Video Game Review - Shadow of the Tomb Raider

About five years ago, we got the first game in what would become a reboot/prequel of the Tomb Raider franchise and in a way would redefine Lara Croft (reprised by Camilla Luddington) and her journey to becoming the titular tomb raider she would eventually become. The first game of the series put her in a scenario all about surviving the odds and having her choose what is the right thing to do. In the second game, having gained the confidence to do so, she would begin her journey to rise up and become the tomb raider we know and love. Bringing us to the third game and boy its a big one. Let's get to it:

Picking up from the cliffhanger that Rise left us with, Lara somehow manages to unleash a Mayan apocalypse onto the world following clues left for her by her father. Together with her friend Jonah (reprised by Earl Baylon), the pair seek out to stop this event while also taking down rival organisation Trinity who want to remake the world into their image. As with the previous two games, gameplay largely brings back elements of those games such as fire pits as fast travel points, lots of tombs to raid, plenty of puzzles to solve, treasure to find and even some crafting and translating. So in other words, almost everything the last couple of games had while giving us a whole new environment in the form of a jungle-esque world that we would know as South America. New to the game alongside the above is the use of side missions as well as an improved swimming system that let's Lara swim underwater for a longer period of time than before and with the use of air pockets for the longer sections. You can also trade resources and stealth plays a big part in the game too thus allowing us to escape combat when the need arises.

So normally when it comes to the third game of the series in both the current and last generation of gaming, its always that game that is considered the worst of the series because its too ambitious and is seemingly way too hyped up on one aspect over everything else. It was the case with Mass Effect 3 (where it was too focused on the war aspect and had some technical issues and a very confusing ending), Batman: Arkham Knight (where it had a predictable story and hyped up over the Batmobile side of things which ultimately ended up being repetitive over innovative and it too had technical issues) and in a way BioShock Infinite (which apart from the beginning and the DLC, was very distant from the other games and although very good generally, had a confusing ending). Luckily, this game isn't as ambitious as it keeps everything we loved about the other two games there and introduces some new things that isn't as impactful as what I mentioned above which I'd say is good. Does it make this a great game? Well a good game definitely and one that concludes it right at the start of the first ever game of the series from 20 years ago. But probably not an innovative one, but still pretty good. 9/10