Late Review: Rise of the TombRaider

Released: November-10-2015

Price $59.99

Also on: Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 (10/11/16), Xbox One

 

 

Been waiting too long to write up this review on a game that I much needed to complete, and get at least one piece of dlc finished.   To begin I've played many TombRaider games throughout the years on many consoles. The main character Lara Croft a young athletically built, smart women is the center piece of all the games. Following her path through questions and finding answers to undiscovered myths/legends on an adventure of grand proportions.  This is an action/adventure game much like the game Uncharted Drake's Fortune series which came later from a different developer, but with similar concepts.  Lara will seek, discover, & fight through a treacherous path of creatures and human enemies alike to find the answers to the questions that consume her throughout the game.

     In this game Rise of the TombRaider the story synthesis is as follows one year after the events of the rebooted game of TombRaider, Lara Croft is struggling to explain her experience of the supernatural on Yamatai. Searching her late father's research data on getting to the lost city of Kitezh also finding the ability of immortality. (Just like in that Indiana Jones film) As she gets on way with her journey to find the city and the myth, Lara keeps getting pushed off by her father's past ally/partner and an ancient order of knights called Trinity that now exists as a paramilitary organization investigating the supernatural and their leader Konstantin. Lara is continually pit up against the order of Trinity and others who get in her way to find the truth.

    

 Without going through the entire plot you start off like in the first game with minimal weapons and skills but unlike the first game you will be able to upgrade and equip these faster plus there's a lot more to unlock.  In my gameplay I was only able to unlock and upgrade up to 80% of my items and abilities, which was fine but still wanted to know how well they worked.  In the game you will be going up against Trinitu, wildlife (bears & wolves), and the supernatural.  There are many tombs to discover and raid with puzzles that can get a bit nerve racking (at least for me) on not knowing on what to do or where to go in some puzzles, others can be easy as hell.  There are also loot caves like tombs where you can find valuables to help you on your journey.

  The game looks and feels big and beautiful but is not a true open world game.  There are lots of other areas where you have to go down a certain path to get to your objectives in the game. Areas like caves, abandoned tombes, towns, old military bases, and even ancient ruins where once was inhabited by cultures thousands of years ago.   This game has many things to do in it like searching and finding ancient artifacts, hunting animals in the wilderness for their pelts, and killing your foes but sometimes that can get a little tedious when doing these things over and over again. Sometimes little fetch quests or trying to help out the people of these small villages can just be something I never touch in the game.  I feel even though there is a good amount of game the developers just wanted it a little bit more to make the game I feel like there's so much going on.

  The gameplay feels great just like how a Tomb Raider game should feel and play like.  Movements of Lara in the environment climbing up mountains, swimming under the water, and battling enemies feels fluent and natural.  Story holds up even with the supernatural storyline that felt a little like the previous game did but had enough to follow, even when not played for a few months like I did. I had come back to the game and still was able to follow the rest of it to the end.  Just to let you know and not a game spoiler at all it did feel like the game ends abruptly when you don't know about it, when you think you're going to be going further into Lara's world the game basically just ends.

This is not a letdown at all and even has some aftermath potential for another game in the series which will happen.  There's a card system in the game like most games nowadays have and seemed to just be tacked on. I never really used the system and have no idea why they even have it in the game at all.  But I guess it's to add more money to their pockets due to you being able to purchase more cards at stupid unnecessary prices.  Lastly I did play one dlc mission that I had purchased which was the Baba Yaga mission and it was pretty interesting as an add-on. Note I did not purchase any of the other dlc due to the others revolving around the Russian army which I just skipped.  Finally for real now there is one last dlc coming out in the near future involving Lara in her mansion like some sort of a haunted horror film, interested in what that might be like.

  In conclusion I think I basically covered everything that made this TombRaider adventure the best game I had played in 2016.  Recommended for those who like TombRaider games with action and puzzles, which may be clamoring for something besides those Uncharted games? In this case I fully recommend to those who haven't picked up the game yet on XboxOne or PC, and who might be interested in getting it on the PS4 when it comes out on October 11th 2016. Note I have played this game on the XboxOne it looked and ran great which I guess could be said the same for the PS4.

I give this game a score of GREAT, I loved it and the adventure I had with Lara herself a definite purchase.

 

 

Rise of the TombRaider Got a Mr. Mike Score of:  GREAT!
10/10/2016  Review
Played On XboxOne