A great survivalist shooter game. Tomb Raider does a great job of bringing the series present-day game standards.
Story: 8.75/10
The game begins with Lara Croft and crew getting stranded on an island in the mysterious dragon's triangle after your boat capsizes from a bad storm. While trying to survive, Lara navigates through the island learning about the island's unusual and terrifying mythical history. While navigating, she learns that there is a type of military group here who are after Lara's head. Lara must fight her way through these people while trying to find a way off the island. The ending to this game does get a little weird, but I personally think it works very well. The story also does a fantastic job of not leaving you with any unanswered questions or plot holes at the end. Definitely a great story!
Score: 8/10
The score does a good job of providing the right kind of music with the right atmosphere. My personal favorite is the creepy music when crawling through a place that is bloody and filled with bodies.
Character/ Character Development: 8.25/10
Lara Croft does an amazing job of learning how to become a survivor in a realistic way that is very believable. She does sustain injuries and slips at times which cause her to lose the superhuman aspect that games give characters sometimes and make her feel human. The other characters in the game are good, but they don't provide too much to the overall story in the way that Lara does.
Graphics: 9/10
Graphics here look very good and modernized especially compared to the older Tomb Raider games. I believe Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics did a great job of bringing this game to the modern day standard of video games and reviving the series for present day.
Gameplay: 8.75/10
As a third person shooter/ platformer this game works very well. However, the game does feel pretty linear which works for this game quite well, but linear does always feel limiting in some ways.
Difficulty: 4/10 (0 being the easiest, 10 being the hardest)
Tomb Raider (which I played on normal) wasn't very difficult. There were a few times when the game did get tough, but after coming up with a good strategy and learning where enemies were it wasn't too difficult to overcome.
Controls: 10/10
Controls in this game are very nice. I love the quick weapon switch which helps fighting go so much more smoothly. Also the actions are easy enough to do, but are difficult enough to not make it feel stupidly easy. Moving is always nice and crisp and your actions flow very smoothly.
Clarity: 8.75/10
Survival instinct is an in game command that will show you the direction in which you need to go which is extremely helpful, not only for clarity but to show you how far away from your destination you are. There are times when you simply cannot realize a way forward and may need to refer to a strategy guide, but that also could have been my own personal problem.
Fun: 7.75/10
The game is pretty enjoyable as you navigate through difficult terrain and gameplay and story do enough to keep you wanting to come back for more and see the game through to the end.
There are two complaints that I have about this game. For starters, the jumps you make are ridiculously long at times (even by video game standards). There's easily times when you're making a 60 foot jump with ease. Although this may seem like a plus, I feel it takes you out of the game and causes you to say "I really just made that." Also you may get stuck due to the fact that you simply don't think Lara could jump that far. When you make one of these impossible jumps, the game just feels a bit glitchy. The second complaint is that I would have like to see a more of a survivalist aspect to the game. You can do things like hunt for animals, but it only rewards you with xp. It would be really interesting to have a need to eat and sleep and other things that would make you feel more like your stranded on an island.
Recommended for:
• Tomb Raider fans who want to see a modern rendition of the series.
• Shooter fans
• People who enjoy a survivalist game.