Digging Through My Steam Backlog: Tomb Raider (2013)

After Dukey Nukey in the Third Dimension, I figured it was time to revisit a game I hadn't played in years, Tomb Raider. No, not the 1996 original, the 2013 reboot. I remember playing this on Xbox One and not being impressed by it. It just felt kind of forgettable to me. But that was 8 years ago and shockingly time and hindsight gave me new appreciation for this game I didn't have when I was younger.

The story of Tomb Raider is an origin story, following famed gaming heroine Lara Croft's first adventure. Lara, fresh out of college, winds up marooned on a mysterious island while on an archeological expedition. It quickly turns out however that the island is full of crazed lunatics who worship a long dead Japanese queen and it's up to Lara to survive, rescue her shipmates, and learn if the long dead queen is truly the reason no one can leave.

Now I'm skipping a lot of nuance but one thing about this story I actually really liked is Lara's own growth. Lara starts off frightened, scared, confused, and terrified of killing people; her only survival experience being hiking and archery practice. But by the end of the story Lara is a full-fledged death machine actively taunting her opponents as she guns them down. It felt like a natural progression, and I like that.

The other interesting thing is that the enemies Lara kills are actually shaken and angry at Lara for killing their friends. At one point I caught one enemy calling out the name of the guy I presumably just domed with a pistol. And dialogue from enemies at a certain point in the story helps sell it as well. 

Of course, you're still gunning these guys down by the dozen and they're still doing horrible things to Lara and her friends so it's hard to feel sympathy. But I appreciate the attempt to at least make us feel something, even a little bit. Especially given The Last of Us 2 was praised for something similar and Tomb Raider beat it to the punch by 7 years. Albeit in a milder version.

But speaking of gunning down foes, we should probably get into the gameplay and to describe it I'd use one word, Uncharted. Tomb Raider feels a lot like it copies its style from Uncharted with a mostly over the shoulder third person experience with some movie like set pieces within a fairly linear series of areas. I'd probably say this is what made me feel underwhelmed by Tomb Raider when I first played it, that style of game was everywhere at the time and it was a bit much.

While the base gameplay is similar to Uncharted everything surrounding it does forge its own identity. There's a crafting element that allows you to upgrade your weapons and encourages the player to look around for parts. For example, with the machine gun you start off with a Japanese Type-100 and can upgrade to an AK-47 if you get the right parts. Each gun also gets an alternative fire mode that allows you to change up how you approach a firefight.

The other big change from Uncharted are tombs, here you can leave the beaten path for a quick mini dungeon where you solve a puzzle to find more weapon upgrades and extra lore about the island. Compared to how Uncharted shuttles you from place to place with no real-world building this is actually rather nice and helps Tomb Raider stand out.

Which is good because Tomb Raider's own environments don't stand out much in the game. It's a lot of brown, dirt, and ramshackle ruins. I suppose that is the downside with centering the game on one location, you don't really get much environmental variety. Outside of one bit where you're exploring Japanese World War II bunkers on the beach Tomb Raider's areas all sort of blended together. If we're sticking with Uncharted comparisons, I'd say it's probably the leg up I'd give Uncharted.

With that said however I did enjoy my time with Tomb Raider, it's a fun game with a good storyline even if it's not entirely original with its inspiration. I can see why I didn't care much for this game when I first played it in 2014. However, I'm making a note that when I'm done with my backlog I'll playthrough the rest of the Tomb Raider reboot series.