Tomb Raider: Explorer's Journey into Cult of Croft

If your only recollection of Tomb Raider is the two marginal flicks staring Angelina Jolie, do yourself a favour and look up Lara Croft. Long story short, she's an intelligent, athletic, explorer of ancient tombs, who happens to collect valuable trinkets—a total everyday woman.

This time the party responsible for unhinging the crypt again is Crystal Dynamics: a company famed for creating Gex and the Legacy of Kain games. If you're expecting a hot-pants sporting, dual-pistol wielding Lara of old, you may be a little surprised.

For this title, Crystal Dynamics chose to focus on the origin story of fan favourite English archaeologist, Lara Croft. A time when she seems less experienced, yet determined to make her mark nevertheless. Proving once again that archaeology can be a very demanding trade.

Will of Yamatai

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After a violent shipwreck, Lara finds herself bound and hanging upside down in a confined cave. In a frenzied attempt to escape her predicament, Lara lands on a protruding spike which punctures through her abdomen (good job freeing her). Bloodied and hurt, she stumbles through the darkness into a gory sacrificial chamber. Her discovery indicates a beginning of a malicious struggle she must overcome to escape the mysterious Yamatai island, and its brutish inhabitants: The Solarii Brotherhood.

In an attempt to flee a volatile roundup of her crew-mates, Lara is forced to kill for the first time. This scene is absolutely brutal and not for the squeamish. It also sets the tonality of the entire game: you must learn to survive at all cost. In fact, the entire game engine is set up on that premise. And that's a good thing. You'll hunt, collect artifacts, explore puzzle-filled tombs, and combat waves of crazed enemies.

Every enemy that you neutralize can be searched for items. And many weapon upgrades can be found as you progress. Your movement is not restricted by a preset path, as the stages intertwine and change in layout as the story moves on. There's also plenty of opportunities to back-track with new weapon upgrades to uncover more areas and story tidbits. My favourite way of traversing is using Lara's bow to shoot ropes across great chasms and then zip-lining away.

Crafting with Croft

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Reaching a campsite provides opportunity for respite, and enables Lara to use gained experience points to unlock skills and abilities. Those can range from survival skills, such as, arrow recovery and more space to carry ammo, to combat upgrades that make you more proficient at stealth kills. (Stabbing a foe in the toe with an arrow just to axe him in the head never gets old.) The best part about this experience-based upgrading is that it feels like a natural way of gaining skills as the game progresses.

The game's design esthetic borrows from Eastern cultures, and integrates imposing statues, temples, and modern scavenged technology to create a distinctive tapestry of memorable visuals. The island itself is prone to extreme and changing weather patters which prevent you from reaching your goal safely. The environmental conditions in this game are stunning, especially when coupled with the highly detailed and realistic structures of the ancient island.

Blinding winds blanket the landscape, tearing apart everything that's not bolted down. Lightning bolts strike mountains, moving the very ground you're on—swiftly providing some inverted platforming travel. And there are plenty of crazy action sequences: Lara crushes through a falling B-52, and smashes into its glass cockpit with just enough time to reach for a parachute before the glass cracks, then free-falls through a dense forest canopy hoping for a safe landing. I hope you like quick-time events because there are many.

Journey-Woman Lives
 

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The story is fantastic, and structured with tight and mature writing. A forgotten ancient tribe that worshiped a supernatural queen, a violent and raging cult, fearsome bloodthirsty Japanese demons, and plenty of emotional scenes to tie it all together. Indeed, the mysterious dark island possess many dreadful secrets for Lara to uncover as she progresses. The voice acting is great, and the entirety of the dialogue feels like a well crafted script. Penned by, Rhianna Pratchett, and voiced by English actress, Camilla Luddington, this new young Lara is in the right hands. Or vocal chords I should say.

The music in the game tends to build tension, and feels like a natural extension of the environments you travel through: chimes, woodwind instruments, subtle piano parts, and some very strange horror-like FX—made by a homemade steel contraption, used for all the intense encounters in the game. This standout score was composed by Jason Graves, whose work can be heard in the Dead Space series and Star Trek: Legacy.

The multilayer component of the game is also worth a mention. There's the standard PvP combat, Private Rescue where teams must move medical supplies to marked locations, and Cry for Help, which involves exploring the map to retrieve batteries and defending radio beacons from scavengers by setting traps. All the mechanics from the main game carry over to multilayer, making this—first-ever—addition to Tomb Raider functional and fun.

Gloom and Shine

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My only issue with the game was the graphic depictions of Lara's numerous deaths. When Lara dies, she really dies in agony. What's really unsettling about it, is that the game auto saves right before dying. This repeats the fatality until you get the timing of the button press, or become proficient at avoiding lethal objects. I don't have issues with gory content if it delivers a more believable experience, but some of the scenarios got a bit daunting for my taste.

Also, the survival skills that seemed interesting in the beginning, like gathering meat from killed animals, were rendered useless rather quickly. Mostly because Lara's health regenerates fast, and combat becomes more predominate later on. And there's the guide markers: Ledges marked with flashing lines, which tend to stand out too much from the environment and delude the immersion factor.

Putting the gory bits and shinny delusions aside, I'm happy to say that playing this revival of the Lara Croft franchise was like stumbling upon a valued historical artifact in my backyard: an experience definitely worth treasuring. Marooned on a mysterious island, Lara must learn to survive in a very hostile environment. Driven by her astounding inborn determination she must overcome her vulnerabilities and become a survivor. Will you help her find her way?

Tomb Raider gets five benevolent Japanese figurines out of five. 

Developer: Crystal Dynamics
Publisher: Square Enix
Platform: PS3/4, Xbox 360/One, OS X
Genre: Action Adventure
Released: 2013

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