Review: Tomb Raider

It's been awhile since I was so incredibly surprised and pleased by just how good a game is.  I had heard good things about Tomb Raider before trying it, but I wasn't expecting it to get just about every game mechanic it had so very right.  The game has sneaking, shooting (if you fail sneaking), melee combat (if you fail shooting), item collection, exploration, upgrade-able skills, movie-level cutscenes and action sequences, and more.  It even managed to have quicktime events that I almost enjoyed!

If you've played any Uncharted games, the story will be very familiar, a group of archaeologists are looking for some location of legend, find it, get more than they bargain for, fight another group of people and the supernatural goings-on to try to survive and get back home.  To be fair, I'm pretty sure Tomb Raider had this story format first (and Indiana Jones before that), but there are definitely some game and story elements in the game I recognize from Uncharted.  It should also be noted, this is my first Tomb Raider game I've ever played.

The game is fairly linear in nature, but each area has a lot of rewards for exploring.  The few times the game makes you backtrack to previous areas there have either been major changes to the environment that makes it feel new or you have new abilities/gear that lets you access new areas and new secrets.  In each area with collectibles, there are one or two treasure maps that reveal the location of the other collectibles in the area.  You can also unlock an ability that lets you mark hidden collectibles on your map when you see them in Survival Instinct (like Batman's Detective Vision and Assassin's Creed's Eagle Vision).  You can also unlock a skill that reveals the location of all the treasure maps.  This means that if you really must collect everything (like me), you have ways to ensure you don't miss a thing.  You'll have more than enough experience and scrap (to upgrade weapons) by the end of the game to have everything fully upgraded, so you aren't forced to play through the game multiple times to collect everything.  The combat always made me feel powerful, but still required me to pay attention and be strategic about how I took out the enemies.  It's also the first game where I felt like using the bow was the most fun (I only used the shotgun in one fight and used the bow the rest of the game).  All in all, if you enjoy a game with collectibles, upgrades, and a movie feel to it (so your spouse/friends can still be entertained watching you play) then I can't recommend this game enough.