Shadow of the Tomb Raider Review

Right, well its time for a new review finally and this one will be on the action/adventure video game, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which concludes the gritty reboot of the TR franchise.

Now, I have to confess not always having been a fan of the reboot games as they kind of drifted off the whole idea of the franchise for me with a more violent and altogether more serious approach with the first game being pretty good but the sequel, Rise, pushing the series in the wrong direction for me. 

So, with that all said how does Shadow of the Tomb Raider fair? Well, let's take a look...

And as I will mention a bit about the story, the usual warning is coming...

PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD!! (NOT TOO MANY THOUGH!)

So, just for time, I lifted this plot section from the Wikipedia page.

"In the two months since Rise of the Tomb Raider, Lara Croft (voiced by Camille Luddington) and her friend Jonah Maiava (Earl Baylon) have dedicated themselves to stopping the activities of paramilitary organization Trinity. The two track a cell to Cozumel in Mexico that is led by Pedro Dominguez (Carlos Leal), the head of Trinity's High Council. Slipping inside nearby tombs being excavated by Trinity, Lara discovers a temple containing the Dagger of Chak Chel and references to a hidden city. Murals adorning the walls allude to the Silver Box of Ix Chel and warn of "the Cleansing", a Mayan apocalypse culminating in a permanent solar eclipse. Lara ignores the warnings and takes the Dagger to prevent Trinity from acquiring it. Dominguez catches her and reveals that by taking the Dagger, Lara has triggered the Cleansing. He takes the Dagger, intending to unite it with the Box to stop the Cleansing and use the power it grants him to remake the world in his image. Lara and Jonah escape a tsunami that destroys Cozumel and foreshadows the coming apocalypse..."

THOUGHTS

Well, after the disappointment of Rise of the Tomb Raider (well imho at least anyway) Shadow of the Tomb Raider sees the series get back on track as it is a far more entertaining and gripping action game than the Rise was. Here we also get to see a bit of further insight into Lara's character and her past as she dreams of her childhood and the events leading up to her father's death. Also more importantly, the game also re-establishes the close friendship between Lara and her good friend, Jonah and this time round we finally get to see them enjoy some friendly banter together, which finally shows a few shades of Lara's lighter side, which this trilogy frankly really needed. 

The action this time round is also really good as are the tomb exploration aspects of the game and Lara's traversing dangerous environments makes up much of what makes the game enjoyable to pick up and play. The puzzles can also be quite tricky to get your head round of course and unfortunately I've never been that great at them but that aside its part of what makes the game fun (and at times a bit annoying) to play all the same.

GAMEPLAY

Moving onto the gameplay, this section will be pretty big and as usual will be split into smaller sections as below. 

MOVEMENT

So, starting with movement, the game follows pretty much the same moves as in the previous games as Lara can run, jump, shimmy round cliff edges, climb of course (lol!) and swim. However, this time a new feature has been added to the swimming ability as Lara can discover air pockets underwater where she can come up for air, which is pretty handy and reduces the risk of her drowning. Lara can also use a grapple to grab onto beams in mid-jump as well as a climbing axe to scale the side of cliffs and in addition she can rapel down cliff sides too.

COMBAT

Combat wise, the game also introduces new stealth tactics as she can now cover herself in mud to camoflague herself from enemies and hide in bushes where she can perform stealth kills. That aside, Lara has access to various different firearms that include handguns, assault rifles and shotguns as well as use her bow for ranged takedowns. Lara can also craft arrows for her bow that can be regular or fire arrows and there is a new addition here of fear arrows that contain a fear toxin that when fired at an enemy will cause them to panic and open fire on anyone nearby. 

CAMP FIRES, CRAFTING & SKILL POINTS

Lara can also like in the previous games, use camp fires to rest at that act as checkpoint saves for the player and while she does she can craft ammo and upgrade her weapons and she does this by collecting items found throughout the areas in the game. So, Lara can upgrade different aspects of her firearms such as increase ammo clips, rate of fire, attach additional grips etc. Lara also accumlates skill points as she progresses in the game and from resting as the fires, this will allow her access to a unique series of abilities from here that enhance her stealth, attack abilities as well as allow her improve her climbing/swimming capabilities and these abilities are very important for Lara's progress.

TOMBS & PUZZLES

Throughout the game there are also plenty of tombs for Lara to explore and in them many traps and dangerous obstacles to overcome and some of the puzzles can be quite challenging to figure out too. Again I found some of the tombs to be tricky to work through and it really is a case of trial and error to figure out (or rather in my case just look walkthrough videos on Youtube for these tombs lol!).

HUNTING & HEALING

And lastly, Lara can also hunt in the wild using her bow to take down animals either for food or to hide their skins to create new outfits or indeed enhance them. Lara can also use herbs in the game for healing her health but also in some cases to boost her endurance as well as sharpen her senses to detect enemies, traps etc. And when you press the L3 button on the PS4 for e.g. this will highlight areas of interest as well as enemies or animals in the area. Lara can upgrade her senses through the inventory menu while she rests at the camp fires.  

GRAPHICS

As for the game's graphics, there is little doubt that this is best looking game visually in the series so far as the graphics are simply amazing. And the game's environments really do look stunning and they are pretty varied in their design not to mention very expansive too and in particular, Paititi, which comes to be the main area of the game, is rich in detail and just jaw-dropping overall to look at. The character models are also terrific here too as Lara looks great again although this time round Jonah has got a weird hairdo and seems to have gotten bigger! That aside, the game is visual treat and feast for the eyes as the environments and characters are all terrific and its easily the best looking to date.

