you can't have a reboot without a new story and character development, and that's exactly what may have been pushed the hardest for this game. Lara has received a make-over and is a much younger and inexperienced adult than her former identity. She's never had one adventure in her life and is about to come crashing into a terrible one she has to overcome. Her original intent was helping an expedition find and film a great lost queen, only things take a turn for the worse when what they were looking for was on an island that's an amplified case of the Bermuda Triangle mysteries. Their ship crashes and little of the crew survives. Before you know it, a clan of crazy occultists have rugged militarized control over most of the island, and they aim to make things even harder for the survivors. With one of the only capable and ready adventurers being deeply injured from the start, Lara is forced to take up the torch and has to try and overcome the threat and live her first disastrous adventure while protecting. This means she has to overcome some pretty harsh obstacles, and endure through some intense scenes, and the game doesn't hold back on that. Not all of the island is what it seems though, and some interesting mysteries unfold. I really enjoyed the story for the most part, even my first time through when I was a bit more resentful towards the whole thing. I loved that despite this growing trend to take everything so seriously, they still kept to the series roots of going beyond realism and having conflicts that break into the supernatural (but I wont spoil what it is). Still the game does take itself a little too seriously and dramatic elsewhere, especially on Lara's character. Lara's character seems to take the distress up a notch more than it should be at, especially compared to the gameplay actions and her abilities. For the majority of the game her in-game comments, actions don't reflect a lot of her character in shown several of the cut-scenes. In game she seems very curious, powerful, and extremely agile and endurable. However a cut-scene may come along and changes her from someone that lived through outnumbered gunfights, climbed ropes across cliffs, and dared to brave into tombs into a suddenly timid and fearful person. I get that she'd still be very stressed, but Lara will go through countless shocking moments in gameplay without much of a comment and then feels conflicted later with a story piece. The example that hits hardest the most to me is hours into the game where she gets all grossed out over simply entering a tomb... even though by then you've more than likely went into several optional tombs with the result that Lara was fascinated and curious in the culture and artifacts within it. How much more of an obvious conflict in character and writing direction do you need than that? Its not a major deal in the whole picture, but the coined term for this kind of thing "ludonarrative dissonance" was popular with this game for good reason and if that bugs you, you've been warned.

Lara's first adventure doesn't keep the dangers so secret

However there's more to the story than Lara, but at the same time, just not much of it. The side cast holds up nicely in their time, but they just have a lot of that time. If you ever grow an interest to one of them, chances are they'll be killed off or too close to the ending for them to feel like their character development ever reached its height. I wont spoil it with specifics, but one character is almost thrown off to the side as a joker that has one real focused moment. Later he has another bigger piece suddenly showing a far more fleshed out sense of personality, and someone that could have turned out to be awesome... only he dies in the process of this moment. He has like two real scenes, and one audio-log letter that truly build on his character, that's it. Overall its a bit of a nitpick in the end, but the side cast is more of a tease and a plot element that helps give Lara more context. I wouldn't call them "weak" as some others have. The side characters showed great potential and I was usually interested in whoever was on screen, its just that the game never went anywhere with it. On the brighter side of this though, practically every character has a chunk of their story and background hidden away as a collectible document and it is so rewarding to come across them and suddenly have your view of them from cut-scenes reshaped by what they're willing to put on paper. It feels like you're reading their legitimate diaries of personal thoughts and past, and things they wouldn't share with you or anyone else in person but still make up who they were. Now that is pretty good writing for what was otherwise underdeveloped characters. On a smaller note about the characters, and Lara, I love how there are some subtle touches to the dialogue within the gameplay. Its all scripted stuff, but its pretty seamless and helps feel right for the moment in gameplay when for the first time enemies see you with the assault rifle they panic over it. I've also had them comment on when I reload as well. When one of the few game's mini-bosses comes your way, the enemies will question how you survive and Lara may have some retort for them. At one point there's a moment where if entered not so trigger happy, there are two enemies who will stay under cover and "talk it out" with Lara for a moment before it changes back to business as usual. These are just some really cool extra touches that help bring the gameplay and characters together, and make the world a bit more believable than robotic combat villains or a boring silent protagonist.

