Tomb Raider (PC) Review

Forget everything you knew about Tomb Raider before - this a new Lara Croft; a young woman setting off on her first adventure to uncover the secrets of the lost empire of Yamatai. Her excitement, knowledge and insecurities help produce a character that is immediately more identifiable than any that's come before. Like all good survival stories, though, this is unceremoniously shattered in a heartbeat as the Endurance - the ship that Lara and her crew are travelling on - is cracked in two by an ungodly storm as they cross into the dreaded Dragon's Triangle. Thus it begins! Lara must find her friends and get the hell off an island that seems so hell bent on destroying all she holds dear.

Here Tomb Raider takes a turn for the dark; pitch black almost. From the moment Lara regains consciousness, things just don't go her way. She finds herself strung upside down in a ghoulish cavern, blood-soaked and distressed and near impales herself upon her release. This is a precedent for things to come; the game abuses Lara, to the point of discomfort even - it's not necessarily for the fainthearted. There are some cringe-inducing moments throughout that will have players clasping their hands over their mouths and eliciting an "Oof" noise just when it looks like the heroine can't take anymore. Crystal Dynamics isn't without its reasons, however, as just when it gets too much, the game takes a different direction. It is about Lara's growth, after all.

Crystal Dynamics handles this progression well, but it's not without its faults. This is mainly due to the discord between the tense (and expertly written) narrative and the gameplay. (Minor trailer spoiler ahead) Lara's first kill shocks her to the core; it would do the same to anyone considering the circumstances she's just been put through. However, after the first incident, Lara is dropping enemies left, right, and centre without so much as batting an eyelid. It's a little odd to say the least, but thankfully the rest of the story is better handled and between the engaging, emotional cut-scenes and occasional bout of radio chatter, you become attached to several of the characters in a way that many titles fail to do these days.

This progression leads Lara to explore the island that she's been dumped on. Short of being filled with a myriad of enemies and traps that are intent on destroying Lara, it really is a beautiful place. Crystal Dynamics leads players by the hand from shadowy forests filled with stags and wolves, to cliffs with impressive vistas and gorgeous snow capped mountains that take the breath away. It's not without a sense of irony, however, that where Uncharted borrowed ideas from the original Tomb Raider (Nathan Drake is nicknamed the Dude Raider for a reason…) the developer has lifted ideas from it wholeheartedly, not in the least the impressive set pieces that help to balance out the pacing. One section involves silently taking out guards and sneaking through abandoned bunkers, whilst another requires escape from one of the many ruins that have simultaneously exploded/caught fire/collapsed or all of the above.

PC users will be pleased to hear the game has been fleshed out significantly in terms of both graphical prowess and the settings that can be employed. Handled by Nixxes Software (the people behind the Deus Ex: Human Revolution port), the team has incorporated high-resolution textures, V-sync, Dynamic Shadows, tessellation - the list goes on. One of the best new features, however, is TressFX. This is a new development by AMD and renders realistic hair; each strand floats, waves and collides with each other and moves in a much more natural way than has been seen in a game before - it's simply stunning. A note for Nvidia card users: there are performance issues on the platform (TressFX killing FPS and random crashes) due to this being AMD software, but it is getting optimised in the near future (at time of writing) - though it's a demanding title at the best of times if you want to run it at the highest settings. For this particular review, an i5 2500k processor, Crossfire (x2) AMD HD 7870 GPU, and 8GB DDR3 RAM @ 1600 Mhz (all stock) were used, giving an average FPS of 80 (locked at 60).

Lara interacts with the world in much the same way as she has done previously; climbing, shimmying, burning, and moving objects to get from A to B. Whilst the story is linear in nature, the player has the freedom to return to areas they have been through before to find collectibles (of which there are a lot) with equipment they have unlocked over the course of the campaign. Going through a lot of similar motions is a common occurrence, however, but it still manages to steer away from the mundane via the use of set pieces, enemies, and - wait for it - Quick Time Events (though it would have been nice to have a little more freedom in places). Lara is equipped with all the usual weapons that have come about this generation; a shotgun, pistol, grenade launcher and an automatic - all of which can be upgraded through the use of scavenging items. Most enjoyable to use is the bow that gets upgraded several times throughout the game to pack more punch yet, most importantly, is her greatest asset in stealth.

Combat throughout is enjoyable, with Crystal Dynamics mixing in the silent and deadly alongside the loud and voracious in equal doses - though the player can decide how they want to approach many situations. Enemies are smart, which prevents sections where you do have to make a stand becoming tedious. They will flush Lara out of cover with explosives and fire, ambush her with arrows, generally try to sneak around her and pull back when wounded to let the stronger ones into the melee. Ms. Croft is quick and agile, within reason; she puts her strength behind her axe for close encounters to incapacitate them to pull off one of several gruesome executions (depending on the weapon currently equipped) and is able to scramble/dodge around enemies. These actions can be furthered as Lara levels-up and she can be tailored to suit personal play styles, which is a nice touch to stop action becoming too stale.

One of the biggest disappointments is perhaps the lack of complex, engaging tombs. There are a handful of optional areas to find that hold a wealth of treasure, yet to access it a puzzle room (yes, singular) needs to be cracked, which lacks any form of difficulty or length and teases the player in giving them snippets of what should be, but isn't. There needs to be more, a lot more. Similarly, progression through the story is rarely hampered by difficulty, though whether that's a good thing or not is solely dependent on the player's preference.