VOICE ACTING

Moving onto the voice acting, the game's cast are all excellent and put in fine performances overall.

Starting with Camille Luddington who does another fine job as Lara Croft as she gives Lara a range of emotions for anger, sadness, grief to believe it or not, actual happiness as her take on Lara has never been the cheeriest! I would however say there are times in the game where Camille's voice does come over as being a bit robotic and flat when Lara is just exploring, which is a bit strange sounding given the rest of her performance is very good and the only other thing that bugged me about her was the way in which she said "Paititi" as I found it a bit grating after a while! That aside, Camille does very well in her role as Lara.

Earl Baylon is excellent once again as Jonah, Lara's emotional rock and best friend and he thankfully manages to enjoy a bit more of a light hearted friendship with Lara this time round. Jonah is certainly one of the most popular characters in the reboot franchise and its good to see him brought back once again and Baylon's vocal performance is solid throughout. 

As for the supporting cast, Carlos Leal is also very good as the main villain of the game, Pedro Dominguez, the leader of Trinity (the main antagonists in the reboot franchise) and he manages to give his character an extra dimension rather than be just a flat, one-note villain. Patricia Velasquez is excellent too as Queen Unuratu, who helps Lara in her quest to try and stop Dominguez and she proves herself to be something of a badass too when it comes to hand to hand combat! And last of all Kamran Lucas does a pretty good job as Etzli, who is the son of Unuratu and the rightful ruler of Paititi in future once Unuratu has passed on.   

FLAWS

As for flaws...yeah OK Shadow isn't quite perfect.

And for starters, one thing I would say is that there are sections of the game that can be a pain, especially ones where you need to evade Trinity soldiers in the forests as there are times where you can be easily rumbled and killed quickly. The stealth tactics of the game overall work well enough and you can kill enemies and conceal them if Lara is crouching in bushes however it would be better if Lara could drag the bodies out of sight if she isn't near any bushes, so that way enemies won't be rattled so easily.

This brings me onto another issue with the game as there is a section where Lara is forced to use stealth to kill Trinity soldiers and during this whole time can ONLY use her knife! I mean what the hell?! She can pick up weapons and ammo from fallen enemies prior to this so why the hell can she not do it here?! I think its basically designed to challenge the player a bit more at this point specifically I guess but it doesn't make any less annoying.

I also found some of the game's puzzles a bit well....puzzling lol! For example there is the one where Lara and Jonah have to fill up buckets of water to allow them to cross a bridge but in that puzzles its not even remotely obvious where you need to go to solve it. So, in the end I did the usual and looked it up on Youtube and I had to walk underneath a pathway to resolve it! So, yep well done Square Enix on confusing things on that one! 

Another issue was to do with the sequence where Lara has to fight against a particularly nasty and pesky jaguar, who chases her and in the sequence Lara basically has evade it and pump it full of arrows to finally put it down! I mean, why the hell does she need so many arrow to kill this thing?! Is it a genetically enhanced jaguar??? Realistically I think the jaguar would be down after just one or two arrows and that's it but nope, here you need to fire about 10-15 arrows in the bloody thing before it dies! So, yep so much for reality but it is only a game I guess.

I also think some of Lara's death animations were pretty silly as you see her fall for smaller heights than some of the other drops she makes and she dies anyway! So, for e.g. there is one where she basically falls into the water and she suddenly turns, hits her face on the rocks and dies. Yeahhh... I mean the fall in this instance really wasn't that high at all, so it does highlight the whole inconsistency of the game's fall damage but this isn't anything new in gaming. 

WARNING: SPOILER IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH!

And last of all on a plot point, I find it a bit amazing how just so self absorbed Lara is early on in the game that she is more interested in solving riddles than help the people that were affected by a catastrophe she caused by removing a sacred dagger from a temple. And in an early cutscene even Jonah is yelling at Lara, telling her they need to help the people that were affected by a tsunami caused by her actions. However in the next scene, they are on a plane chasing after Dominguez like nothing had happened! So, yeah...Lara's actions early on are certainly questionable to say the least!

Also further to this point, Lara near the start of the game is busy taking photos in a tomb but she accidentally triggers timed explosive charges and is forced to flee the tomb. However, in the scene Lara just stands there taking more pictures and it takes Jonah to grab her and get her out of the tomb! Now if Jonah wasn't there, you'd really think that would have been the end of Lara right then and there and her thirst for knowledge would be the one that'd get her killed more than anything else! So, yeah that scene was a bit daft, also that and how Lara wasn't more careful walking around the tomb and not checking for any traps. 

So, that's it for the flaws.

SUM UP

So, in summary, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a very solid and enjoyable entry in the TR franchise reboot and it thankfully sees Lara start to lighten up (albeit just a little!) after her dreary entry in Rise of the Tomb Raider where she totally serious. The game's action is again very solid and the game's platforming and traversing remains a real highlight as does its incredible visuals. It remains to be seen whether or not Camille Luddington will return to the voice role of Lara Croft but there is little doubt that she has done a fine job overall with her performance here and the rest of the cast are equally as good.

And yeah there are one or two issues here and there but nothing that detracts from the enjoyment of the game and I would definitely say that Shadow of the Tomb Raider is worth a look.

So, that's it for now and I will return sometime soon with another post.

Till then, bye for now!