tomb raider has been rebooted a good few times now, the 2006 game and its trilogy were essentially a reboot and then this came along and did it again and now we even have rumours of another one on the horizon from amazon, it's not a consistant series like that, each series plays very differently and has a different feel to them, this one was tomb raiders darker, edgier reboot, and not the fun silly edge of angel of darkness but an actual *rough* edge more in line with a lot of media of the time, overly violent and gritty and it actually worked for it, this i think is one of the best games in the series and the changes it makes to the tone and the gameplay both work very well, i think it's maybe even one of the best games of its whole generation and probably my overall favourite take on the character and he franchise.

with the much darker tone came changes in gameplay too, this one is much less puzzle focused like the early games and doubles down on the more actiony take that the legend series had, sure there's still puzzles here with the environmental traversal and you have a few optional challange tombs that all contain different light and physics puzzles that are honestly one of the games highlights, but it's more or less a straight action game now, very similar to uncharted but doing enough of its own thing that it doesn't feel entirely right to compare them, sure it has the climbing, the set pieces and the gunplay but it also has metroidvania elements with the different gadgets and items you find opening up new ways of interacting with the environment (like rope arrows to make ziplines, a lighter to make torches and light up debrees or a pick that can pry open things) and a small interconnected world full of collectables and currency you can use to upgrade your weapons and these really make it feel wholley its own. the weapon upgrades are really cool by the way, they actuall show up on your weapon and as the game goes on you can even modify your weapons into new types, like turning your pistol into a magnum or your WW2 mahchine gun into a more modern AK, it's very detailed and fun to see them get better as laura also gets better. you also have a leveling system and perks too and these can give you small things like more finishers or a pocket sand attack for blinding enemies, but it isn't as cool or even as useful as the weapon upgrades i found. the combat in the game is similar enough on a surface level though, you can incorporate some of your gadgets like the rope and fire arrows into attacks which is really fun, pulling an enemy off a ledge to his death was always really funny but the rest of the combat is just very standard third person shooter, but its very scrappy and it has that survivally feel to it, changing weapons on the fly and scrambling around for cover and ammo, you have a limited pool of weapons with just the 4 and a melee attack but it feels like there's some depth to it and you do also get some alternate fire modes to help even, fire arrows, dragons breath ammo that does more damage and ads fire but has a slower cooldown, the gun has a rapid fire mode that's really useful and an almost broken granade launcher that you can even upgrade to have flak granades, ad to this the stealth and the optional silencers for the guns and you have a ton of choices for combat, it's not on imsim level but it's well above the open ended combat of even the likes of one of the better far cry's, it's pretty difficult at times too but it's not unforgiving and i never ran out of ammo either. there's also the set pieces, these are great, sure it's just specticle but you can still die during them and they're varied and interesting, sliding downhill from a plane crash thats tumbling towards you, fighting giant samurai during a storm, escaping a burning castle or climbing a gondola that's being destroyed by a gunner

it's a beautiful game too, it's a late ps3 game sure and it's one of the best looking, it feels impressive to me that it even runs on the console at all, there's very impressive environments here and the art direction is great too, the fire in some of the later levels during an escape sequence from a big castle and the snow during a brief mountain level both look especially amazing, beyond the character models which can look a little rough, like lower rent life is strange models, the game looks like a ps4 title even on ps3, but on ps4 it really is indistinguishable from many of the systems launch titles with how much better the models and environments look, it even has some pretty neat hair physics that they were super proud to show off at the time. the soundtrack by jason graves (who has also worked on games like lawbreakers, the dead space games, DMC DMC, alpha protocol and personal favourite VR game moss) isn't much to write about though, it's good yeah, but it's also very stock, you know, it doesn't stand out at all like a lot of earlier tomb raider osts, the first two games especially, it's very stock "action movie" game music,i really dislike writing about this kind of OST because they're always just, good, but boring, they're there but they aren't something you can really think about or consider, you know, you'll never see people using it as BGM the same way you would like, the FF7 ost or the deadly premonition ost, it's not even really a strike against it because it's designed to blend in to the game and enhance it like that, but it's just difficult to write about other than being like "yeah it's good and it fits".

the same could not be said for the story though, which is great! tomb raider i don't think is ever given as much credit for the plots as they deserve, sure some of the earlier games are a bit basic but as they went on the stories started being really fun rides, the legend trilogy is fantastic and even some of the classic games like angel of darkness can be really engaging with their edgy stuff, but i think the reboot games handle the story the best, this games whole arc is really well done, it's got tons of cool thematic moments that pays tribute to those old games (the final boss especially and when the game goes full supernatural it's a great spectacle) and still does its own thing with the character, she's not cocky like the earlier games but a determined survivor and the game is just about building that up and it does it well, you care about lara and the crew of the ship that she came with, they're all fun characters and when they get picked off you actually do care, i especially liked the angry scottish ship captain and lara's mentor (but the nerdy self insert guy is kind of the worst if yk yk he ads nothing of value to the game) you can even find notes and stuff that expands heavy on the lore and the lore is actually worth getting invested in because yamatai is a really cool setting, arguably the best in the series, cool designs and a really varied place overall with dense jungles, a huge shanty town, stormy beaches and even a whole big snow area and the area has a lot of historical japanese buildings too that have a lot of detail, same with the relics that you can find scattered about that even give you little bits of information relating to their history.

the game is decently long, i'd say between 6 and 7 hours and maybe a few more if you really want all the collectables like the letters and the relics, there's a tacked on multiplayer too which is a little fun considering how good the baseline combat is but you won't get a match super easily, somehow both times i did i was able to though and it seemed fun enough, but very laggy and it was an almost empty match. for ports you have a few options, the original ps3 ver looks and plays great and it was how i did it my first run, but it's servers are even deader for multiplayer and it doesn't have the dlc, which is mostly costumes and multiplayer anyway, the ps4 ver looks better and runs better and has all the dlc, but it's also significantly more expensive for a physical copy, the pc version also has some weird quirks with exclusive graphics options but i don't know enough about it to say much, it also doesn't seem to have a real physical copy so i'd never reccomend that version anyway. the game also had 2 sequels with rise of the tomb raider and shadow of the tomb raider, some ports of the original trilogy and even some spinoffs with lara croft go, a puzzle game and a isometric twinstick with lara croft and the temple of osiris plus a movie adaptatiob that's, okay? it only adapts some of the game like the setting and a few set pieces but it's mostly just original stuff that cuts sam and the endurance crew, it's fine but the angelina jolie movies based on the original games are a better watch. crystal dynamics are in a weird spot though sadly, after the mega flop of the avengers (which i did play and like though) they were sold to embracer and uh, well, not looking too good for them i guess, but there is another game supposedly on the horizon and they are apparently working on the new perfect dark.... which is also in development hell, but they're a talented studio, they helped make TR games even before this with the legend trilogy, the legacy of kain games, mad dash racing & GEX and even some deus ex projects like snowblind, they deserve success in this industry and i hope they're able to find it again.