Follow TV Tropes

Reviews VideoGame / Tomb Raider 2013

Go To

Reviewgamesh Since: Nov, 2012
09/03/2013 10:03:39 •••

Unremarkable.

What happens when you combine Resident Evil and Uncharted but strip the former of its self-awareness and the latter of its mirth and charm, and then add Lara Croft to the mix? That's Tomb Raider 2013, a dour exercise in resurrecting every cliche of the AAA action-adventure genre and playing them without a hint of irony.

Tomb Raider 2013 starts out with Lara Croft and her merry band of misfits on a boat, presumably looking for where Peter Jackson filmed King Kong. No, they're searching for some fabled Japanese ruins or something. Well, a storm hits and they're all shipwrecked. Thus begins some cutscenes, guided walking tours, and scenic quick time events. Soon after Lara kills her first man, she gets the urge to kill more and the island is more than happy to throw hundreds at you. Most of the game is spent shooting people or tickling their brains with climbing axes. Keep in mind that in the original Tomb Raider the human body count was around 5. There is also some platforming that more or less functions like Batman: Arkham Asylum without his gliding ability, but this is just to pad out the time between explosions and filling mooks with lead.

The hidden tombs, by the way, were not hidden, and were basically there so the devs could say "hey, we put some tombs in lol". They're basically dull brown caves with a few puzzles a very dull child could solve, and I stopped bothering with them after the third one or so.

Absolutely nothing unpredictable happens. Tomb Raider is a microcosm of the past few years of AAA titles that manages to be the dead median of what one can be as a result. It's all the more infuriating that it takes a franchise I had some fondness for and winnows it into a dull gray paste that doesn't stand out at all. It's neither good nor bad, it's just completely mediocre. And maybe moreso because it takes itself so damned seriously.

threeballs Since: Aug, 2013
09/02/2013 00:00:00

I agree mostly. It is nice to play, the graphics are decent and it's for the most part well acted. My problems with it are, as you point out, how the game focuses less on the whole tomb aspect and more running around an island shooting at waves of baddies, basically like a carbon copy of one of the Uncharted games. I also found the sheer number of men on this island to be quite ludicrous, did all of them get here by shipwreck, plane crash, or just felt like it because of the balmy religion? not to mention the enourmas cable car systems, ships suspended 100s of feet in the air and ancient japanese temples, all quite odd for a random island in the ass-end of nowhere.

One chief complaint I had with the games was the weapons. I wished the game kept the guns as shitty WW 2-era pistols and machineguns, they had a rugged yet coolness about them, it makes sense for rubbish out of date weaponary to be on the island. But then collect enough tokens and your charming WW 2 machinegun magically transforms into an AK-47, why do that? why not keep with the older style, if they wanted upgrades then make it like Bioshock 1 and have Lara literally taping or bolting add-ons to the guns, keeping the old style but improving them as best she can with what upgrades she can find.

I haven't finished it yet, but played enough so far to know while well made, it needed changes in a fair few areas. Oh yeah, and Lara talks to herself way too much, and not in a very natural way but more like she thinks she's explaining it to someone, nitpicky but I found it took me out of the moment.

Reviewgamesh Since: Nov, 2012
09/02/2013 00:00:00

About the cable cars, I know right? Was there a electrician's vocational school somewhere on the island training these guys to maintain that stuff?

McSomeguy Since: Dec, 2010
09/02/2013 00:00:00

About that, the people on the island were from all professions you could expect to find on ships and planes, which includes mechanics. Considering Himiko was actively trying to get people stranded there and never leave they were not exactly all there by chance.

Reviewgamesh Since: Nov, 2012
09/02/2013 00:00:00

That wasn't really made clear. I thought Himiko was a dead body until the end of the game.

McSomeguy Since: Dec, 2010
09/02/2013 00:00:00

What did you think the point of the storm was?

Reviewgamesh Since: Nov, 2012
09/02/2013 00:00:00

The storm was because the plot says so.

