Title: Video Game Review: Rise of the Tomb Raider - Now With Real Tombs
Author: Mindless Pixie
Recovered Author: Mindless Pixie
Published Date: 2015-12-07
Original URL: https://geeknode.co.za/2015/12/review-rise-of-the-tomb-raider-now-with-real-tombs
Wayback URL: https://web.archive.org/web/20170710225838id_/http://www.geeknode.co.za/2015/12/review-rise-of-the-tomb-raider-now-with-real-tombs/
Recovery Confidence: high
Categories: Games
Tags: Lara Croft, rise of the tomb raider, Square Enix, tomb raider

- Developer Crystal Dynamics
- Publisher Square Enix
- Distributor Microsoft
- Where we got our copy Microsoft
- Game modes Single Player
- Players 1
- Reviewed on Xbox One

- Available on PC, Xbox One

- Mindless Pixie

- 2 years ago

- 1 0

I was very late to the party with Tomb Raider A Survivor is Born, and could kick myself for waiting so long before playing the game. It turned out to be right up my alley. Platforming. Puzzles (well… a little bit). Stealth. Upgrades. Hunting. Female protagonist. After having some hands on time with Rise of the Tomb Raider at rAge ( check out my ramblings here ) I was sold and decided to get it on release, something I rarely do now a days as my To-Play pile is quite daunting.

Rise of the Tomb Raider released for Xbox One and Xbox 360 on 10 November 2015. The game is scheduled for release on PC (windows) early 2016, and for PlayStation 4 in late 2016.

After the unexplainable events on Yamatai, Lara starts questioning if her father’s obsessions with myths, were the ravings of a mad man, or if he was right, that there were things that could not be explained. She starts looking into her father’s research on the lost city of Kitezh and the promise of immortality. The research leads her to Syria and eventually to Siberia where the game picks up the story, on a mountainside accompanied by Jonah.

In this game you learn more about Lara’s past through flashbacks and old recordings made by Lara’s father unlocked as the story unfolds. Lara struggles with her past, the events on Yamatai and her own belief that her father lost his mind. The history of the area gets told through collecting documents and relics and contains stories from how the city of Kitezh was built, the Prophet’s flight before the religious organization Trinity, specific recollections of people from the past and the present.

I found the story a lot more interesting and engaging than that of Yamatai with Father Mathias and Queen Himiko. Being a bit of a completionist I would try to get all the collectibles, but this time I was looking forward to the next piece of a specific story more than just wanting to collect all the things. I also quite enjoyed that the game wasn’t just a constant struggle to save Sam. This game feels more like a Tomb Raider game, Lara is fully kitted out and ready to do some tomb raiding! Where the previous game was focused on survival and finding a way to escape Yamatai, Rise of the Tomb raider is Lara running headlong into danger trying to uncover the mysteries of the Prophet. A lot of the gameplay mechanics also seem to make more sense within the plot. In Tomb Raider it felt odd looking for relics and tombs while your friends have been captured by a mad man, in Rise of the Tomb Raider you’ve come on a mission to find lost relics and it feels more natural to go off into a tomb looking for goodies.

The pacing was handled quite well. There were a few jarring moments that left me just staring at the screen for a few moments trying to compose myself again, with some nice quieter bits to allow you to explore and stock up on any resources you might need. They have toned down the gore of the game quite a bit, there are only a few places where you get treated to a gory death cinematic unlike the previous game that seemed to have a death cinematic for everything.

The difficulty settings have changed a bit, instead of having the standard Easy, Normal and Hard modes, Rise of the Tomb Raider has four difficulty settings and lists the modifiers that effects each setting. I quite like this as there is more to the difficulty setting than just giving the enemies more health and fire power. You can choose from the following:

Adventurer – Focus on Lara’s adventure, combat will be easier

- Combat has aim assistance enabled

- Enemies have lower health and damage

Tomb Raider – A good balance of difficulty

- Combat has aim assistance disabled

- Enemies have normal health and damage

Seasoned Raider – Challenging combat experience

- Combat has aim assistance disabled

- Health Regeneration is only available outside of combat

- Enemies have increased health and damage

- Enemies have increased senses

Survivor – Push your survival skills to the limit

- Combat has aim assistance disabled

- Health regeneration is disabled

- Enemies have increased health and damage

- Enemies have increased senses

More difficult enemies will be present

- There are fewer resources and upgrades are more expensive

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I’m a bit of a grinder. I unlocked most of Lara’s upgrades and skills ¾ of the way through Tomb Raid, so I chose to play on “Survivor” which seemed like it might balance out the game a bit with my excessive collecting and hunting. If you finished Tomb Raider on hard without issue, Survivor should be fine. I had two encounters that were a bit tough, but once I adapted my play style to use all the tools available, I never got completely stuck.

