![]() While the overall plot is a bit light and eventually gets corny in its mysticism, the personal story of Lara grows into something worth experiencing, a far cry from the exploitative punishment it first appears to be going for.Įvolving from past installments in the series, and taking no shortage of cues from Uncharted, Tomb Raider gives us a heavier, more methodical game, liberally peppered with impressive setpieces and moments of calm eeriness that almost borders on survival horror. In the early chapters, this carnival of trauma is almost comical in its overabundance, but once it gets over its initial hump, Tomb Raider settles into a solid story about overcoming terrible odds and finding one’s place in the world - a fitting allegory for the series as a whole. It gets to the point where you more or less expect to see something horribly painful before it happens, predicting accurately where the next fall or scrape is coming from. Every time she manages to patch herself up and get cleaned off, you can be sure she’ll be covered in mud, blood, and searing wounds within moments - and she’ll scream in anguish at every brutal step.Īt times, the emphasis on Lara’s pain borders on the obsessive, dishing out punishment to a relentless degree. Her introduction to the world of treasure seeking is not so much an adventure as it is an exercise in getting every last shade of crap beaten mercilessly out of her. In the first two hours alone, Lara Croft is battered, smashed, punched, impaled, practically molested, nearly drowned, scraped, scratched, and thrown. And the new additions are mostly unwelcome, mainly because they fiddle with Lara’s characterization that the rebooted games got so right. Several action sequences were simply re-purposed in movie form, as was the outline of the plot. Vikander’s Lara has the exact same outfit and weapons. During action sequences, story moments, and everything in-between, I couldn’t help but see how much was ripped straight from the recently rebooted games. The weakest element of Tomb Raider is how hard it leans into the games. There are moments here that nearly rival the now infamous rebar fall from the 2013 Tomb Raider game. Set-pieces from the game are repurposed, as are the over-the-top ludicrous amounts of damage that Lara can take without dying horribly. ![]() Lara (Alicia Vikander) is stranded on the mysterious island of Yamatai after her ship the Endurance sinks due to particularly harsh conditions at sea. The first thing you’ll notice about this new Tomb Raider is that it pulls most of its elements from the 2013 Crystal Dynamics developed Tomb Raider game.
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