I honestly liked Tomb Raider more than I thought it would. I came in here expecting a poor man's Uncharted clone. After finishing the game I am left with wanting more. It is very similar to the Uncharted games, albeit it does do unique things to distinguish itself from the former. Most notably the somewhat more open level design. It is still very linear but you are sometimes faced with larger "hub-like" areas and optional tombs (which are just a single puzzle) which are largely missing from the Uncharted games.

Let's move away from the Uncharted comparisons and speak on what the game does. Gameplay is split between traversal and combat. For traversal, all you do is wander down often linear paths with minor platforming challenges and easy puzzles. Combat has two approaches, stealth and guns blazing. Both of these styles of combat are marred by very poor AI. AI are often comically oblivious in stealth and during a gunfight, enemies will often exit cover and walk in a straight line towards your position. Gun-play is also nothing to write home about and stealth is way too shallow to even bother with. Even with all these complaints, I still enjoyed my time during battles. They were like junk food, fun but nothing special.

I'm not sure if this is an apt comparison, but the story gave me heavy Indiana Jones vibes which I like a lot. The story was an enjoyable action filled romp. Although the beginning of the game makes you expect something more gritty but then turns into something more akin to Uncharted (I'm sorry for bringing it up again). I'm not very good at critiquing narratives as I am easily pleased, so I will leave off saying that I simply enjoyed the story.

Lastly, my technical experience was fairly good. The game ran amazingly but had issues with the UI. Certain UI elements that flashed on screen when going near an interactable or trying to grab ammo that you are full on are cut off at the top left of the screen. Thankfully nothing essential was cut off but it was still annoying nonetheless. Also, voice audio and sound fx audio were combined in settings for some reason. Music was not thankfully, but sometimes sound fx drowned out dialogue which is somewhat remedied by subtitles. Other than those issues, the game ran extremely well with no noticeable frame drops or crashes.

tl;dr
Tomb Raider is definitely worth playing because of its fun narrative and enjoyable albeit easy gameplay.

[h1]More than just an Uncharted Clone[/h1] I honestly liked Tomb Raider more than I thought it would. I came in here expecting a poor man's Uncharted clone. After finishing the game I am left with wanting more. It is very similar to the Uncharted games, albeit it does do unique things to distinguish itself from the former. Most notably the somewhat more open level design. It is still very linear but you are sometimes faced with larger "hub-like" areas and optional tombs (which are just a single puzzle) which are largely missing from the Uncharted games. Let's move away from the Uncharted comparisons and speak on what the game does. Gameplay is split between traversal and combat. For traversal, all you do is wander down often linear paths with minor platforming challenges and easy puzzles. Combat has two approaches, stealth and guns blazing. Both of these styles of combat are marred by very poor AI. AI are often comically oblivious in stealth and during a gunfight, enemies will often exit cover and walk in a straight line towards your position. Gun-play is also nothing to write home about and stealth is way too shallow to even bother with. Even with all these complaints, I still enjoyed my time during battles. They were like junk food, fun but nothing special. I'm not sure if this is an apt comparison, but the story gave me heavy Indiana Jones vibes which I like a lot. The story was an enjoyable action filled romp. Although the beginning of the game makes you expect something more gritty but then turns into something more akin to Uncharted (I'm sorry for bringing it up again). I'm not very good at critiquing narratives as I am easily pleased, so I will leave off saying that I simply enjoyed the story. Lastly, my technical experience was fairly good. The game ran amazingly but had issues with the UI. Certain UI elements that flashed on screen when going near an interactable or trying to grab ammo that you are full on are cut off at the top left of the screen. Thankfully nothing essential was cut off but it was still annoying nonetheless. Also, voice audio and sound fx audio were combined in settings for some reason. Music was not thankfully, but sometimes sound fx drowned out dialogue which is somewhat remedied by subtitles. Other than those issues, the game ran extremely well with no noticeable frame drops or crashes. tl;dr Tomb Raider is definitely worth playing because of its fun narrative and enjoyable albeit easy gameplay.