The new Tomb Raider is different. You first feel it in the camera - tight, intimate zooms as Lara crushes herself into a confined, suffocating crevice, and a vertigo-inducing top-down shot as she climbs the narrowest, highest mast.
Lara's also different, but not how you'd expect. This is supposed to be a more fragile and naive Lara. But she's actually never been more robust and formidable. Sure, she'll stop between scenes to have a little ponder, and read introspective passages from her diary when you set up camp.
The see-saw of combat and acrobatics in these first few hours is heavier than ever on the combat side. Before you take a human life, you have to survive and hunt a deer, and until you get a hold of the climbing axe, it's a matter of old-school shimmying and tightropes. With hub areas and a more natural sense of exploration, this even feels a little less linear than previous games.
The game's two currencies are XP and salvage, which can be spent on three sets of skills - Surviving, Hunting and Brawling. Low level survival involves boosting the salvage you get from various actions, and ends up highlighting hidden items on the map. Brawling, meanwhile, is a great place to spend your earliest points, giving you stunning melee attacks and finishing moves as a fallback when your bullets and arrows fail.
Those moments aside, this is Lara in a more action role, branching out from her ledge-hanging roots, and making good on the dramatic promise of her previous games. Wherever it's going, we're in for the ride.
8 comments so far...
comabob on 21 Jan '13 said:
I would be interested in this if it was a new IP and not Tomb Raider.
I liken bright coloured jungles, underground temples and animals to Tomb Raider.
Not survival, dark asthetics, finishing moves, mutiplayer and skilltrees.
Ill probably play it because i enjoy games that have survival elements, dark asthetics, finishing moves and skilltrees - but i wont play it because its a new Tomb Raider.
cade360 on 21 Jan '13 said:
Will or won't?
CunningSmile on 22 Jan '13 said:
He means he will play it because the game appeals to him. The Tomb Raider bit is irrelevant and won't be the reason he plays.
Got to admit I'm in a similar frame of mind. I was always happy that Lara Croft did this stuff for shits and giggles and don't need some dark-traumatic-origin(tm) to explain her motivation. This game looks interesting as a new realistic take on the survival horror genre but it doesn't really look very Tomb Raider
ex-boxer on 22 Jan '13 said:
I thought we all played tomb raider just to see lara's fun bags? and also to show our wives, girlfriends, boyfriends?? how they should be dressing.
having said that, if it's a good game, i'll get it regardless of who or what is on the front cover.
Grummy on 22 Jan '13 said:
Is it just me, or does Lara in the banner picture look like Scarlet Johansson?
Captain_Chao5 on 22 Jan '13 said:
I've played all the previous TR games right back to the PS1 days - so am personally looking forward to this. Don't care if it's similar or radically different - just enjoy good storyline games. Already pre-ordered this so interested to see the review.
SilentDark on 23 Jan '13 said:
What is it with dark gritty reimaginings these days? From the looks of the trailer it wont have any tomb raiding of any description. Why not just develop a new IP? This isn't Lara Croft, the confident, playful young woman who became a media icon. Just put it to bed already.
MasterChiefJ117 on 23 Jan '13 said:
Played this at Eurogamer expo earlier in the year seemed really good but didn't get a feel for the story.
I'm hopping for a game similar to Uncharted, if so I'll be more than happy. 