The Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the conclusion of the Lara Croft reboot trilogy (Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider) from Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix. The reboot of the series was a much needed reworking of the classic mid '90s cult hit, bringing much needed improvements to the gameplay and graphics whilst updating and fleshing out Lara's character and narrative to be more empowering and engaging in general.
The first Tomb Raider in the reboot was a phenomenal success, starring a naive Lara Croft thrown into a larger centuries old conspiracy after the death of her father. It was stunning from a graphical point of view and breathed life into the old franchise... Lara was a real character, and not a polygonal representation of a teenage boy's wet dreams! The uncertain and hesitant growth of Lara from the hesitant first steps of the game to a more mature confidence by the end was really something a narrative that captivating and compelling... plus, a great female central character and heroine that isn't sheer tokenism, something that is missing still from many games today.
The second of the reboot trilogy added wintery survival component to the game, with crafting and a soft survival component being the new additions to the game mechanics. It continued the story of the previous game, and had some pretty stunning revelations that made the game very much worth the sticker price! As an added bonus, there was a survival DLC that could be played as a standalone game after the actual narrative portion of the game was finished.
This brings us to the third and last game, the Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The first two games set a pretty high bar for gameplay, graphics and most importantly character development and narrative! How does the swansong for the trilogy hold up?
The Game
Shadow of the Tomb Raider has a now adept and experienced Lara Croft beginning her journey by escaping a plane crash! Well, it is a pretty epic way to start a game and a interesting way to strip her of the skills and equipment that had been accumulated over the past couple of outings! Luckily, it didn't involve any amnesia... that would have been a touch on the lame side of things!
The core Tomb Raider experience is not that much different to the previous two outings. The running, jumping, hanging and all that acrobatic stuff is still pretty much a staple part of the game. Traversing from one place to another and exploring old tombs is all present and accounted for.
However, there is very little that feels really new or inventive about the gameplay this time... all the swinging and ledge-hanging had been done before in the previous parts of the trilogy. The only real addition was the ability to rappel down from a rock hang, and then swing or wall run from that position to another lower position. It is a nice mechanic, but not really one that shakes up the game that much... it just means that there is a different way to get to ledges below you that doesn't involve climbing down a rock hang... instead, you hang off a rope and swing there. Like I said, it is curious... but not ground breaking.
... and this really does highlight the central problem with the gameplay in this last episode in the trilogy. There is much that was really innovative and cool in the previous two games, that make their appearance again here in the last installment... however, there isn't really anything that feels new and exciting about it anymore. The parts that are new... don't really add that much to the game at all!
Plus, many of the tombs, navigations and challenges are pretty linear in their approach as well. There is only one way to get from A to B... and most of it is highly signposted by the way Lara positions herself on ledges and the way the camera pans to include the relevant targets. It really feels like there isn't so much in the way of solving puzzles... and the thrill of learning how to get from one place to a seemingly inaccessible place is just not there anymore.
As from the previous installments of the trilogy, you have the skill tree and upgrade crafting that is available when you find one of the very liberally scattered campfires that exist on the world map. There are three slightly different tiers to the development of Lara's skills... but to be perfectly honest... there is very little that is really interesting. In fact, you can pretty much do without all of it... Most of the things are handy, but really don't end up making that much difference to the gameplay.
Finding artifacts and collectibles are one way of fleshing out the story a bit... and collecting that little bit of XP for leveling up skills that don't make much of a difference to the game! I can't stand it when games include collectibles for little reason other than giving you that nagging feeling that you would prefer it if some counter reached 100% completion. By about half way through the game... I stopped going out of my way to find collectibles and artifacts. They didn't add to the game and the certainly didn't really add that much more to the story and narrative either...
The Character and Narrative
At the beginning of this game... Lara is a cock-sure and somewhat arrogant character. She is racing against Trinity to find artifacts, and in the process has caused a worldwide cataclysm... she is always talking about how SHE alone is the ONLY person who can fix this or that... I really dislike her! This is stark contrast to the beginning of the trilogy, where Lara is scared and unsure... and the path to her inner strength and courage is really quite a interesting and engaging story!
In this particular episode... she is just all about herself and there is much in the scripting and voice-acting which is just completely off key. There are characters telling her about some huge life dilemma... and Lara is just ho-hum, okay... I can take a look. It is stilted and really grated on me...
Also, by this part of the trilogy... Lara is pretty blase about just going around killing people! I remember in the first game, this was a really horrible thing that she was doing... now, she's pretty happy to stick a knife into someone's back in the tutorial section... no problem! Next!
That said... there was a little flashback section of the game which did bring to mind some of the better moments in the earlier parts of the trilogy. The joy of discovery and thrill of things going wrong... this was a beautiful section to play!
Visuals, Sound and Performance
There is no doubt about it... this is a beautiful looking game... the entire thing is well crafted and a joy to look at (pity that the game world is just linear and pretty flat from a character point of view...). There are moments when you enter tombs or approach a vista... and the camera just pans out and sweeps around... WOW!
I love that they haven't had background music all the way through the game... as a musician, I'm not too keen on having music for the sake of filling audio space. This means that you really have some silence and dripping atmosphere in the sections where you would expect there to be tension.... and lively background chatter for the sections that you would expect that sort of thing.
As from previous installments of the trilogy, the death animations are really well done... there is nothing that compares to missing a jump or a maneuver and getting the death cut-scene that is relevant for that section. It is pretty graphic... and the sounds... well, it really makes you feel the cringe! It's pretty morbid... but it is amazingly well done!
Performance-wise... it is a pretty demanding game. After all, there is a reason that it is often used as a benchmark for comparing gaming rigs... however, at 1080p with decent (not ultra) settings, it ran really quite nicely on my rig (pushing a 144Hz GSync monitor...). It was a bit of a joke at the time of the first game launch... but the TressFX of Lara's hair is still something to marvel at as you jump and swim your way around the world!
Conclusion and thoughts
In many ways... this was a disappointing end to such an amazing reboot of a much beloved franchise. If this was a standalone game that was the complete reboot... then there would have been much that would have been innovative and outright stunning about the game...
However, as the evolution of the previous two games in the trilogy reboot... it falls flat. Lara is not likable in this game... the ending ties up abruptly and without really much reference to the big bad Trinity from previous games... Lara, who was much more relatable in the previous games... is now a cold-hearted killer. She really didn't develop in this game... we may as well have been playing a generic FPS shooter for all the development that she managed in this end of the trilogy.
The game world is pretty flat and uninteresting... and the NPCs are really just not that engaging either. In previous games, the best parts were when Lara was pitted against a hostile environment... not trying to interact and pretending to care about common villager problems in a remote and nearly forgotten corner of the world.
That said... it is nice to see the Trilogy tied up and completed. Even if I had wished that the story had taken a much more interesting and significant ending, as it was... the narrative of the previous two games (and the trilogy as a whole) need not have existed.
Review Hardware
Played at 1080p on:
Intel BX80662I76700 Core i7-6700 Prozessor (3,4GHz)
6GB EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 SC GAMING
GIGABYTE Z170N-WIFI
Ballistix Sport LT 16GB DDR4
Samsung 960 EVO M.2 512GB
S4 Mini Case (NFC Systems)
Splinterlands (aka the best blockchain game out there!)
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