Rise of the Tomb Raider Review.

By Sam Coles:

Tomb Raider has been an icon in video games for over two decades alongside characters like Mario, Sonic, Link and Snake. Rise of the Tomb Raider is the sequel to the 2013 reboot that came out on Xbox 360 and PS3; however this game for now is an Xbox exclusive which has ruffled some feathers, but it doesn’t stop it from being a good game.

Rise of the Tomb Raider takes place a few years after the events of the other game where Lara Croft discovered a Sun cult where they were crazy and worshipped a sun goddess. Lara is trying to finish what her father started by finding an artefact that grants the user eternal life, she is not the only one because an ancient organisation called Trinity are after it as well. The story goes through twists and turns as Lara finds out how her father actually died. The acting in this game is great for the most part, but some of Lara’s lines are delivered awkwardly but the performances are superb most of the time.

Gameplay is very familiar if you’ve played the reboot back in 2013, but they have tweaked it in terms of how Lara controls, combat and the crafting. For once crafting and collecting resources actually has a purpose rather than it being an optional side quest. The reason why I say it has a purpose because sometimes there will be areas that are set in open ended forests where ammo is scarce and you only have tree branches to craft arrows or plants to tend to your injuries. It gives a real Bear Grylls feeling where you have little resources and you have to use your wits and use stealth to take down your enemies, but it does throw this atmosphere out the window in the latter half of the game. Combat has been given an improvement as you can craft different arrows on the fly rather than going through a menu, although taking cover does still seem to be an issue.

The presentation in this game is fantastic the facial animation is remarkable where you can see each eyebrow rise to the spot on lip syncing; even Lara’s hair has an insane amount of detail put in to it. The environments are beautiful and breathe taking with wide open vistas for you to explore and even destroy as you go through a daring escape. The sound design can be hit and miss, the dialogue is great and ambience is great too, however the some of the weapon noises sound a bit lacklustre because the assault rifle sounds like some attached a playing card to a bicycle and started to pedal.

The only nit-picks I have with this game is that the climbing controls can be a bit fiddly as sometimes I’m not sure what direction Lara is going to jump which sometimes end up with me plummeting to my death.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a great game with good action, an interesting story and spectacular graphics. If you’re looking for a good action adventure game to play on your Xbox One then I would highly recommend getting this game.