The setting and presentation are just brilliant. Set on a stormy island decorated in early Japanese culture, you'll find a lot of care and work put into the land. The island is full of history ranging from the locals talking about a tradition had with the queen, documents left by an old foreign ambassador seeking to cite rebellion to help his king's conquest, a WW2 era where both Americans and Japanese stayed for a decent period before they uncovered something horrible, and of course there's even a bit of history to how the enemies arrived and developed into who they are in the present. Some of this, especially the WW2 era, is represented well within the island. Bunkers, old papers, ancient statues of religious worship mixed with recent markings, and sealed herbs and artifacts from all these past eras. The artifacts are especially pretty cool, as each box is a small mystery that I loved stumbling across, and it was a representation of the far reaching history of your surroundings. You might find anything from an ancient japanese theater mask, to an American WW2 military canteen. These findings send you into a model viewer, and unlock any other game out there it actually detects what area you're looking at and a decent amount of the items have smaller details that Lara will notice and comment on as you examine the object. Its not only a perfect mechanic for fluidly adding on Lara's character as someone fascinated by artifacts and archaeology, but it also brings the player in to relate to that if they had any interest in the culture or history themselves. To further build on the island, the color pallet, the music, and the visuals all provide a perfectly amazing sense of connectivity with each other. I just love the color pallet especially and the way it works with the graphics and effects. You have heavy rainy conditions mixing with very dark, earthy environments. Its a lot of brown, and gray but not the washed up type you'd often hear people insult a military shooter or apocalyptic game with. Its more of a very natural tone for the surroundings, and its always offset by patches of contrasting color. You'll usually see green or white in outdoors, and in bunkers a bunch of wall decorations and believable objects lying around to make sure you're not just seeing concrete. At the end of the day its a gorgeous earthy style mixed together with the stone and fire colors of the more human constructions of the island. Its the only game I've played alongside Metro and to a lesser degree Killzone 2 that captures earth and ruined industry together so well that I almost want to play the game just to be immersed in that awesome tone. Of course none of that would be so good if the graphics didn't keep up with it, but oh do they ever. I think aside from Ground Zeroes, Tomb Raider is the best looking 3rd party game I've seen on the PS3. The effects are great and intense, the textures stand out and strong, character models are well detailed (and a nice touch is that Lara visually changes to her conditions as the game progresses), the game runs smoothly 95% of the time, and everything just feels as good as it could be expected to. Maybe the shanty town level looks a little grainy and ugly, but then again I also felt a bit like I was supposed to hate that place's visuals. I can't imagine how much better this got improved on in the PC and definitive version. The music isn't probably as gripping as it was in the older Tomb Raiders, but I can also see why they changed it. Many of the cut-scenes and big moments have the cliche and dull hollywood style orchestrated piece which just bore me and rarely get me to recognize it, but some of the in game music likes to blend in more with the ambiance of the area. A common musical effect you'll hear is these weird chimes, light screeches, or bells. The bells and chimes have an eastern vibe to them and almost come in at moments where it feels the wind could have caused that effect. Its a pretty amazing accomplishment when the game immersion and music mix so well together that it feels like its a part of the weather atmosphere. All of these things make the setting, visual, and aesthetics of the game feel like a true example of "Triple A", and it makes for a powerfully immersive adventure... whenever the scripts don't pull you out that is.

Much has happened over this island's long mysterious history

Now what about the gameplay that wasn't covered by the big changes? Well lets go over the combat again. Its a 3rd person shooter, but designed to some different smaller details than its direct competition. Cover is passive, feeling very intuitive and less sticky. This sounds bad on paper as you'd imagine it screwing you over a good bit, but its far from that. It works perfectly, and honestly I'd prefer it. Meanwhile you go in and out of cover, and using weapons, melee, and stealth to the best of your advantage. Stealth has limited scenes of use and isn't so fluid, but its very rewarding to do when you can pull it off. There are enemy types, but not so much worth mentioning. It usually comes down to the weapon they carry, and then there are shield guys where you basically have to lure them to you, dodge, and then shoot while they're open from trying to get you with a blade. However I'll give credit for their AI, they move in and out of combat with some thought, usually stay in cover when you think you're ready for them to pop out, and sometimes work together as a team really well. Meanwhile the bulk of meaning behind combat is how you manage to kill. Tomb Raider has a heavy XP system driving Lara's passive upgradable abilities, but because the XP is to some degree a bit limited you'll really want to get the highest kill points. You do this by placing headshots, getting well timed melee attacks, and upgrading the right skills with what points you do have to get more points in a sort of ironic way. However the major difference is that combat is only half of the active struggle and the most barebone way of scoring in the entire game, and the game sort of knows that when its only giving you a grand total of 4 weapons (shotgun, bow, assault rifle, and pistol). Instead there's a big focus on the tools and way you look at your surroundings. However on the bright side, Those weapons will upgrade both as the game progresses and gives you a new piece to them and then there will be upgrades from a salvage system that the player builds on at special campfire safe areas. Salvage is different from XP, but only by name and the exact thing you get it from. Its basically a secondary type of number that builds up as you do certain things (mostly looting, like crates, or certain corpses. By contrast XP is kills, and bonus activities) and you then can give your weapon more of a finishing touch. Secondary fire functions, better aim, faster rate of fire, etc. Something funny but also cool is how eventually the weapons practically transform their visual design. What starts out as probably a modified Sten Mark gun for your rifle will eventually look like an AK47. However when the game progresses the weapons for you, its basically opening up more ways into the environment. A good example is you eventually get rope arrows for your bow that you can use for bridging gaps and pulling certain things apart, thus opening up doors and making those distant cliffs more possible. Later on you get it upgraded once more with a thicker arrow that can penetrate climbable mountains, and then a tool that reels Lara across the lines or gives the pull of the rope extra force. This allows you to move with even faster speed, and pull apart heavier doors.

