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I finally popped in and finished Shadow of the Tomb Raider last week, and whilst I did enjoy it I didn't think it was as good as the first 2 games in the reboot. After I finished Shadow, I played through the first 2 again and found them a lot more fun - Rise in particular has to be one of my favorite games this gen, it was just a solidly put together action adventure. I then found out that Shadow was a different developer entirely, which explained a lot. Also i think that Mayan/Aztec doomsday prophecies are a tad overdone, which gave me a huge sense of 'haven't I done this before?' while playing shadow.

What do you guys think? Love the reboot? Hate it?

I only played the first one and I liked it quite a bit, but not enough to play the later games. The game lacked replay value (as in once you beat the game's story there was nothing to do) and that just doesn't cut it for a $60 price tag for me.

I feel like they were kind of following the coattails of what Uncharted had already established. I know Tomb Raider as a franchise was way before Uncharted, but it's undeniable that the reboot definitely took after the elements that made Uncharted one of the big exclusives for Sony. By the second game though they definitely lost a lot of their storytelling momentum and I think the problem was there was more of a reliance on set pieces than Lara's character development as much (there was the emphasis on Trinity, but I feel like it was kinda rushed near the end) since it was more on the mystery of her background and her father, versus seeing Drake grow from a being a non-committal treasure hunter to coming to terms with settling down to a more civilian life.

Loved the second reboot trilogy, but it has its problems. The first two games feel somewhat samey in terms of plot and events, a bit by the numbers, this may be due to having the same writing team, which was removed for the third game, but YMMV. I no longer have the screenshots, but when I played the second game I was a bit worried when five minutes into the second one Lara was already beaten up and bloodied, which along with putting Lara through a constant emotional wringer as others had pointed out is not a great way of building or defining a character.

The third game in particular suffers from arc fatigue, to a degree that it's obvious that even the devs wanted to be done with it and never have to deal with it again, as the final act feels not only very rushed, but also puts the kibosh on the whole Trinity thing in one go as well by having the unseen council die off-screen.

The third game is also quite light on combat, which is a shame, as the promotion for this game seemed to wholly embrace the whole "Lara is a serial killer, so here's her smearing herself with mud and going all sneaky Rambo on the mooks in the jungle" angle, but there's not a lot of instances where you get to really do that or cut loose with your skills, something the previous two games did allow for by having the enemy constantly patrol certain areas.

I hope that they do another game, especially now that Lara has had her angst ridden, moody arc, gotten proper closure for everything, reemployed Winston and she can go back to restoring the family name* and raiding tombs. Or just give me more stealth combat sections, I really enjoyed those across the games, I need more Lara Voorhees stalking unsuspecting mooks and killing them one by one.

* Wouldn't say no to punching uncle Atlas at least once, he needs a good thrashing for all the gak he gave Lara over the years.

The first one has a really solid story and set pieces.

The second one has a significantly weaker story, but the open areas where you get to turn the tables of teams of hunters are pretty thrilling while also pulling in a bit more of the tomb raiding style of the older games.

I didn't get the third, not sure why exactly. I think it just came out at a busy time.

IIRC the final Tomb Raider game did indeed come out during a busy period gaming-wise, but can't quite remember what it was up against.

Just looked it up. It was up against Spider-Man.

First one was fantastic. Enjoyed the whole thing.

Second one was pretty good - not as good overall, but still very enjoyable.

I have the third one, but have not yet played it.


I think my main problem with the series is the same one I have with the Uncharted series (although Uncharted has many more game play issues) - you kill a lot of people. An unreasonable amount of people. A "you are a one-woman war crime" level of people.

I get it's a video game, and a bodycount like that wouldn't be something you'd even think about in Doom or CoD or whatever... but this is one person slaughtering entire platoons of soldiers. It's not quite SOD breaking, but it is very weird.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
First one was fantastic. Enjoyed the whole thing.

Second one was pretty good - not as good overall, but still very enjoyable.

I have the third one, but have not yet played it.


