Lara Croft is video game royalty and despite a couple of missteps (don’t mention Angel of Darkness) her franchise, Tomb Raider is regarded as one of the biggest and much loved gaming IPs the world over.
With 17 years of history, the challenge with this game would inevitably be a balancing act between three unique sets of audiences: loyal fans who have played from the beginning right the way through, early fans (like myself) who lost their love *cough “Angel Of Darkness” cough*, and new fans who may have never played Tomb Raider before.
The head of Crystal Dynamics Darrell Gallagher told us that the success of Casino Royal and Christopher Nolan’s Batman, gave the team confidence that choosing the reboot/origins model for a huge and popular franchise could be successful.
“Working on an IP like Tomb Raier we were aware that we couldn’t simply recycle old material, we were determined to show a stamp of quality innovation whilst preserving our strong legacy,” Darren explained, continuing: “Tomb Raider: Guardian of Light was the first step towards refreshing the franchise but previous games were missing a real sense of journey.
“[This time round] We wanted to put Lara into a story that forced her to grow. The idea of survival became our guiding light, more than just mechanically, we wanted to embrace the emotional experience of playing through a survival story.”
Obviously the pressure on the team at Crystal Dynamics to deliver a solid origins story to the character we all know and love was immense, thankfully they delivered…and some. We find ourselves in control of a young Lara, who has inherited her parents fortune after they vanished and were presumed dead during one of their many expeditions. Despite acquiring a great wealth, Lara worked hard and paid her own way through Cambridge and sets out with her school friend Sam for her first major expedition without her family aboard the ship Endurance to find a legendary island of Yamatai.
We wanted to put Lara into a story that forced her to grow.”
It’s clear from the get go that although she’s not the butt-kicking, fearless adventurer we grew up with, there’s something about her, and even though she hasn’t realised it in the beginning of the game, she is full of the grit and confidence that we associate with Lara Croft – it just hasn’t been discovered yet.
Ironically it’s her innate thirst for exploration and adventurer that leads her on this path to discover her true self, but the decision of Crystal Dynamics to strip back all of those layers and present us with this rough diamond is a master stroke. Faced with a vulnerable and naive Lara, we go on that journey with her and join her as she wrestles with her struggles to overcome her circumstances. The result is a character that I could really relate to, a character that I gave a real damn about. As far as lead protagonists go, this is one of the most real and believable computer game characters I’ve had the pleasure of playing with and the depth CD have given her makes the game enthralling from start to finish.
It’s a brutal, perilous and raw experience and pulls no punches in breaking down the walls put up by the Lara Croft of old, new Lara is real.
Gameplay
There is a lot of emphasis on development in this game, be that developing your weapons through salvaging parts, or sharpening Lara’s instincts and ability through skill points that she gains every time she performs certain actions, such as performing different kills or scavenging parts from animals and salvage crates hidden around the maps.
The game relies on three distinct pillars if you will – Dynamic traversal, similar to Assassin’s Creed where you can make smooth transitions between running, jumping and climbing. “Desperate combat” further reinforcing the realness of this game, as a 20-year-old girl isn’t likely to always have the upper hand against her enemies, her back is against the wall in many of her encounters so it’s a real struggle for her to pull through, at least in the beginning. And “smart resourceful Lara” as the third pillar, the game still has puzzles in it, but rather than arbitrary puzzles – move this here, turn that, move this – as a gamer you will be forced to access the elements and properties in Lara’s environment and exploit them much as you would in the real world. I’ll give you a hint – fire is useful for burning things.
Fight or battle sequences can be approached in a number of ways but we often found the stealthiest approach to be the most effective as this isn’t an all guns blazing affair with endless weapon and ammo pickups around every corner. You can effectively use the environment to your advantage shooting arrows into explosive barrels or fire tipped arrows into paraffin lanterns spraying flames over unsuspecting foes. It definitely feels like a brain over brawn title in this respect.
Exploring every corner of your map will see you rewarded with salvage parts from crates as mentioned above for weapon upgrades other well hidden goodies.
Multiplayer
You may or may not have caught our multiplayer preview a little while back, so if you didn’t we’ll just say this – multiplayer in Tomb Raider is an extension of the values championed in the single player mode, rather than a heavy-weight multiplyer wannabe. It’s a refreshing take on a game mode we’re familiar with, focusing on survival and hunter instincts, resourcefulness and tactical teamwork gameplay rather than simply running and gunning.
It’s an optional extra with fun multi-level maps and truly unique match modes that will appeal to people who may not even enjoy the typical heavy-weight multiplayer shooter experience as it can provide roles for people who are simply good at dodging bullets and setting traps rather than racking up huge kill streaks. I like to think of it as a “thinking-person’s” multiplayer.
Verdict
If you’ve got this far down and you can’t already tell, I was very impressed with this title and if it had come out at the end of 2012 as it was initially scheduled, I would have given it game of the year. The game creates a visceral and exciting experience with a host of characters and sequences that challenge and shape Lara Croft as she digs deep to overcome every brutal and crushing obstacle in her path.
As an effort to revitalise a treasured franchise it’s a roaring success and returns Lara to the top of the pile in the Action/Adventure genre, just nudging the awesome Nathan Drake of Uncharted down a peg. Tomb Raider thoroughly deserves it’s place at the top of the UK games chart.
Tomb Raider is out now.