THERE ARE REAL TOMBS. Yup, after the lack of tombs in Tomb Raider (those little rooms with a single platform doesn’t count as a tomb in my book), Rise of the Tomb raider has 9 optional challenge tombs to complete. Each tomb is unique. Some are expansive with climbing puzzles, others have water puzzles, some have pulley/lever puzzles, all types of things. One of these tombs can apparently take up to an hour to complete, I didn’t keep track of my playing time, but just getting through the entrance to the actual tomb was about as long as the “tombs” were in the previous game. Even though the tombs are optional, I’d encourage everyone to complete the tombs while playing the story as you get some useful rewards.

The skill system is very similar to the previous game. As you progress through the story, complete side missions and pick up collectibles you gain experience needed to unlock skill points. Skills are divided into three disciplines: Brawler, Survivor, Hunter. The skills are quite varied and playing on the higher difficulties the skills making you tougher, and increasing the resources you gather is invaluable.

The upgrade system has changed quite a bit and the game has an new crafting mechanic. Instead of only collecting a generic resource “salvage” (which was only used to upgrade your weapons) there are now various types of resources that you need to collect such as cloth, wood, herbs, hides etc. The first camp site you find can’t be accessed right away, you need to scrounge around for some wood before you can light the camp fire. It really heightens the feeling of survival.

Unlike the previous game there is a way to heal yourself (other than hiding from enemies). You require some herbs and a piece of cloth to create a bandage. But cloth gets used for to craft ammunition and upgrade weapons as well. I found myself in the situation of not being able to heal a few times because I upgraded a weapon without realizing it used all my cloth. Ammo for your bow? Well, sure you can pick some up here and there but you’re primarily going to have to craft your own using some feathers and wood! Add a mushroom for some poison arrows, oil for fire. Imagine running away from a bear, having run out of arrows, fletching as far as you go. Needless to say that encounter didn’t end well for Lara the first time.

Tomb Raider tried to prevent excessive grinding (for people like me that want to upgrade ALL THE THINGS on the first level :P) by only allowing a certain amount of hunting in an area, but the mechanics employed in Rise of the Tomb Raider is far more effective. Firstly areas can’t be “hunted out” any more (well… I didn’t encounter it). Instead of limiting the animals available to hunt, Lara can only carry a limited amount of resources, which can be increased by crafting bags for additional space. There’s no real point in hunting if you can’t pick up more hides and the experience gain is far less than if you just progress with the story. There is also limited amounts of resources available in an area, but I do suspect this was more prominent on Survivor difficulty. I was essentially forced to progress to new areas to find cloth… that damn cloth. To unlock second, third and fourth level upgrades you need specific tools, also helping to balance the game.

In Tomb Raider the only way to get a new shiny outfit for Lara was through paid DLC. In Rise of the Tomb Raider you are able to unlock a bunch of outfits by progressing in the story, through challenges, or buying some with in-game currency you can collect. Some of these outfits have special abilities, but to my mild dismay all the outfits I unlocked had the same bonus. At lease I didn’t have to agonize over wearing an outfit I didn’t like because of the bonus… Also more refreshing is most of the outfits make sense for the environment Lara is in, with the Commando outfit showing the most skin with a sleeveless shirt under an armoured vest.

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The collectibles have remained mostly the same. There are relics, documents and murals scattered all over. Each item collected reveals a piece of history to the area, which I quite liked. It gave the game a bit more depth. Each area has it’s own challenges, which when completed unlocks outfits, weapon enhancements or a number of other things. In all areas, just off the beaten path if you look carefully you’ll find an “Architect’s Map” or an “Expedition Satchel” which marks the items of interest on your map, making looking for all the collectables a lot less of a chore. I actually didn’t have to use the Big G to find any of the items, which was most welcome!

Rise of the Tomb Raider’s visuals are brilliant! In every area there is an amazing amount of detail that has been put in. From the first area where you climb up a wall and send dust and skulls tumbling. Beautiful vistas with just the right amount of lens flare. Painstaking time must have been taken to get the character animations just right. The first thing that struck me as I started the game was how Lara was looking around her, surveying the area while she was simply walking forward, and seamlessly flowing into cinematic which left me sometimes wondering if I was playing or if I was watching a cinematic. And of course… NiteFenix is still crazy about the way Lara dries her pony tail when she climbs out of the water.

Overall the game experience was beautiful and smooth, with minimal issues. There were a few times where I was unable to loot an enemy combatant who fell just the wrong way, RAWR, and near the end of the game there were a few animation glitches where Lara’s movement animation froze. The biggest bug I encountered was during a boss battle where the boss disappeared and I had to commit suicide to retry the encounter. Otherwise the game play and platforming was solid.

