TOMB RAIDER
Let me begin with this statement: This is NOT your father's game! Why? Because that line went through my head over and over as I played Tomb Raider on Xbox 360. This is a whole new Lara Croft and a new story - a re-imagining - and I love it! Theatrical scenes, combat, and everything else were acted out by the voice artist for the new Lara Croft and it really made it shine! If you get time seek out the behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the VA for Lara! Also, this is my second 10 out of 10 - again, I do NOT toss these around lightly, but I could not find anything wrong with this game! glitch and bug free and flawless controls, for starters!
STORY
The story begins with Lara sailing toward Japan to seek an ancient tomb for a mythological Sun Queen. She is wet behind the ears and new to being an archaeologist aside from exploring with her late father or her mentor. attempting to delve through the heart of a storm the ship is struck by lightning and leaves Lara and her crew stranded on the island. She awakens only to be knocked unconscious and dragged until awakening some time later to find herself hanging upside-down in a cloth body bag over a large pit alongside other dead bodies. Now, she has to rely on her intuition, survival skills, and human adrenaline alone to escape her assailants, find her friends, and flee the island - all whilst unlocking the mysteries that revolve around the Sun Queen and the many other "strange" happenings that effected the island.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjBLyJKWgrQ
I loved how this game really isn't the confident Lara we all came to know. she cries, yet stands strong. She yelps in pain and agony, complains about being afraid, and generally displays every human emotion a living, breathing person would! Like Lara's voice artist says; "that moment when Lara has to pick up a gun and take a human life for the first time is really emotional". This game isn't much of a game where you explore tombs, so much as you are fleeing through jungle, but it certainly sets up for a good traditional TR game!Graphics
I can't say a bad thing about the graphics in this game. They are top-tier and definitely amazing to behold. I was about a quarter of the way through the game before realizing that all of the cutscenes weren't FMVs (full-motion videos) like games usually do but were utilizing the gameplay graphics. Just watch that above game intro and you'll understand. I think that intro is the only FMV in the entire game, but even then the graphics are so close it is hard to be certain.Lighting effects know no limit in Tomb Raider. shadows all move in real-time along with the rising and setting of the sun outdoors. Light and visibility fades and brightens depending on area and time of day. In fact, the worst graphics in the game would have to be the flames from Lara's torches - they really look out of place when pressed against a rock-bed ceiling from a cave. Apart from that the shadows, shines, blurs, and everything else in real life lighting is implemented nicely in this game.
You REALLY need to have this game being output into 1080p just to see how realistic this game really looks. Cuts and scrapes, mud, blood, water - even the grain of Lara's clothing, can be seen as you are running around fighting for survival.
SOUND
I played this game solely with my Red Samurai headset on (a cheaper version of my Trittons and turtle Beach headset) and the sounds were amazing! I felt like I was in control of a movie at a movie theater! explosions and rocks falling behind me made me jump in real life even when they couldn't be seen. I could tell how high above me or below me and in what area a person was simply from listening to their movements or voice, much as I would in a Call of Duty game. The sounds of wind and the beach are very realistic and I found myself simply sitting with my eyes shut idling the game at the shore just to meditate a couple of times. I honestly asked myself a couple of times through my first playthrough if the game developers didn't just fire real guns and make all of the noises by recording them and then uploading the sounds into the game's audio.GAMEPLAY
Everything you would expect in a Tomb Raider game is here except dual-wielding guns. Run, jump, climb, shoot, stab, and explore. However, a lot of new features were added! you will control Lara much more as a normal human, tossing sand into enemies' faces to blind them, shooting ropes to make things fall on them, and a WHOLE lot of stealth and espionage! This version of Lara is what I envision Solid Snake and the old Lara Croft's child to be like.
As you progress through the game you will find several weapons and items that allow you to upgrade or tweak your offensive capabilities. You also collect "salvage" from crates and enemies which are a currency-like system which allows you to "build" things like silencers, flame rounds, and other such additions to all of your 4 weapon classes (bow, pistol, assault rifle, shotgun - in order). Interestingly, however, this game uses actual common sense; something most games do not! Lara obtains a grenade launcher for her assault rifle? Great! She also can now tie those grenades to her arrows and fire them as explosive grenades! She found a lighter to light the torches? Great! Now you have flaming arrows as well!
There is a EXP system that allows you to obtain a skill point whenever you level up, as well. These skill points are used to help progress Lara's character into becoming wilderness-savvy and allow you, as a player, to choose how she tackles opponents or other such things. The skills can be placed into one of three separate categories which are then broken down into separate abilities. For example, In the Brawler category I could place a skill point into an ability to give Lara the attack move I mentioned earlier where she tosses dust and sand into enemies' faces to stun them. doing so unlocks a "chain" which then lets me place a second skill point into doing a follow-up melee attack. The funny part is how unrealistically broken this system can get. Not in terms of combat, mind you, but for ammo recovery. If you place three points (one each as one is always the maximum) into three specific abilities you can collect your ammunition from enemy pockets (in the case of arrows the ones you hit the enemy with will always be recovered) and obtain more than you used. I headshot an enemy with an arrow (more often than not) and get upward to ten retrieved from his corpse.MULTIPLAYER
There is also a multiplayer mode, but I have not tried it. From what I can see of it the multiplayer is very similar to Call of Duty's but 3rd-person as the actual game is. I'll update this more if I get to playing the mode, but I don't play these types of things without a friend, usually.IN CONCLUSION
This game's only problems were lack of a New Game + (which is just a personal preference for any game) and the downloadable Content "map" being a complete waste of $3 USD do to it offering no real reward and being literally 2 minutes long. I timed myself on a second playthrough and it took me 2 minutes with flame arrows, or 5 minutes without.
I'd definitely recommend this to any survival / Adventure genre fan or fans of games similar to Uncharted. It is very long for a game of this style, as well, clocking in well over 8 hours (Other TR games can be beaten in about 3 to 4 hours). Tomb Raider fans may love or hate this version, but as a fan of every Tomb Raider except Chronicles (due to its many game-breaking bugs), I can't wait to see the next game and hope it has co-op story multiplayer as well as involves an actual tomb like the first three Tomb Raider games had.
Rating: 10 out of 10
