Expect to discover exotic environments, with descriptive depth; 'living' japanese ruins and culture, ancient kingdom, forgotten tombs, an ancient legend and ... and a lot of action, stealth, fight and story.
The game goes epic in all standards, sometimes with lots of flavour and colour, with impressive gunfights that you do play your own way; and sometimes ways more quietly, in an environment with a "meaning".
The game combines strengths from stealth combat (Hitman ), adventure with an interesting story, astounding visuals and sceneries, live environments in explore-it-freely-in-your-own-way large, continuous levels, and of course the jumps and moves you can expect from a Tomb Raider game.
The game also 'breaks' with what made most of the regular flaws in the license: like an exaggerated model in suggestive breasts or back view. Here you will have more a realistic young woman, one with with certainly an astounding potential, put into a situation. Of course it will turn into movie-like epicness; but not freely, it will do so across a series of interesting events.
I played it on PC.
Everything in the official gamespot review sounds accurate to me, except a lack of development in the review about the multiplayer chapter.
Previously I didn't feel like coming to like the Tomb Raider license. Playing an unrealistic girl with exagerated moves and combo moves across linear tunnels wasn't my kind of thing. I am not quite a Prince of Persia (the new ones) fan. I also despised Uncharted because of its linear gameplay, awkward puzzles, and uninteresting main character. I am used to more opened gaming, and do not like to be forced into illogical situations.
But this Tomb Raider title is nothing like it. This is an awesome game made by a passionate studio, and it shows in every part of it.
I played more than a thousand games, and I believe I could rate this one, in quality and addictivity of gameplay, above all the single-player FPS I have played. Whether you are a Tomb Raider fan, or one who doesn't like Tomb Raider usually, you should play it. Especially in the PC version, because of the visuals but also because you'll find a bit less linearity that you can expect from a main console release, so you might be positively surprised.
Lara is no longer an exagerated model ; she is a beautiful girl, but not unlike people you could meet in the street. The cameras and action don't focus on her body, and do not strip her all along; she is realistically modeled and filmed, standard-wise it's far above what you see in movies, and it doesn't detract you from the gameplay as well. I believe it makes for more depth and realism throughout the game, and it contributed to a very interesting experience. The game is treated with a lot of respect and esteem for the player.
The story, moves, puzzles, combat, everything has a realism and logic to it in the game, much more than you can expect in your regular AAA movie or game. More, for instance, than you can find even in a game such as Metro Last Light. Except a dubious curiosity about a lack of regular fear in our enemies, or a few times where we could wonder how they ended up there (well, some have 20 years of mountaineering experience in the place, though) , platform-wise there is almost no jump, no action that could not be explained and could not sound reasonable - which is quite a feat, we can say, across 23 hours of gametime.
No storydriven FPS game accomplished that feat, so far.
I see questions below from players: why are there so many so-and-so? no children? no woman? everything is explained; just play the game and think about the story. What made the place as it is is explained, and I would say also sounds realistic. As for the places you would encounter, the moves you can expect; just expect anything. Old ruins, battered for centuries by ill weather, with almost all bridges fallen, almost everything that worked that no longer work as expected.
Actually the single-player features are astounding on this game, and well described in the review - except that it feels even better than the words being used there.
You also have some kind of freedom across many areas, and for the places where you haven't got much freedom, the surrounding environment is still full of life and details. You have lots of puzzles, but they are doable, they will only make you think for a few minutes. You have lots of combat action, but you can fight them your own way; with stealth, guns, and whatever weapons and style you would enjoy.
In most combats, I often had to switch between several weapons; bow, shotgun, AK-47, pistol; because of the dynamism of the situation. 95 % of all combats are played freely, meaning you could get more suppression fire aimed at you, more flanking manoeuvers or not, more men coming as well, depending on how you behave yourself in the fight. The AI reacts pretty well, albeit with a few flaws in detection. I was truly flanked on occasions, they hid in cover repeatedly, and fired at me with both nice accuracy and dispersion. They also cover their teammates.
I do strongly suggest, however, to play in HARD combat mode; otherwise the combats will lack all flavour and difficulty. Even in HARD mode, you can overcome all the fights. Please note that the game itself is easy; console players, who are more used to extreme difficulty in boss fights, might be a bit surprised there; so do yourself a favor and put the hard mode at least into the fights, to enjoy them better. As for difficulty throughout the game, yes, everything is do-able, meaning the game won't try to lock you for hours in a situation; but this doesn't change the fact that every minute of it needs reaction from you and provides an addictive gameplay.
Something is wrong or missing in the review though, and it's about multiplayer.
The multiplayer features are on par with FPS multiplayer-only games, meaning they are very comprehensive.
The MP games are played on their own maps, you have characters from each faction that you can upgrade, and lots of skins, weapons, powers, and weapon upgrades to unlock as well. The review just overviewed that in short comments, but you have interesting fetch & capture modes.
But a thing I didn't expect the review to overview, was a serious problem in the multiplayer that currently 'breaks it' and turns it into a very uninteresting thing.
A disappointing note is that they completely forgot to fix a very obvious problem: you can create a private multiplayer game, be alone on a map, and score lots of experience points and materials to upgrade yourself. Alone. Without any bots. You can then upgrade yourself to top level (60), with all unlocks, all skins... everything. It's no surprise then, that so many people are level 60 around there.
Nevertheless, the game is ways satisfying enough in singleplayer.
Playing it to the end took me 23 hours, with a 88% exploration completion; all skills unlocked for the character, all story documents and relics found, but no map fully explored yet.
The game duration was very fair and I appreciated that.
But it's the gameplay that was awesome, ALL along these 23 hours ; I had no downtime in it, and in that, the game goes far, far above things like Uncharted (that bored me since it's first platform-puzzle action) or any regular story-driven FPS you might think of (yes, even Deus Ex Revolution, that I actually enjoyed, and of course ways above games like COD or Battlefield).
This really was a surprise to me.
Congratulations to the studio for an awesome job.
With all the variety we currently have from magazine reviews when compared to our own gamers impressions, I believe it is now time for you to understand my ratings of other storydriven FPS games; it might help you locate it you fit into the aspects I enjoyed.
Before trying the game, I expected to rate it from a 6/10 to 9/10.
I would have rated Deus Ex Revolution with a 8/10 or 9/10, actually, even if I enjoyed it pretty much and played it to the end. I would rate Metro Last Light to a 9/10 or 8/10, as the score declines as I play it, because of many forced linear situations that sometimes sound unrealistic, and repetitive. Uncharted I would not even rate; I have the game but I consider it not enjoyable. But that doesn't mean that Uncharted fans won't like Tomb Raider; quite the contrary, Tomb Raider is made with more depth, great visuals, more freedom in scenes, and more respect to the player.
For Tomb Raider rating, thanks to the devs dedication to a great, playable and enjoyable gameplay, from beginning to end and in a 'long' storydriven game, which is unaccomplished, I vote it 10/10, despite the major multiplayer flaw! It's not a note I gave previously, but they deserve it.
It might have turned me into a Tomb Raider fan... I hope the previous titles won't disappoint me too much ;)