Lara Croft is no stranger to the gaming world. Like Mario, Pokémon, Master Chief, Link and Marcus Fenix, Lara is an iconic character in which games are built around. The Tomb Raider legacy has always been interesting and growing, but it’s perhaps this latest entry into the series that comes off as the best of them all.
Tomb Raider launched last year on consoles and PC with solid ratings and strong sales. It was one of the best looking games you could play on the Xbox 360 and served as an origin story for Lara, showing how she came to be the explorer some of us grew up knowing her as. This story makes her more raw in her abilities and how she deals with the situations at hand, but Lara is forced to learn new survival techniques when her friends are shipwrecked on an island that feels like the very same island from the hit TV show LOST. It’s an island with secrets and adventure that awaits Lara who must become the savior of her colleagues when people go missing or are scattered across the island. The mission is simple: escape the island. But escaping isn’t so easy when this mystery island has more than a few trees and sand to wade through.
Tomb Raider is about survival/combat just as much as it’s about puzzles. Tomb Raider does a nice job of presenting interesting puzzles at times that require solving to access hard to reach areas which give access to treasures that are held by the island. You will have use tools to navigate the terrain and climb certain rock faces in order to make your way across problematic chasms, rivers, cliffs and more. Sometimes it’s the way you choose to navigate areas which will determine whether you face heavy combat-based opposition or you’ll slip through areas unnoticed. That’s not to say that Tomb Raider favors an open world and multiple strategy approach, but at times it’s nice to know you have more than one way to progress through seemingly difficult sections within the game. Just like your options in navigation, sometimes you’ll have options in how to take down your enemies. You can use a trusty pistol or rifle or you can whip out your bow & arrow to take down enemies quietly but effectively. If you want to set flammable substances ablaze, find a flame source to ignite your arrow tip and let it fly. At times it feels like you are playing a million ways to kill (or at least a dozen ways). The variety options again give you the feeling that you’re not locked into one weapon or style of play. But the game isn’t all freedoms and choices. Sometimes you must use specific weapons or strategies to take down heavier enemies (mini boss battles).
Everything about this Tomb Raider reboot screams success. You will care about Lara and likely feel sorry for her. The poor girl goes through hell to survive great odds and an island with dangerous inhabitants. At times the game gets gruesome. Just like you have multiple ways to kill, so too does Lara have multiple ways to die. If you fall on spikes, you get impaled and you will see it. Tomb Raider makes no apologies for its gritty style and they shouldn’t have to. This game is excellent and will be one of the best purchases you can make while the picking is slim for games on your Xbox One. The Definitive Edition adds several nice collector-like items to the mix, but more importantly also adds the DLC offerings from the previous-generation consoles, giving you more content to play through.
Once you’ve conquered all your single player adventures you can take to the multiplayer section of this game. To put it simply – it’s the same experience of the campaign with other people playing against each other. You have the option of playing Team Deathmatch, Free For All, Rescue, and Cry For Help. TDM and FFA focus on straight up kills, whether through team play or individual efforts. These modes play out pretty well and feature nicely balanced maps that will rarely keep you away from the action, unless you’re purposely trying to cower in a dark corner somewhere. But it’s Rescue and Cry For Help that offer something more unique from other multiplayer experiences. Rescue is a medicine grab, where round based turns are utilized and give you a survivor vs. Solarii (your enemy faction in the game) setup. The goal is to grab medicine before the Solarii destroy it all. Both teams race to gather or destroy. The team that can gather more meds in their given round wins. Cry For Help is somewhat similar, only your goal is to activate radio transmitters to send out a signal for rescue. This time, you have a set amount of batteries you need to power these towers. Again it’s a survival team vs. Solarii forces, who are trying to capture your batteries, and you’ll take turns trying to activate the towers. Most towers activated wins.
Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition is an excellent game pushed to next generation consoles. It brings the graphics levels up to PC quality (though without putting them side by side it’s hard to say if the Xbox One or PS4 live up to the best a PC can offer) which does wonders for the game. On the Xbox 360, it looked great but without advanced graphic rendering power available, it all still looked low-res. On Xbox One, there is a noticeable improvement. The devil was in the details and that’s where developer Crystal Dynamics made their improvements. Improving lighting elements and upping the resolution to 1080p (on both consoles), Xbox One owners can have yet another beautiful game to add to their collection. The DLC will certainly expand the content available to play through, but if you’ve already played Tomb Raider on the previous generation consoles or PC, there isn’t a whole lot new to it. It’s an excellent game, one that may warrant several run-throughs. The multiplayer is also pretty fun and has some depth to it which can keep you occupied for some time if you don’t have much else you prefer to play online. All things considered, Tomb Raider is a great reboot for the franchise. One can only hope that Crystal Dynamics aren’t calling this a one-and-done deal. We’d be happy to see more Tomb Raider games in the future if they can build upon this sturdy foundation.
Grade: 9.0
For those of you that played the new origin story-based Tomb Raider probably loved the game and enjoyed the new direction of the series. The game was very cinematic and featured engaging characters, including a more vulnerable Lara Croft. Now, Crystal Dynamics have announced that they’re releasing Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition to be launched on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 platforms. The re-release is specifically designed for the new consoles, which will see the graphics engine engineered to take advantage of the greater graphics capabilities of both consoles and run at a native 1080p resolution. PC gamers will have likely already experienced the greater graphics capabilities the first time around, but if you haven’t this might be a great opportunity to try out the new adventures of Lara as she and her fellow crew members are marooned on an eerie island that may have been inspired by JJ Abrams’ “Lost” TV series.
Xbox One Game Source 