As I explained, this is a retelling of Lara's origins from being a simple treasure hunter to eventually becoming a Tomb Raider. The game begins with Lara on her first expedition on a ship called the "Endurance" with her team that consist of former marine and a friend of the Croft family Conrad Roth, the ship's mechanic Josylyn Reyes, computer specialist Alex, fisherman Jonah Maiava, helmsman Angus "Grim" Grimaldi, the group's camera person and Lara's BFF (as it were) Samantha "Sam" Nishimura and celebrity archaeologist Dr James Whitman who is desperate to make a big discovery and escape bankruptcy. The ship sets course for the Dragon's Triangle (against Whitman's advice) which is a place that's known for missing ships and violent storms and it isn't long before the ship is attacked by one of these storms, causing the group to get stranded on a island full of inhabitants worshipping the legendary shaman queen Himiko who are all blood thirsty (as it were). Lara Croft ventures into the island to find her team and to also find a way to get off the island before something terrible happens. A great story that has great gameplay to go with it. The game has an open world system put in place, allowing you to travel all over the island. As you do so, Lara will gradually get weapons and upgrades to them, which she can use in all sorts of situations, whether it be combat, solving puzzles or whatever else. Campfires in the game are used as checkpoints and are also used to allow Lara to upgrade her weapons and learn some new skills which of course, will need some sort of payment in the form of savaging items or learning those skills on your own. And no Tomb Raider game wouldn't be complete without some tombs to raid. The tombs that you can raid are mostly secret ones, but can be easily found and it often has a campfire and a puzzle to solve in order to get to the treasure inside which you could call lazy, but considering how big the game is, that's to be expected. As for the rest of the game, you basically get nearly everything that Uncharted had when it comes to climbing, free running and so on. You do of course have many challenges to complete, treasures to find outside of the tombs and so much more. You also have an ability to use what's called instinct which works nearly the same as Instinct in Hitman: Absolution, Eagle Vision in Assassin's Creed and Detective Mode in Batman: Arkham, however it has very limited use and isn't the same as those 3, but it does help you find your way to where you need to go and also helps solve puzzles and makes combat in the dark more clearer.
Overall, this is a great and solid game. It does the franchise justice and it's just as good as Uncharted (maybe even a little bit better). The single player campaign is where the game shines and from a personal perspective, I find this new Lara to be better than the original (and also more hotter and sexy). The voice acting is great, the graphics are great and even all the emotions you come across in the game are executed perfectly. Only criticism I do have is that the Multiplayer could've been better as well as the game's advertising. But for me, it's a great, solid game that is so far the game of 2013. 9/10
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