I think my main problem with the series is the same one I have with the Uncharted series (although Uncharted has many more game play issues) - you kill a lot of people. An unreasonable amount of people. A "you are a one-woman war crime" level of people.

I get it's a video game, and a bodycount like that wouldn't be something you'd even think about in Doom or CoD or whatever... but this is one person slaughtering entire platoons of soldiers. It's not quite SOD breaking, but it is very weird.

You're definitely not wrong, and if you take it at face value, especially with how nonchalant some of the characters are after killing mook #456, it seems like they're callous killing machines like the Punisher to anyone not in the main cast (particularly during cutscenes where the protagonist is usually hesitant to kill the main antagonist unless they've gone full monster mode). I like to imagine the shooting galleries of both games are pretty much an exaggeration with how Drake or Lara can take point blank rifle hits and keep on moving, it's literally plot armour and the bullets pretty much wear that down till they actually "hit" you. So in the same sense, I see the gameplay aspect of you going to town murdering everybody like John Wick not being a direct feat of Nathan or Lara in the sense that you're actually killing entire swathes of enemy troops but the usual sequence in an action movie where you would see the protag take out a few mooks being stretched out for gameplay reasons.

Ok I'm just past the half-way mark on the third game now.

I really like it, and I think it works pretty well. You are still slaughtering entire barrack's worth of troops, so the balance between puzzles/Tombs and murder-death-kill isn't quite right, but the game is fun and challenging in places.

 Grimskul wrote:
You're definitely not wrong, and if you take it at face value, especially with how nonchalant some of the characters are after killing mook #456, it seems like they're callous killing machines like the Punisher to anyone not in the main cast

Yeah well, Lara herself explains how she is scared to discover that she actually a total psycho who find killing people very easy. In the first game. In the first hour of the first game.
She IS a callous killing machine.
https://youtu.be/8gHea-oMh6k?t=2880


at 48:00
Lara is a badass stone-hearted killer that will strangle you with your own guts if she needs to, without this preventing her from being just amazed at how good a sight is a whole second later. While she is never portrayed as enthusiastic about killing people, unlike say the Doom Slayer, she definitely is one of the most cold-blooded mainstream video game character.

Yeah, so, I'm now 75% through the third game, and I just played a part that pretty much seals the "Lara is a murder machine".

She's climbing through a slowly exploding oil refinery, taking heavy fire the whole time. Some missiles take out the tower she's climbing and she falls into the water.

She emerges in a cut-scene, silhouetted against fire. She looks like she's evil incarnate. She walks onto the beach as a soldier is crawling away from her in terror. She stops him before he can get to his gun and just casually stabs him in the heart.

She then picks up the man's machine and the next bit is you gunning down some 30 people. She killed at least 10 on the way into the refinery.

When she meets up with Jonah and she's fine, and heads to a Christian mission and acts all normal with people when two days before she arose from the water, wreathed in flame, and just started murdering everyone in sight.

The woman is... frightening. She may even be more scary and bloodthirsty than Nathan Drake.

She is Lara Voorhees.



I mean, if you really want to crank it up, use the camera mode during certain stealth kills or the like and change her expression from angsty guilt-tripped survivor into Oh boy, here I go killing again!

Yep. That's the scene. Absolute murder machine.

She may be dealing with ancient Incan and Mayan gods, but we all know that her patron is Khorne.

She's already killed a goddess, hunted down immortals for sport and now she gets to decide if the world is allowed to survive the Mayan apocalypse.. we're in good hands I'd say.

"Okay Lara, put on a disguise and blend in."



Aye, it's festival of the dead, but still, she would've worn that mask as a disguise any day of the year.

She is a Festival of the Dead.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
She may be dealing with ancient Incan and Mayan gods, but we all know that her patron is Khorne.

She is much more cold and collected than your average Khornate though. She isn't angry at you, she is just mercilessly murdering you, nothing personal.
How long until some of the goons start committing suicide when hearing she is coming for them ?

Absolutely terrible in terms of what they did to Lara as a character. Games are decent in themselves however.