Tomb Raider

Square Enix one of Japan’s top leading game developers has truly outdone themselves with the release of the new Tomb Raider. The game stars a young British girl - that we all know and love - who’s on an exploration with her close friends, and a “famous” archeologist, for a documentary that the crew is helping put together. The game starts off with as a scene in which the destruction of their ship - the Endurance - occurs, landing them on an island in the Dragon’s Triangle near Japan. Young Lara Croft wakes up to the wreckage and is attacked from behind shortly after, ending the scene and starting the game.

                The game control feels amazing, as well as the structure. While you control Lara, you can see how well the designers worked on the coding of the movement and response to the controls. Compared to previous versions of Tomb Raider, the controlling features feel flawless. The character's actions and reactions are almost like  an extension of your own. As you develop through the game, you soon learn how Lara Croft became the legend she is in the classic RPGs, while she in turn, finds her inner Croft. The further into the game you get, the more you see how clearly organized the structure is with the controls, something that feels decidely lacking in some other games by Square Enix, such as Deus Ex.

                While the game’s control sequence is amazing, what is truly breath taking are the graphics. The artwork, the 3-D design, and the structure of the entire layout is breathtaking. Lara gets bruised up, beaten, and wounded, which is prevalent throughout the whole game play. In most RPG games once a player is wounded, their wounds tend to magically disappear after a certain amount of time, but in this game, the game-play feels way more realistic as Lara keeps all bumps and bruises, as well as the not-so-glamorous dirt she receives throughout. This feature is similar to how Warner Bros. produced Batman: Arkham Asylum & Batman: Arkahm City, where if Batman gets injured and his suit gets damaged it stays damaged throughout the whole gameplay.

                The story line of the game is amazing, the way they show how Lara grows and her development throughout the game is amazing. Overall, I give this game a 9.5 out of 10, mainly cause there were still some loose ends in the editing, but despite that I thought it was a really good game.