Remember that campfire bit I glossed over earlier? In addition to upgrades for your weapons and character skills, you can also use this to fast travel to past campfires. The game is still set in a line for the most part, so you're not going to be backtracking by mission, however you can and should because there were previous bonus areas you wouldn't be able to get into without those new tools. Collectibles, finding weapon parts that open up more weapon upgrade possibilities, activities, and maybe even a tomb or two may not be accessible from the very first time you stumble onto them. Don't get your hopes too high, its not going to give you a new area of the map, or branching paths, its still a linear game. However it does train you to go back seeking for more to make the rest of your linear adventure more powerful. So you've got to occasionally go back, observe the environment, and take actions based on your progress and exploration skills. Sound familiar to any older gamers? Its a metroidvania formula mixing seamlessly with a 3rd person shooter in a way I'm not sure any other game has done before. This is what I (on my first playthrough) along with any other naive gamer were missing out on by thinking with the Uncharted mentality. In Tomb Raider the combat is more about XP than it is about sharp balances and weapon or enemy variety. The collectibles and paths of the campaign are there to make you stop and explore rather than dash through onto the next part, the bonuses and tools are there to give you this "ah-ha!" moment while they don't even exist in other 3rd person games, the guns turn into door unlockers in a way that's similar to Metroid's blue door needs ice missile routine, and the game's design basically is set to say "exploration will make you a better adventurer" while Uncharted is saying "grab the popcorn, and prepare for this light hearted action packed adventure blockbuster!". Tomb Raider aimed to take on a fresh approach with the metroidvania formula. You don't have total areas locked off waiting to be backtracked like most of them, instead its just extra most of the time. Sadly this means you can charge through the game missing the point of backtracking, but still I'd prefer this more free style. However the extras are certainly worthwhile considering there is only but so much salvage and XP, and part of the collectibles include weapon parts where 3 of them will give you an entire set of more advanced weapon upgrades (like the potential for explosive arrows). You'll have to probably get at least 90% of things done in order to purchase every skill and weapon upgrade, but of course if you don't want to do that there's nothing stopping you from enjoying the game short of all upgrades. Meanwhile the mandatory upgrades are given to you by story, and feel a lot more fluid. Rather than the gamey sense of... well ice missile and blue door, you've got more down to earth and practical things like blasting a barricade door with a shotgun, and this is used sparingly rather than littering the island every step of the way. This mix of 3rd person shooter, the context of the adventure and survival, and the style in which you progress all blend perfectly rather than artificially with a moan inducing halt to your progress. Oh and of course, combat actually has depth to it, another trait usually missing from metroidvanias. Of course there's still some compromise to each other. Again if you go in expecting this to be on uncharted's level with combat depth, you'll be disappointed. The weapon variety, balance, enemy encounters, and environments just lack that edge to them. From a shooter perspective, the game just feels too on rails and too convenient. However if you wanted a full blown metroidvania, maybe you were looking for those mandatory environmental stops, maybe you got tired of the cut-scenes giving you the bigger gadgets, or found there to be too much combat or set pieces. Its a give and take situation that has worked to try and find a balance between the two, and naturally some aspects the purists may enjoy are lost. Personally, as a guy that oddly leans on loving or hating metroidvania games, I'm happy to say this lands more towards the enjoyable end of the spectrum. I think the 3rd person shooter hybrid with it is just perfect.

Spend as much time as you like attempting the side activities.

