More story, less cleavage

Nevin Jones | writer

Bid farewell to Lara Croft’s comically large boobs of old.
In this reboot, there is no place for them. Get ready for a cinematic adventure with a strong narrative focus. “Tomb Raider” focuses on Lara’s beginnings as a timid adventurer, progressing to a hardened survivor, and it is one hell of a ride.
“Tomb Raider” begins with Lara and her crew searching for an ancient civilization off the coast of Japan. During their search, a mysterious storm appears and decimates their ship. The crew finds itself stranded on an island with bizarre weather and violent cultists. Everything on this island brings danger, and Lara must harden her resolve to live if she wants to survive.
Crystal Dynamics weaves a cinematic experience throughout the game. Amazing set pieces such as collapsing caves, exploding bridges, running away from crashing airplanes, and many others occur. This gives the player a great, immersive experience. These scripted moments are fun and look amazing, but the game also offers a grand sense of exploration. You will want to traverse all of the vivid environments.
The pacing feels spot on. Each new area leads you on a path to your next objective and gunfight, and the areas offer a vast number of incentives and opportunities to explore. There are documents to find, relics to examine, and objects to salvage. Each of these activities lends itself to an upgrade system.
The more salvage you find, the more your weapons can be upgraded. The more experience you gain from discoveries, the greater your leveling options become. Everything you do works itself into the greater good. The top experience and salvage opportunities come when you raid an optional tomb. The tombs hold the best puzzle-solving moments of the game and feel greatly rewarding when finished.
The combat and traversal systems feel fluid, with many options for completion. The game lets you decide how you want to approach your enemies with greater rewards given for a more difficult approach. Sure, you can pop headshots from far away, but sneaking up behind and cracking necks with your bow or executing enemies close range will merit more points.
The real narrative-focus is Lara emerging as a survivor. You get to watch her grow as you play. Top-notch character animation and voice acting lend to her believable transformation with only minor missteps along the way.
The only problem with her change from defenseless little girl to hardened survivor is that it happens so abruptly. One moment you are covered in blood and crying about the fact that you just blasted a fist-sized hole in a man’s head, and literally the next one you are hopping around the jungle like John Rambo has possessed your body. The change is jarring.
If the game just consisted of the single-player mode, I would say it is the closest example of a perfect game I’ve played this year. Unfortunately, Crystal Dynamics made the poor choice of adding a multiplayer mode. It is not completely awful, but it is a huge downgrade from the single-player experience in all categories.
In the multiplayer mode, somehow, the textures and animations suffer a huge quality drop, and the polished gameplay of the single-player just feels frantic and boring. There are loadouts and perks to unlock, but it does nothing that many games before have done better. With nothing exciting to keep players hooked, I doubt that anyone will continue to play the multiplayer mode after a month or two.
But don’t let that lackluster aspect fool you: “Tomb Raider” is a fantastic game. From the deep narrative focus, to the great open-world exploration and fluid gameplay, this is a game that every action fan should try. Nathan Drake needs to watch his back, because Lara Croft has returned in stunning form, and is gunning for him.