izigame.me

If you're coming from the previous Tomb Raider games, don't expect the same game. It's a completely different game. Far less puzzles and no annoying, stiff camera that makes you want to drink bleach. There are some puzzles and stuff that makes you use the old brain but nothing that overstays its welcome - thankfully - if I wanted to use my brain I'd go back to school. The previous games were ALL just one big headache - constantly battling the camera and failing jumps you should realistically have been able to make. In this game, there's none of that. Everything just works. Everything makes sense. It's fluid and just lots of fun. If you're like me and were never able to stomach the previous games then yeah, I 100% recommend this.
Pros and Cons
Pros
+ The graphics are amazing - blood, dirt, grime and injuries appear on Lara over time. There's hair physics! The views are pretty breathtaking and the world is just awesome to run around in.
+ Nice soundtrack.
+ Character movement and climbing is user friendly and precise.
+ Semi open world with fast travel.
+ Fun collectables including relics which you can inspect and manipulate for a closer look.
+ Fun and diverse combat with optional stealth - the stealth is a bit meh but works well enough. You can go guns blazing with the assault rifle or snipe your enemies from afar with the bow or use a silenced pistol Splinter Cell style or even sneak up behind enemies and kill them that way or by using the environment - and so much more!
+ Lots of epic moments - an action packed, adrenaline fuelled adventure - imagine if Michael Bay directed a Tomb Raider movie! It'd be this game.
+ The weapon upgrade system is cool with weapons becoming more fancy over time as you upgrade them.
+ An actual story - a story of survival. But there's also plenty there to sate you appetite for adventure and discovery - learning about the island and its history through journals, relics, exploring tombs and so on.
Yeah, sometimes I felt like I was playing Assassin's Creed or something!
Another good thing is that after you beat the game, you can go back and collect any collectables you might've missed so don't worry about them too much. Enjoy the story! Relax. I enjoyed it so much I beat the game over the course of 2-3 days and 100%'d the single player.
Cons
- There's a lot of QTE's and I blame them for 99% of my deaths. Sometimes they just don't work or don't really make it clear what you're supposed to do or what button you're meant to press. I guess the camera (in these situations) can still get in the way.
- The game can be a bit buggy at times with collectables not appearing until you leave and reenter the area (that's a little pro tip - what worked me anyway - same with that glitched DLC tomb).
- There's no new game plus.
- The multiplayer appears to be dead.
- There's no player vs AI bots mode in multiplayer.
Those last two would've been nice and could've added some more hours of gameplay I think.
I recommend playing with an Xbox 360 controller. The QTE's are easier to understand then and well, in my opinion, it just feels a lot more natural.
Overall, absolutely worth it and a bargain if you get it now while it's on sale. £10 or under - 100%!