It's almost been two weeks since the game was offered for free to PSN+ users, and I imagined many who grabbed it probably finished it by now. I picked this game up on Black Friday & barely finished it last week, so I thought it would be the perfect time to discuss it.

When I saw the first gameplay footage of TR, I was turned off by it:

Yuck! Look at that scripted gameplay. After I saw that, I didn't bother watching anymore footage of TR since I had no interest in another scripted-Uncharted type game. It's not like I was a fan of the old TR games anyways, well maybe Legend (which was a kick-ass game btw). Years passed by, and I decided to pick it up late last year since it was dirt cheap.

After finishing it, I was glad I gave it a chance (even it was from impulse). The whole game isn't like that crappy E3 demonstration; it's just the beginning and a few set-pieces scattered throughout the game, which are very short btw. It's a very solid game with great character development for the most part on Lara, big areas to fight & explore, lots of collectables & optional stuff and well pretty fun to play. Hopefully the next game will truly be open-world.

The things I didn't like about TR were the over-abundance of ammo and the firefights. The amount of ammo you can find pretty much ruined the survival aspect of the game since it's impossible to run out of ammo. You don't have to play it smart or conserve ammo since there's no fear of running out.

Also, the amount of firefights was a little ridiculous because it kind of conflicted with Lara's character development. When we first start out the game, we see her as a scared, vulnerable girl. A few hours later, she's killing 20+ men and isn't afraid of them. WTF? It had a nice pacing at first: she couldn't believe she killed someone, then she goes into stealth killing, but fighting wave after wave of enemies was too unbelievable. They made sense at the end though, but maybe that's because I've seen her involved in too many firefights before reaching that stage.

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Cliffs:
+ Great character development
+ Big areas to fight/explore
+ Nice graphics
+ Great camera angles when climbing set-pieces
+ Lots of collectibles & tombs to explore
+ Not scripted
+ Lara moans a lot

- Too many ammo kills the survival aspect of TR
- Early Firefights were unbelievable for Lara's character
- Have to fast travel to explore areas visited before

I'm glad I was wrong with my initial impression since this is a very solid game.
8.5/10

I thought the game was awesome but I hate that slutty new look with the "definitive" edition

It's not Tomb Raider. It's Uncharted with a Lara Croft skin.

I never did play the original games on PS1, but I thought the reboot was great! Definitely one of the best Action Adventures of this gen. And DEFINITELY better than Uncharted!

i love it.

uncharted no doubt took the tomb raider idea and made the whole genre awesome again. tomb raider could have come off a bit "me too" with their reboot but i would say they took uncharted's reinventions and carved a nice set of it's own personality.

i really liked that it was quasi-open world. yes things were fairly linear but they always did a nice job of having 3-4 routes on the way from A to B. that is something i hope the next uncharted does too. they do that occasionally but not nearly as well as tomb raider did.

also, i loved the bow an arrow combat. it's not the first time a game has used it but it was the first in a long time for me and it felt really well implemented and really fresh.

i do wish the side quests (tombs) were a bit more elaborate. the side quests are a great place to really challenge a player as they aren't critical for progression. they were a bit too easy but a nice diversion none-the-less.

great game, i'll buy the next tomb raider if it is in the same general style.

It was amazing. I loved the settings a lot.

And I think I went the whole game using only the bow. So much fun to use.

Thats funny, since a lot of people view uncharted as tomb raider with a dude

Part of it did feel like Uncharted...or any other action-adventure game because of the firefights and setpieces. However, TR did a great job setting itself apart from all the other action-adventure games especially in the beginning: only weapons were a bow & pistol with very low ammo capacity, had to rely on tools for progression, given different options such as going stealth or taking whichever route you liked to your destination, everything was done because of necessity, hunting animals/plants for points, etc.

It did went from an adventure-survival game into more of an action game later on in the game, but I still believe it did more than enough to differentiate itself from Uncharted (or all the other action games). The tones between both Uncharted & TR were very different as well.

It was better than UC 2 and 3 IMO because a lot less linear, more deep playing (with gameplay and everything really) and "levels" are bigger, more interesting and with more living stuff.

They could almost make a open-world game engine from this game, it's trully impressive technically, even on PS3.

I liked it so much than I am gonna buy the game for my collection and to support the devs. (played it with PSN+ and almost feel like I stole the game...PSN+ is ridiculous)

9/10

Still haven't got around to it. Lara looks hideous in the definitive edition so maybe i'll get it for 360...