Story builds Lara up from unsure explorer to confident adventurer and survivalist
HERE ARE SOME KEY FACTS:
As Tomb Raider begins, Lara is more an scholar than an adventurer. But when she's shipwrecked on an island full of ancient secrets and deadly cultists, she has no choice but to learn how to survive. Lara gets captured early in the game an endures a great deal of punishment. It's an unpleasant moment in which a man tries to force himself on her that's most disturbing. But as disturbing it is, it marks the start of an turning point in Lara's understanding of how she has to fight to survive. Rather than weeping or giving up because of her size and strength becoming an emotional roller-coaster she comes forth into view as a stronger person. It's exciting to go through Lara's journey from the fearful individual she is when she first arrives on the island to the confident survivor she becomes. Later in the game, when she has proven to the resident cultists that she's not the easily feared person they mistook her for, she flip the switch on them, letting loose warrior cries to strike fear into their hearts. Aspects of the story that fall outside of Lara's character arc aren't as strong; there's a twist of sorts that occurs late in the game that you see coming hours ahead of time, for instance, and the central villain offers little in the way of nuance. But as an introduction to the legendary Lara Croft, Tomb Raider's tale is a success; she comes forth with as a strong, charismatic and human figure, and you're left wanting to see what the future holds for her.
The Orgin Story:
Lara's origin story deserves an extraordinary setting. It was centuries ago when it was home to a kingdom called Yamatai. Many shrines, temples, statues and other fragments of that history remain, and often, you just want to take in these places, slowly advancing through the darkness, excited to find out what's just outside the light from your torch. The island is a beautiful place, but not every discovery is a pleasant one; Yamatai's dark history is vividly communicated in piles of bones and far more formidable things. The ancient structures of Yamatai now coexist alongside bunkers built during World War II, the wreckage of planes brought down by the storms that surround the island, and the shantytowns and makeshift machinery of the island's current inhabitants. The buildings are nestled in their rough natural surroundings, and appear damaged, and rusty. The island really feels like a place where people have lived and where great and terrible things have happened. It's a place with many facets; it has claustrophobic caverns and breathtaking vistas, and phenomena like gentle snowfalls, torrential downpours, and fierce, howling winds make it alternately seem like a tranquil place, and a brutal one.
It's quickly clear that one thing the island is not is safe, so it's a good thing that Lara soon gets her hands on a bow. You familiar yourself with using it by hunting animals (when also the wolves attack you); Lara doesn't have hunger levels you need to manage or anything, but the deer, rabbits, crabs and other creatures that call the island home make it feel much more alive. The cult that currently occupies the island doesn't exactly roll out the welcome mat, so it's not long before you need to turn that bow (and, soon, a pistol, rifle, and shotgun) on humans. Combat is varied and very suspenseful; some situations give you the opportunity to take a stealthy approach, sneaking up behind enemies to perform silent kills, or firing arrows into walls to distract them and picking them off from a distance with well-aimed arrows while their comrades aren't looking.
During one particularly tense battle in a fog-shrouded forest, patrolling foes hunt you with flashlights; if you can manage to stay unseen, you can shift from being hunted to the hunter, using their focal point of light to see their exact positions and taking them out one by one. Then, there are the all-out firefights. When your presence is known, enemies are smart and aggressive about flushing you out from cover with grenades and Molotovs, which forces you to keep moving and act boldly. Many enemies attack from a distance while others get in close, so you need to be constantly on your toes, switching between your weapons on the fly and evading foes who attack with melee weapons. Dodging and countering melee attacks is easy, but the savage animations of Lara's counters make eliminating those foes who make the mistake of getting too close to you a guaranteed satisfaction. Lara eventually finds powerful new tools like a grenade launcher and fire arrows, and uses the salvage she collects to upgrade her weapons, so combat offers more to work with and becomes more intense as you progress through the game. Throughout it all, great sound design drives home the impact of your actions; delivering a shotgun blast into the face of a nearby enemy is made all the more powerful by the resounding report the gun lets loose, and the conversations you overhear between cultists create a feeling that they're not just enemies who spawn into the environment to hinder you, but are people with histories on the island and tasks to accomplish.
As great as the combat is, it's the quieter moments in Tomb Raider that are most affecting. The simple act of moving, of shimmying along ridges and climbing up craggy rock walls, is a pleasure, thanks to the excellent controls and the fantastic environments. Once in a while, Lara appears to get a bit of divine assistance and float through the air to successfully land a jump you botched the timing on, but with these rare exceptions aside, the controls let you experience a wonderfully physical and agile relationship with your surroundings. As Lara acquires new weapons over the course of the game, she also gets her hands on gear tha
