Weekend Cringing

I was pleasantly surprised to check my e-mail and find that one of the games on my Steam wishlist is currently on sale!  Score!  With absolutely no hesitation I snatched up Rise of the Tomb Raider:  20 Year Celebration for 50% off.  After a few hours of downloading I have happily stepped back into the frantic story of Lara Croft and her quest to find some new relic, to bust up some new villains, and to perform some breathtaking gymnastic stunts.

In 2012 I picked up the modernized PC reboot of the console classic Tomb Raider series.  Being that I am not a console gamer I had very limited experience with the series.  A few of the console games had made the crossover to PC and I had played a few of those with mixed feelings (the signature gymnastic movement was fun, but the camera controls/angles were garbage).  With that experience in mind I didn't really expect much when I grabbed it on the cheap during a sale.  The new Lara Croft depicted in the 2012 Tomb Raider was exactly the heroine that I wanted from the series.  She's tough, scrappy, smart, but still vulnerable and feminine without being the tarted up "tits n' ass" character from the console days.

Even though I enjoy Lara Croft as a character I have a problem paying full price for the games in this series.  For me the replayability factor in Tomb Raider is lacking--it's the kind of game that I will play once, absolutely love, and then most likely shelve for a long time.  That doesn't mean that there aren't elements that add to replayability--there are always relics to collect, hidden items to find, new game modes to play--but generally I am just not that interested in going back to try it again.  Therefore, paying $60 for a game that will see one 20ish hour playthrough doesn't translate for me.

There is something about the very cinematic-style gameplay that I love about Tomb Raider.  I don't know that I have played many games that have quite given me the feeling of being in the middle of an action/thriller movie.  Playing Lara is exhilarating--out-sprinting a pack of wolves, jumping from one collapsing pillar to another, watching her catch herself as she narrowly avoids falling over a huge precipice....I just haven't played many other games that have managed to capture those same feelings.  At the same time the linear and cinematic-style of play doesn't offer much in the way of player freedom--there aren't any dialogue options, Lara's path through a level is generally very scripted, and as a player you are simply tagging along for the ride--there are few choices to actually be made.

I have barely dipped my toes into Rise of the Tomb Raider, but so far it feels like a worthy successor to 2012's Tomb Raider.  Once again Lara is investigating the remnants of a long-lost relic from a long dead culture.  Of course her journey isn't going to be easy--she's tangled up in a race for those relics with the mysterious Trinity group--your average gun-toting bad guys lead by an even badder guy with very questionable motives.

A scraped up Lara creeping through a darkened tomb entrance.

The second that you start the game you are thrust into the midst of Lara's story.  There isn't much of a tutorial (if you've played Tomb Raider once you should be familiar with the controls) but instead you lead Lara on a journey up an extremely hazardous frozen mountain.  You quickly learn how to use her now signature ice axes to traverse the frozen mountainside and perform a series of ledge jumps.  Each jump feels hazardous and I find myself physically cringing as Lara attempts to hop onto a wall of ice and dig in her axe.  The movement immediately feels familiar and you get a good feel for how to control Lara's vertical movement.

The first chapter finds Lara searching for a lost tomb in the deserts of Syria.  Similar to the last game, Lara really takes a beating--she's constantly tumbling down a hill, falling through a crumbling ruin, or narrowly avoiding an ancient trap.  A short trip up a narrow mountainside path and Lara arrives at the entrance to the lost tomb,...but not really, it's just a chamber filled with murals depicting scenes related to the relic she seeks.  One new feature in this game is finding items that can help Lara learn new languages in order to better be able to translate.  As you guide her to these murals she improves her language skills enough that she can read a monolith in the middle of the chamber.  That monolith shows her a hidden wall that opens up onto a breathtaking scene of a massive tomb built directly into the wall of a mountain.

The action in Rise of the Tomb Raider is making me hold my breath.  Every leap feels like Lara is barely hanging on.  It's a great feeling.  I am looking forward to many more hours of Lara ascending the face of a craggy mountain or taking running potshots at masked enemies.  You can pick up Rise of the Tomb Raider:  20 Year Celebration (which includes several DLC) on Steam for $29.99 as part of the weekend sale.