Tomb Raider - Game Review

Hello again!

I hope you all have an awesome day!

Today for the review I chose the legendary character Lara Croft and the well known title Tomb Raider. I presume most of you already played this awesome game, but for those who didn't, well you are lucky because you have one incredible adventure to explore.

I chose the first part of Tomb Raider because I didn't have time to play the second, and for me the first part is always the best.

So when the Lara Croft first appear to us, she brought an incredible feeling of adventure and discovery. Her adventures over the year never stopped exploring the dark mysteries, often times involved in something supernatural, myths and legends in a manner of a third-person action adventure game. This particular game has some sort of reference with games like Uncharted series, but with quite balanced form of quiet exploration in one moment, and in the second rip-roaring action where you will fight for your life in an enthralled way from start to finish.

In a beginning of the game, you will find Lara as somewhat fragile, highly intellectual and educated explorer. But when her ship wrecked in a storm near the mysterious island full of mysterious secrets, she has no choice but to learn how to survive, all of her mental and physical strength will be put to the test. From the start of the game Lara will endure a great deal of injustice and pain that she didn't deserve, almost drawing her to the edge of a turning point. She would have two choices, to fight to survive or surrender and die. Where most even much stronger people than her would crumble under the weight of such physical and emotional struggle, she begins to understand how hard she must fight to survive. And she will rise from that challenges stronger than ever. You could see her transformation through out of the game, so this isn't some just action adventure meaningless game, it is a journey, not just in life but the journey to the inside.

You will feel yourself empowered and inspired to witness that Lara's journey, from someone who has a lots of fears in her life when she first arrives at the island, to the strong individual who conquer that fears and became a survivor with a strong spirit and to become a confident person. That island where her ship wrecked is full of cultists weird people targeting her as a scared pray who would run from them like a frightened animal. But later in the game, tables will be turned, and that dangerous residents of mysterious islands will understand that she isn't some easy prey as they mistaken her for, and she will use that in her advantage to play with them psychological games, striking fear right in their hearts. So this is the first game where they introduce us a new Lara Croft and her journey, when she truly becomes a Tomb Raider. Her story begins here and left us in a eager state to see what future holds for her.

The surroundings of this game is unbelievable. The story of lara Croft begins on a island where centuries ago where the home of a Kingdom called Yamatai. The island is full of beautiful shrines and temples, and all over you could find remainings of this left behind culture. The nature is just beautiful, sunsets, mountains, everything... and often times you will just stand still and take in all that and appreciate the moment. the island is just a beautiful place, but often times you will discover that that island has its dark side, and it is not so much beautiful. you will have to go through the piles of bones and all kinds of horrors, and all that is building up the impression that some ancient evil is lurking this place. All that people that are trying to grab you are somewhat possesed, fanatics that serve some evil mystery. But the graphics in the game are stunning, absolutely stunning!

The island itself has some sort of their own climate. No radio connections could be established from the island, they are completely and utterly isolated. The frequent storm just add up the difficulty of finding that island. As you go deeper into the depths of Island, you will find remains of bunkers from the world war two, crashed boats from the storms, airplanes, military bases, all together perfectly mixed with the old temples and shrines from the history of Yamatai. Also just a touch of the present settlements of the current inhabitants will ad to the atmosphere. This extraordinary place give the impression of cruel environment where people have lived, and were both good and bad things had happened. From claustrophobic caves and bunkers through the gentle snow and beautiful rivers and downfalls, you get clear that no matter how beautiful, if you are not careful the island will swallow you.

So you get the picture, this place is not like walking in the park. Lara from the first moment need something to equip with so she would survive. In the beginning, she will acquire a bow, so she could hunt the animals. Good way to practise her skills because she will need it. Later on she will be forced to use this bow on humans. And soon, she will be holding a gun, a rifle and shotgun and she will have no mercy using them. You could use stealth approach, and perform silent kills, or taking them out from a far distance with you bow. When they are in groups you could distract them by firing up an arrow in the close distance so you could draw their attention and take them one by one not causing an alarm or enemy firing a single bullet.

But when you engage in an open gun fire-fight that is a whole another different story. The enemies are smart and very aggressive. They will surround you, trying to flush you out with bombs and grenades, so you need to move swiftly and act boldly with your finger on the trigger. They will attack you even from the distance while others will trying to get close to you. you need to move constantly and when they do get close to you, well, dodging melee attacks will result in brutal and savage counterattack by Lara so this would be my favorite way of dealing with these situations.

As the game progresses you will find more powerful weapons also, so the gun shooting action will become more intense. The sound in the game gives the perfect flavour and satisfaction when you blast someone in close range with the shotgun. But what gives this game their greatness isn't just shooting and action but, simple walking through the island, climbing the rocks, sliding down with the ropes, gives us a beautiful perfect surrounding. Lara in this game will perform an epic leaps and desperate jumps on far away ledges that will make your breath stop. Also as she acquires new weapons, she will also acquire new climbing gear that will make hear even more agile and making her climbing just that more easy, but even more epic. Later on you can make with an bow and arrow a zip line which will make exploring areas more easily and it will give you more freedom.

The controlling in the game works perfectly, giving you a full control over Lara's movement, climbing making leaps and so on. the only time where the game takes away the controls are the scenes where you will enjoy in spectacular moments of standing on top of the building when it starts to crumble, you will need to have good timing of pressing the key so that Lara could do certain actions and survive the disaster. What this moment's lack in interactivity it will make up in scenery and spectacle. It will bring movie like scenes that will make your jaw hit the floor.

The game is somewhat pretty straightforward, but as this to be an adventure game, you will have a chose to explore the paths that will lead you away from your mission, for a short while, you will explore some optional caves and areas where you can find insights of what was happen to this island, and giving you the reward in weapon upgrades and such. but this doesn't slow you down in your adventure quest, often times you will have to solve some puzzle that will make you stop for a minute, but every moment is never a drag.

All the pictures are Screenshoots

This game is a master peace according to me. The ending leave me with sense of nostalgia and make my heart beat a little faster just thinking off on her next adventures. Beautiful surrounding settings, thrilling actions, story is remarkable, controls are excellent, all in all this is one awesome game! The survivor is born!

Hope you enjoy it!