Showcasing a young and inexperienced Lara Croft, Square Enix' Tomb Raider puts you in the shoes of the sexy archaeologist amidst the cluster of islands known as Dragon's Triangle. A shipwreck, a colorful crew, the previous inhabitants of the remote paradise and the remnants of an ancient Japanese civilization are some of the main ingredients in this cocktail.
Every big budget title in the last few years has had a couple of moments that really stand out. Sometimes it's the prologue, some other times it's a specific mission or sidequest. Some sequence that is just memorable when contrasted with the rest of the experience. In Tomb Raider, the whole thing is like that. Be it a bridge falling down, Hollywood-style explosions or some other thrilling, close call scenario, it's hard to go more than a few minutes without some over-the-top sequence that makes you go "wawaweewa!". Fear not: there are also moments where you'll just walk around trying to solve a puzzle, exploring or staring at the protagonist's buttocks, but the feeling of unpredictability is constant and a good way of keeping you at the edge of your seat.
Visually, everything is top-notch. The level of detail is pretty amazing when you max out the settings and the few glitches (mostly related to physics) that might seldom occur are forgivable. The surprising action events plus how good landscapes and textures look make for an intense cinematic experience. The dynamic camera work is the best I've seen in many years and it definitely adds a different feel to how things play out. Sprinkle with a gritty and dark vibe, very respectable acting and sound effects and you end up with a darn good framework to tell a story.
Gameplay doesn't fall too far behind everything else that Tomb Raider does right. As usual, you have your main questline and your secondary objectives. Sadly, you don't get total sandbox freedom to roam the island, alla Far Cry 3, but rather each main stage has campfires that act as checkpoint, level up screen, workbench to upgrade your gear and fast travel node, all at once. Almost all screens have collectibles, wildlife to hunt and some of them even have tombs for young Lara to explore. The leveling and upgrading system isn't incredibly deep by any stretch, but it's done well enough that feels like a nice touch. As your rank goes up, you will also unlock fancy new moves and abilities. As for the actual playing of the game, there's a lot of platforming, climbing, acrobatics, puzzle-solving, shootouts, stealth kills and all that good stuff. Movement and combat are extremely polished and fluid. Hell, even the user interface and controls are great for the usual console-porting disaster that PC gamers have experienced lately.
To keep it zen, I'd like to comment on a couple of weak points that lurk throughout the game.
First off, there are times when it's hard not to feel like the game is capitalizing on the success of other popular names. Regardless of being awesome, there's a sense of familiarity when thinking of Uncharted, Resident Evil, Prince of Persia and some other platinum franchises. At the same time, when you tally everything up, it's an extremely high quality product and it doesn't feel like a ripoff so I can't really scream outrage at the lack of originality, but if you want to get nitpicky, there aren't a lot of incredibly innovative and unique mechanics happening here.
The second aspect that falls somewhat short are the collectibles. Tombs aside (which are very brief), there are audio recordings, logs and other objects to be found throughout the different areas of the island. The problem is that they're just lying there. Some might be harder to find than others, but you just pick them up and that's it. Granted, some people get off on finding that kind of stuff anyway and the lore tidbits they unlock are nice, but it would've been much more rewarding to have more elaborated optional content or a more involved system to make collectible-hunting interesting instead of just being OCD bait.
In closing, Tomb Raider is an outstanding revival of a franchise that was somewhat forgotten but it stands on its own as a triple A game. It's not a never-seen-before breakthrough, but every aspect of it is so flawlessly executed that your knees won't stop clapping.
