Many moons ago, Josh reviewed the first instalment of Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider revival and spoke in detail about how much he enjoyed it. A few months later, I got my hands on it and loved it to pieces also, but will the latest episode hold its ground to its epic older sibling?
No.
In all reality, its a huge disappointment that has left me rather bitter. The previous Tomb Raider was an all-round quality game. Its visuals were impeccable, gameplay was fun, different and based heavily on survival and the story used that. It developed the origin story to one of gaming's most prominent characters that is loved the world around, whether its through movies or gaming. Rise of the Tomb Raider is a shit show.
Every single advert I saw brought huge attention to their review quotes, the Daily Star in particular said "Visually Stunning" and threw a whopping 5 stars its way. So, lets begin with that. First of all, its the Daily Star, so I don't need to go much further with that. Secondly, why are the visuals selected over everything else within the game? Well that my friends is because that is all this game has. Beautiful landscapes, levels, tombs and character details do not make a quality game, just great quality cutscenes. And trust me, you'll see plenty of those. In fact, so much so that you'll wonder if you're the one playing the game. Now, don't get me wrong, I play Telltale games and they're big, explosive adventures with a storyline so gripping, you can't help but feel like you've lost a little bit of your soul when you lose a beloved character, and the majority is a sequence of cutscenes with varying quick time events (QTEs) and doesn't have much in the way of raw gameplay. But this. This is shameful.
So, its "Visually Stunning" and hell, I can agree with that. Until it comes down to animations. When you move around the map, all is fine, its when you are involved in the action that it really falters. Running through endless hallways from a threat that can't hit a barn with a minigun from 30 yards is something you experience often and explosions miles away from you fling you whether you were near it or not. Say you're a little slow and something crashes through the wall ahead of you, instantly you're thrown into the wall as if it had actually hit and that is just poor planning. Like it or not, this shit happens way too often. Climbing up rock faces, boundaries are ridiculous and cause Lara to spaz out trying as she tries to work out which direction she wants to go and if you approach a ledge, you're lurched up onto it with a body that seems to be able to do the impossible. Not to mention the absolutely retarded falling mechanic which often freezes her mid-jump as she floats to the ledge that she may or may not decide to grab which results in a frozen corpse falling down the crevasse with a solid thud at the bottom.
On the topics of thuds, I've got to be honest, I would have loved a lot more focus on sound and music. One thing that should have been worked on is the voice acting. Sure,
Camilla Luddington does a
good job as Lara. We saw that in the previous, but lets get to the brass tacks, I don't want to listen to a symphony of her moans and groans as she jumps across sections in what can only be described as a mass orgy porn flick. With little knowledge of what is actually going on next door, your neighbour may never look at you the same. Not to mention that any element of stealth is thrown out the window as the groans echo across the cavern like smashing a plate in a crowded restaurant.
What of gameplay? Well, as I said, stealth is something that honestly makes no sense. Its use in the game is to reinforce the survival aspect involved but also the fragility of Croft, however its of no use. Very few sections require stealth and when they do, you're tasked with killing everyone in the area rather than moving around and escaping the danger without turning into a one-woman army. Not forgetting the fact that you fart loud enough and everyone knows where you are, even if you've skulked off quietly in another direction. So, what happens next? Well, that fragile girl that is fighting for survival pulls out an AK-47 and mows down anyone near and crafts a menagerie of grenades and weaponry to kill them with varying degrees of brutality. Now I've spoken about character animations, but lets talk about her role as a historian. This "archaeologist" is armed from the get go but also has a distinct lack of interest in preserving anything. Everything she touches breaks. This so called archaeologist has broken everything to get one thing that, spoiler alert, she breaks! She kills hundreds of people, murders countless animals to get new crafting materials and destroys anything she touches. At Least Indie had the decency to kill Nazis. But lets not stop there! How about all that progression she made in the original game? She's forgotten it all. Literally everything has gone. It seems as if she survived, only to suffer a concussion when she got on the plane home and that really halts the immersion for a returning player. Perhaps if there was a bigger push towards weapon upgrades, progression and skills could have been done through that medium, not by erasing all previous progress.
Now we hit the real big issue, the story. Honestly it is a huge cluster fuck of sexual tension and daddy issues that make pornographic plot lines seem clever and highly under appreciated. Trident, a group of bible bashing Christians are after a tool for immortality that was created by Jesus. We track it down, they follow us, a twist occurs that was as obvious as an Afro-American at a KKK clan meeting, we find Jesus and escape together with the sexual tension so thick, you'd give Donald Trump a run for his money. So we are up against a bunch of clueless, delirious, religious nut jobs with a shit ton of money. Only to find out that this Trident force aren't done yet! We've got another one on route, just this time we might get away without the infuriating daddy issues that turned a survivalist into a drag.
Its not hard, I'm sure you've caught my drift by this point. Its not the Tomb Raider I wanted. Its not what should have been. You can't polish a turd and it seems like the graphics department tried their best to cover up the story that seemed apt for a teen novel. Including the removal of the rather enjoyable multiplayer scene, this game has taken a huge leap backwards rather than innovating and giving their loyal fans hope in a system of games that annualise the same thing year on year for inflated prices only to be slapped with a season pass on launch that costs an extra 50% that adds little to the experience in a game more baron than Katie Hopkin's soul.
6/10 - This is becoming all to common.
