The Tomb Raider franchise was started way back in 1996 with the release of the first game on the Sega Saturn, with the MS-DOS and Playstation platforms coming soon after. The game follows Lara Croft, an English archaeologist who essentially, raids tombs. With Tomb Raider becoming an instant success, a tv series was released that based intself on the video game and soon after in 2001 a movie was released. Since 1996 the franchise has built up a massive fan base that would happily follow the game anywhere. Even I rember playing Tomb Raider on my sisters PS1 and being frightened to death by the dark caves that Lara ventured in to. The game has advanced much since the time of sticky game pads and is now a game filled with grit, pain and gory scenes of death.
In the 2013 released version of the game, you start on a boat headed to an island to uncover the secrets of it, but -not so surprisingly- the boat you are travelling on crashes, stranding you and your team of archaeologists on the island. Only to find that you are not alone.
THE GOOD: In the most recent installment of the Tomb Raider series, you are seperated from your team and use an array of weapons such as bows and arrows, shotguns and machine guns to fight off the enemy in an attempt to make it off the island with your crew. With immersive cut scenes that make you attempt to complete the game as fast as possible and third person game play that does not make you want to throw yourself at your TV or monitor, and fantastic graphics, the game seems to do no wrong.
THE BAD: However the constant bombarding of enemies that dont seem to vary in difficulty make it hard to continue ploughing through your game to the next cut scene.
With Lara Croft having amazing jumping abilities, and crazy ammounts of extra will power. You may at some points think you are dead, when infact all you need to do is tap a button a few times for a pole to be pulled from her leg. Alot of the time the game feels like just another Assassins Creed which seems to be the norm for many games released now.
The game features its fair share of gore, with horrifying ways that Lara die or kill another. For example you have the option to sneak up on an opponent and take them out quietly, set everything on fire by piercing barrels of oil with firey arrows or simply releasing your trigger happy finger on the enemy, whatever way you do decide to take out the island dwellers, you will have alot of fun doing so!
OVERALL THOUGHT: Overall the game was a steady 70/100, although the game was fun to play and left me in tears at the end, it felt too much like an Assassins Creed game at times and with the unvaried enemy difficulty it made the game harder to finish. So while i commend the game for its playability and cut scenes, it just wasn’t the different experience I and many others hoped for.