TomWithNoNumbers Since: Dec, 2010
09/03/2013 00:00:00

Well I can confirm that Mc Someguy is right all those times when they were talking about Himiko causing the storms through her rage? That was meant to be your hint.

kay4today Since: Jan, 2011
09/03/2013 00:00:00

It was blatantly obvious that Himiko did all of this halfway through the game. I don't know how you could've missed that.

Reviewgamesh Since: Nov, 2012
09/03/2013 00:00:00

There's a skip cutscene button and I played the game at intervals over a month or two. I apologize for not scrutinizing the details of the plot. You actually sat through that?

TomWithNoNumbers Since: Dec, 2010
09/03/2013 00:00:00

It's not scrutinising detail of the plot, this is like watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and not knowing what item he was looking for.

And if you skipped all the cutscenes why do you feel like you've got the right to say 'Oh the plot never explained this to me'??

Reviewgamesh Since: Nov, 2012
09/03/2013 00:00:00

When did I say that?

Reviewgamesh Since: Nov, 2012
09/03/2013 00:00:00

As for the "You sat through that" remark" that was kind of out of line. YMMV on the story quality, I didn't find it interesting.

TomWithNoNumbers Since: Dec, 2010
09/03/2013 00:00:00

" That wasn't really made clear. I thought Himiko was a dead body until the end of the game."

TomWithNoNumbers Since: Dec, 2010
09/03/2013 00:00:00

Anyway, sorry I'm being way too defensive. As a genuine question, did you find most of the plot equally uncompelling or were there sections that were better than others?

Reviewgamesh Since: Nov, 2012
09/03/2013 00:00:00

Well, there were unskippable parts of the cutscenes. I figured they'd put the important stuff in those parts and all the navel-gazing in the skippable parts, but I suppose that would require some actual talking between the story and gameplay teams that I figured never existed about the time Lara slays her 10th person without a hint of hesitation or remorse. So that's on me.

So...Himiko was causing storms through her rage, I guess I get that now. But why the rage? What was she angry at?

Reviewgamesh Since: Nov, 2012
09/03/2013 00:00:00

I found it not very compelling in general. I mostly ended up filling in the blanks in my head with some plot from Resident Evil 4 about the time I saw that Mathias and Saddler shop at the same Ominous Hood Shop. :)

Reviewgamesh Since: Nov, 2012
09/03/2013 00:00:00

I admit I'm also getting kind of hot headed here and I'm not sure why. I guess Tomb Raider used to be one of my favorite series, and this just has the samey feel I've gotten from so many other AAA action/adventure titles I've played in the last few years. This probably hit me hardest when it occurred to me the Ascender works exactly the same as the Batclaw in the Arkham games.

Anyway, I tend to be less enthusiastic toward big budget games in general. I don't really like the "Hollywood Blockbuster" feel in video games. There's probably a bit of pent-up hostility in there, too. Blame it on never getting a Castlevania that covered the Demon Castle War. :/

TomWithNoNumbers Since: Dec, 2010
09/03/2013 00:00:00

Here's the whole Himiko thing, it's in spoiler tags but there's not really a twist or anything, it's just so people can enjoy the game fresh if they choose (finding the diaries was a bit fun [spoiler]Himiko was an ancient Japanese supernatural spirit in the body of a person with the power to create storms, she ruled an empire and every now and then she'd choose someone to 'succeed' her from her relations. They would be prepared in a ritualistic ceremony to take her place as Storm Queen. But the ritual actually transferred the spirit out of Himiko's ageing body into a new host. This went on for an indeterminate amount of time until one of the selected successors found out about the true purpose of the ceremony and smuggled a knife which she'd stolen from the general in charge of guarding the storm queen. She killed herself and destroyed the ceremony trapping Himiko in her old body but damaging her in the process to the point where Himiko could no longer control her powers. The general realising what he'd let the princess do committed suicide by his guard were still bound to guard Himiko. Her powers and guard presumably destroyed everyone who didn't flee the island so there was no-one to renew the ritual, leaving Himiko in a decaying body no longer capable of movement.

