So was the 2013 Tomb Raider any good?

I’ve skipped the series generally – I’m more of an open-world, build all the things kind of guy – but I hadn’t realized that Rhianna Pratchett wrote the story. I am curious about how much of her father’s literary ability was genetic; but it’s hard to assess when the child declines to work in the same field as the parent. So, Tomb Raider: worth it, in terms of gameplay and storyline?

9 thoughts on “So was the 2013 Tomb Raider any good?”

  1. It was well received. About the only complaint I recall is that Laura Croft has more realistic proportions. The story was widely praised, as were the gameplay and visuals.
    The SJWs kept trying to draft the game into the anti-gamergate cause, but both Pratchett and the company demurred.
    .
    I haven’t gotten around to playing it yet. It came out about the time the Far Cry series had made me heartily sick of surviving on islands. (Far Cry 3, when a good game goes much too long, and becomes aversion therapy.)
    I have the tomb raider game, it was the Games with Gold offer a few months back. I just haven’t psyched myself up to actually play it.

    1. There were also complaints that it was ‘torture porn’, because every time you do something wrong Croft dies a horrible, gruesome death, impaled on stakes or something, and it was wrong to do that to her because she was a woman. This, of course, from the same people who claim that gender is fluid, and doesn’t matter anyways.
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      I didn’t actually play it, it’s sitting on my xbox I think, from being the freebie with xbox gold awhile back, but I’ll probably get to it at some point. But I much more enjoyed the first couple of tomb raiders, because they were all about the puzzle solving, and much less about FPS’ing guys shooting at you. The 3 games released as ‘tomb raider trilogy’ about 5 years back are all quite playable tho – the second one, Anniversary, is actually a remake of the very first one in HD.
      .
      Heh, I just had an evil thought – someone really should get both the Lego license and the Tomb Raider license and do Lego Tomb Raider – get to combine the geometry puzzles with lego building puzzles.

      1. You just made me want to expose my kids to the original Prince of Persia.
        There was a time when I could run that game without dying.

  2. Yes, very much so. The others have mentioned the main complaint, that of Lara’s deaths being rather graphic. The second most popular complaint that I heard was that Lara went from “I can’t believe I killed a man” to “She just did 10 headshots in a row and seems non-plussed by that” a bit too quickly. (And the third complaint dealt with Square Enix declaring it to be a financial failure even though it sold a gajillion copies.) I still got about 12 hours out of it on PC and another 15 or so on XBox, so it’s not a bad game.
    .
    FYI though- if it’s not already in your library, wait to buy it. The current rumored Steam Summer sale start date is Thursday, and Tomb Raider has traditionally received some rather steep discounts during that sale.

  3. It was a pretty game from a scenery perspective. The gameplay itself was good, from what I recall. The story was ok, but not something I recall as being off the charts great. I thought the new Lara was pretty attractive, in the authentic, British accent, girl next door way.

    As far as the death scenes, I did find them to be a bit much (I had the same reaction to the death cut scenes from Last of Us (an adult is one thing, but a teenage girl?) There seemed to be a vogue for these death animations for a bit there. Maybe trying to create a psychological death penalty?

    Has anyone played the sequel? I liked what I saw from the trailers story wise (That Lara, while traumatized, actually found something within herself while on the first game’s island.)

      1. Quick Time Events.
        Like when you’re watching a cut-scene and you suddenly have to hit the right button to avoid dying?
        Or like Mass Effect 2, where reacting quickly makes the fight easier?

        1. Yes, to the first. Mass Effect paragon or Renegade options never really felt like QTE to me, although I guess they are. The ones in Mass effect allowed you to cut short a fight or avoid one.

          The ones in this game are always of a life and death matter though. Also, given the graphic deaths, it makes them more annoying, to my mind.

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