My biggest peeve with this game, has to be the swimming mechanic. You have a button to dive… and you have to mash B to swim faster, but no way to actually control the depth, up and down, while swimming. It was the most frustrating bit of the game, getting stuck on a door frame because the dive key didn’t take you deep enough initially. I don’t know if I was just being a numpty, but I could not figure it out.

I was very late to the party with Tomb Raider A Survivor is Born, and could kick myself for waiting so long before playing the game. It turned out to be right up my alley. Platforming. Puzzles (well... a little bit). Stealth. Upgrades. Hunting. Female protagonist. After having some hands on time with Rise of the Tomb Raider at rAge (check out my ramblings here) I was sold and decided to get it on release, something I rarely do now a days as my To-Play pile is quite daunting. Rise of the Tomb Raider released for Xbox One and Xbox 360 on 10 November 2015. The game is scheduled for release on PC (windows) early 2016, and for PlayStation 4 in late 2016. After the unexplainable events on Yamatai, Lara starts questioning if her father's obsessions with myths, were the ravings of a mad man, or if he was right, that there were things that could not be explained. She starts looking into her father's research on the lost city of Kitezh and the promise of immortality. The research leads her to Syria and eventually to Siberia where the game picks up the story, on a mountainside accompanied by Jonah. In this game you learn more about Lara's past through flashbacks and old recordings made by Lara's father unlocked as the story unfolds. Lara struggles with her past, the events on Yamatai and her own belief that her father lost his mind. The history of the area gets told through collecting documents and relics and contains stories from how the city of Kitezh was built, the Prophet's flight before the religious organization Trinity, specific recollections of people from the past and the present. I found the story a lot more interesting and engaging than that of Yamatai with Father Mathias and Queen Himiko. Being a bit of a completionist I would try to get all the collectibles, but this time I was looking forward to the next piece of a specific story more than just wanting to collect all the things. I also quite enjoyed that the game wasn't just a constant struggle to save Sam. This game feels more like a Tomb Raider game, Lara is fully kitted out and ready to do some tomb raiding! Where the previous game was focused on survival and finding a way to escape Yamatai, Rise of the Tomb raider is Lara running headlong into danger trying to uncover the mysteries of the Prophet. A lot of the gameplay mechanics also seem to make more sense within the plot. In Tomb Raider it felt odd looking for relics and tombs while your friends have been captured by a mad man, in Rise of the Tomb Raider you've come on a mission to find lost relics and it feels more natural to go off into a tomb looking for goodies. The pacing was handled quite well. There were a few jarring moments that left me just staring at the screen for a few moments trying…

Video Game Review: Rise of the Tomb Raider – Now With Real Tombs

Video Game Review: Rise of the Tomb Raider – Now With Real Tombs

2015-12-07

Mindless Pixie

Score - 9

90
9

Rise of the Tomb raider is an awesome Lara Croft adventure, feeling a lot more like the Tomb Raider we know and love. Tomb Raider proved to be a solid foundation, Rise of the Tomb Raider has polished and refined the mechanics into an even better experience. This game hits all the right marks in my books, here's hoping we'll see many more.
Still no dinosaur. Maybe next time?

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User Rating: Be the first one !

9

Second Opinion
Graham van der Made
FIFA 17 is a great game for so many reasons. It’s the game you invite your friends over to play. FIFA 17 is also the title you run your work competitions on because so many people play it. One could argue that every release is a result of refining as opposed to innovation. Perhaps this is the reason so many people buy it. EA Sports has built a successful formula it can replicate with much success. There’re some strong changes such as the full career mode and FIFA Ultimate team modes. Online play is popular as ever, as with every release of a FIFA title. There is no doubt it’s a top seller, and it’s easy to see why.

Graphics have improved in a big way over previous titles. This is due to the move to the Frostbite engine. Having a constant frame rate at 60 doesn’t hurt either. Audio presentation is solid. It’s easy to identify a big game versus a smaller game based on audio alone. Where FIFA 17 doesn’t do so well is in courting new players. Little nuances like leveled player moves, or judging tackling demand practice and diligence. Shooting is another mini-game in itself. Tuning is almost a necessity to derive full enjoyment from FIFA 17. Replayability will be great until the next game announcement happens. That’s when FIFA 17’s player base will plummet. That’s just the way things are on the EA sports side of the fence. Check out plut’s full review on Tech It Out

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Article Tags:
Lara Croft · rise of the tomb raider · Square Enix · tomb raider

Article Categories:
Games · Video Game Review