Because of the pain of the incorrect ritual Himiko continued to rage crashing ships into the island and disallowing them to leave for centuries. Then one day a man with sociopathic/psychopathic qualities was stranded on the island. He guessed there was something magical about the storms and tricked his crew into trying to sail away and watched them get destroyed. He found other survivors on the island and with a mixture of brutality and intelligence became their leader and created a cult around himself whilst he explored the island looking for it's secrets. Eventually he realised he need to complete the ritual and transfer Himiko's spirit into a new body and calmed down she may allow him to leave the island.

Sam as a descendant of Himiko was a possible recipient for the ceremony and Matthias captured her blah blah blah story happens[/spoiler]

As for the ' I figured never existed about the time Lara slays her 10th person without a hint of hesitation or remorse'. I actually think the ease and lack of remorse around the 10th person was an important part of the story and talking about how scarily easy it is to detach yourself from the difficulty of taking human life once you've started. Around that time Lara talks to her father figure and tells him she's killed people. He asks her if it was difficult and she says, no it wasn't and that's the problem.

So I don't think the story derailed there. But then they never drive that home. Someone pointed out that by the time you climb to the top of the radio tower Lara has completed her arc from innocent to survivor but the problem is the story doesn't stop there and carries all the way to badass hero that she was in earlier games. And that's a problem because badass heroes don't care about taking life (how many mercs do you slay in Tomb Raider Underworld? And in that game Lara isn't even forced to, they merely trying to get to a valuable object that Lara wants instead of them) and so the game drops all the characterisation it had had at the start

TomWithNoNumbers Since: Dec, 2010
09/03/2013 00:00:00

Oh dear, got my spoiler tags mixed up :( Sorry

Reviewgamesh Since: Nov, 2012
09/03/2013 00:00:00

I have to say that I never actually played TR Underworld (the last game in the series I played, not counting Guardian of Light was Anniversary, which made a big deal about killing Larson that was promptly abandonded). But I can remember a time when Tomb Raider 3 was being criticized for the increasingly bloodthirsty nature of the games- how the hostile wildlife was largely being replaced by mercenaries. That never sat right with me specifically because I never felt the games should have focused on combat at all, rather it should just appear from time to time to liven things up.

Anyway, I guess that makes a little more sense now. I didn't really read many of the files around the island, I just picked them up and collected the XP. Sam being a descendant of Himiko seems kind of contrived though. Is there a text dump of all the files somewhere? I don't really have any interest in re-starting the game and collecting them again.

TomWithNoNumbers Since: Dec, 2010
09/03/2013 00:00:00

Actually I believe Sam was funding or had got the mission funded because she knew she was a descendant of Himiko. She mentions it in the first cutscene where she's bothering Lara.

You can find all the documents here I don't know how the experience of reading them outside the game is (a couple of them are surprisingly accurately placed) but a lot of the info is pretty cool. Specifically there's a very important reason why Reyes (the angry bossy women) dislikes Lara, to do with Lara's relationship with her father-figure which I don't think they ever directly spell out. It's actually bordering on the territory where maybe they should really have been in the game proper, but the important ones tend to be left in very obvious places at least.

Have you seen the Errant Signal on Tomb Raider by the way? He real nails most of the flaws of the game (although you'll probably find him much too critical of the earlier games) and he goes into the whole too much combat thing a lot. They were fighting with the Lara Croft as a character and the Lara Croft symbol who fights with dual pistols and in the end they started with the first and finished with the second which is a lot more boring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqm3_v9aZQY

I do think there was too much combat (not helped by the story having 3 separate climaxes with the combat ramping up to each one) but at least the start was good and they were clearly trying to tell the story through combat when they first designed it. Tomb Raider combat is very messy and nasty and personal and it meshed with Lara's plight, but they ended up having so much of it that the effect became dull. I think this is a game that would actually have been better if it were even shorter than it was.

But I do have hope, because the beginning was going in the right direction and according to the developers they spent a long long time trying to figure out what they were going to do, ranging from Survival Horror to Arkhum Asylum and you can see that there was still a lot of things left over from their earlier designs. If they listen to the feedback and bring the writers in a lot earlier now they know what they're doing I'm still hopefully that they can make a sequel that brings all those strengths to the front


Leave a Comment:

Top