However before I wrap up the review I do want to bring some attention to a few complaints. As I've said, the game can bring on a cinematic adventure presence, and sometimes the cinematic is stronger than the "adventure" part. I would say the first quarter of the game is almost painful to experience. The game just isn't so willing to let you play a lot at first. You start off witnessing a multi-piece cut-scene that eventually gives you basic walking control with some minor set pieces tossed in to remind you there's still a lot of watching. What minimal walking and interaction you do is quickly interupted by three quick time events. Yes, you read that right, three paced practically right after each other at the very first area of the game and intro cut-scenes! The game goes in and out of teasing your level of control, and even so much as Lara just being pre-scripted to light a torch as she enters a cave will begin to get on your nerves. By the 3rd hour in around the moment you need to climb a radio tower, the game gives off one of its last Quick time events but its still up there among many, and within such a short amount of time. All this being a massive part of the beginning in addition to the fact that your gear and weapons have barely taken off (thus naturally leaving the gameplay feeling a bit closed even when in control of it) make for a very weak opening. Oddly enough though after you kick a guy off a bridge (which is also the very worst QTE since you have to practically strangle your controller stick to win it), there is practically zero quick time events from there, and a significantly better spacing with the set-pieces. I really don't know if they did this as a compromise to some sort of thing in the writing since it was the intro portion, or if it was just poor design choices at the start. Probably the last, because some of the QTEs just didn't need to happen. Out of the two times I've started replay profiles I've had to mentally prepare myself for this chore of a beginning. The rest of the game is worth it though, its just an atrocious opening you have to work through first. Its not all bad considering the hunt portion and some interesting moments, but its just so on rails in gameplay that its a pain and makes you feel cynical about where triple A gaming has lead itself to. My second major complaint is actually the opposite... the ending. The ending is good in terms of story, actually fantastic, but its the gameplay that suffers. Because the game expected you to backtrack and clear things up, enemies, set pieces, and objectives are totally absent leaving the areas totally clean of anything adventure related. Occasionally you'll find a scouting party of 3-5 guys, but that's about it. So once you're finished there's basically no more use in those weapons you spent the whole game upgrading, and you can't simply relive your favorite battles or adventure bits. However what about when you get everything? Well that's just the thing, you get everything, you get your achievements, and then its game over. You can still hunt, but that's about it. Everything is just done. This could be significantly improved if there was a chapter system added in to allow you to replay your favorite moments from the main menu, while your core save file still holds your normal progress and allows you to peacefully backtrack. The more obvious solution though is how this system begs so much for a new game + mode. Reset the adventure itself and let us keep many upgrades or equipment, and add in minor but fun new things to work towards, and slightly buff the difficulty, AI, or enemy placement in some way. It wouldn't take a lot to work this system in, the game is perfectly set for something like this. Instead it simply dies, and the only way to get value out of replaying it is replaying it all over again and throwing away your past progress. To bring things full circle with my issue, that means reliving the worst part of the game with no fresh incentive other than just "I want to replay the better parts". Oh you'll also have to deal with the tutorial prompts that intrude on you often, as the game has practically no options including the lack of turning that junk off if you know what you're doing and want the best immersion. The controls are also set in stone. You can't even adjust it for left handed controls or the basic 360 controller style switch. I also glossed over that survivor instinct vision before, and that's mandatory, and an element that makes things way too easy. There's no way to remove it, you'll simply have to ignore it and the consistent pop-up prompts to use it. A simple patch could have fixed this, but nope.

Overall:

I had a lot of trouble figuring out which rating to give this. Its fun, immersive, and unique enough to give it a legendary status among the big market's in and out supply of campaign driven adventure games. However then I remember some of the issues it has, but clearly these flaws have been mostly overlooked by the mass acclaim knocking out the niche "Flawed fun" idea. So... an awesome then? Yeah I think that feels about right. Back when this game got the praise it did in 2013, also known as the year of "mature story games", I felt like it was on par with most of those games as just not impressing me right. However its come around as a radical shift of views because I was influenced to look at it the wrong way originally. Its not just a straight forward action adventure blockbuster style game with an overdramatic story. Its not a survival game either, contrary to what original hype and interviews were saying (if you want that within a cinematic 3rd person shooter I'd recommend The Last of Us instead). Its actually got a lot of subtle qualities that pull you towards immersing yourself within the island and making the most of your surroundings, so that when you're ready to move on, you feel more prepared and ready to tackle the action and drama that lies ahead. Then by the end you've come a long ways into getting all that gear, braving all those cliffs and tombs, solving simple puzzles while being surrounded by armed lunatics and unexplainable superstition, and truly feeling the impact of Lara's first dangerous adventure. However like an adventure, nothing goes perfectly. While its an awesome experience, its nothing greater with the poor opening pace, no thought into post-game enjoyment (should have ditched the multiplayer nobody wanted and got the team thinking about another long term solution), and as is sad with most of these supposedly "accessible" triple A games they forgot some common sense options that would have been appreciated and made the game and presentation that much better. Plus while I don't feel its worth taking off the game myself, some will also find the gameplay to be too disconnected to some of its story content, or other nitpicks I've warned about. Still none of those problems cause me to forget how excited I become over opening artifacts, how well done some of the story aspects are, how beautiful the island is, or my satisfaction with the combat aesthetics. The fact is I've found myself coming back to this game twice this year and ready to endure a full playthrough, and its clearly doing something right even if it is sad that I MUST play through it all to do any of it again. For those who want a good adventure, are willing to admire the landscape and their surroundings to get an extra edge, and might be interested in getting a nice story or a cool metroidvania genre splice, I highly recommend Tomb Raider. Despite its flaws, it is certainly one of the best recent action adventure games out there. Plus I haven't even covered the multiplayer. Its not much, but if you're desperate for that to, you can get your fix for both adventure and some PvP shooting if you can find the remaining community for it.