TOMB RAIDER

Alright, I just have to… Let’s start right away with a negative thing about this game: The title! I hate it so much if they do that. Tomb Raider, we already got a game referred to as “Tomb Raider”. It was published by Eidos in 1996 and is most definitely a game that must have its place in any videogames hall of fame of this universe. So if there is already one game with this title, what brilliant mastermind can have the idea to use the same title again? How is this possible? Don’t you have enough fantasy to come up with another title? Is it just stupid marketing? Do you even think about how much unnecessary confusion you cause with this?

As much as I would like to continue in my rage, I am done. And so are most the negative points of this game. I was kind of worried when I saw the first trailers way back: What? Lara "Teatime" Croft is going Japan? - Something like this was my initial reaction… Well, she did. I think she even looks a bit Japanese now. But ok, after all Square Enix took the franchise. I was just shocked about this and it felt strange at the beginning. But holy mother of Yamatai, I could not have been more wrong!

This game takes you back to the beginning of Lara Croft; To a young woman that is more or less unintentionally thrown into the harsh reality of the tomb raiding business. It’s not so much a great adventure as it is the struggle of a weak and fragile girl to become the keen and resolute woman we all know as Lara Croft (two big pistols included). The narrative of this game is just awesome and you feel every hit she takes, ever single scar that will forever be a reminder of her painful journey and all the sacrifices she has to make. The setting of the game could admittedly be a nudge more non-Japanese, but ok, at least it is 100% consistent. Square Enix is from Japan, so let the game take place in Japan and in the meantime also try to put some history and culture into the younger folks. Speaking about culture,... about those scars;... I just want to remark here, how absolutely interesting I find it, that Lara is portrait as a weak and almost whiny girl, in contrast to the Lara we know from our childhood. - Yes, she gets stronger and this could very well all be about the narrative, but I am seriously having a hard time thinking of any woman in any form of media that gets bruised so much. I felt like this girl really wants to fall down from everything and after falling also do her best to land in a way that makes you close your eyes. So… is it really just the story, or is this clumsy and struggling depiction of a woman a rather cultural perception? - I leave that up to you.

The game itself nails it's genre description as action-adventure completely and the balance between action and adventure is perfect throughout the entire game. Maybe at the end there are too many enemies and the game seems more like a third person shooter. Actually, I was kind of hoping for some sort of puzzle takedown… you know, when you have to climb somewhere, activate something, and in the end the rock will fall on the bad guy's head. Unfortunately we only got the “grab your shotgun and shoot everything plus occasional quick-time event”-ending. The boss fight was kind of disappointing, but realistic in a strange way… like most of the game. Seriously, I have hardly ever felt anything even close to that level of realism. But I think before I go on, I have to confess that I have played this game on a high-end PC connected to a 47 inch 3D-Television. I might be biased in every single aspect of this review because of that experience. Still I hope you trust me when I say that I also saw the game in its standard optics and also that looked more than great. Nevertheless, if you ever get the chance to experience this game in 3D, you simply must! I saw a lot of 3D things by now, some - mostly IMAX movies - were great and others were a complete waste of time. But this game, utilizing the full potential of the adventure genre as well as the setting and the action aspects, has sort of changed my life! Since I have already seen and played them, I would even go so far to state that this game in its full 3D glory is already better than anything the next-gen platforms have to over for a long time! Bravo, Crystal Dynamics, bravo!

Have you played the newest Batman games? Do you remember the riddles or rather question marks on the maps? - Well, Tomb Raider has something like that too. - A system that always gives you something to do, something to watch for. It’s neither too hard nor too easy but also doesn’t come close to the one in Batman. Unfortunately I also have to say that besides the more than occasional antique you can find hidden in a chest, there is really not much puzzle factor in that game. The game’s puzzles mainly focus on reaching the next area, which in turn has nothing to do with finding a switch or moving blocks, like in the old games. Here you basically solve the “puzzle” by finding the next gadget. To be honest, that’s kind of lame given a Tomb Raider game. I am pretty sure in this part Lara isn't diving one single time. Furthermore the game, although it takes you through several locations, is pretty much as linear as it can get. If you have cleaned a whole area (meaning you found all the small collectables), you are done with that, you can move on and you have absolutely no reason to ever go back to that region. You could go back hunting… but why? You know what? - Next time you give Lara the option to hunt and eat animals to “survive”, why don’t you give her a hunger bar, or let her health drain when she didn’t eat for a while, thus giving the hunting real meaning and not making it so obvious you just put that in to get some more play time out of the game? Yes, the new Tomb Raider is also one of these “auto-health regeneration games”… something I will probably never understand. Where is the challenge in that? Why are medpacks not good enough anymore? Just hiding somewhere for ten seconds and your invisible health bar is full again… this is so ridiculously lame!

In conclusion I cannot stress enough what a great game this new Tomb Raider is for the biggest part, how well the controls are, how interesting the story evolves and how big the replay value is. Of course there are negative things to say, but those are present in almost every modern game. Things like real health bars, to find and economize items that can heal you or give you ammunition, playing carefully, tricky puzzles, real challenges, and so on are just a few factors that get less important to the developers obviously. I almost cannot believe I am about to say this:... However, if a game is graphically so astonishing (especially in 3D), if a game simply changes your life by making you feel you are really there, you are the one crawling through the tunnels, the one sliding down the pits in the good old-fashioned Tomb Raider style,… if a game is tailored like this and drags you so deep into the adventure, I think I can even look beyond the above mentioned bad things.

You should definitely check out this game, if you haven't yet!