After years of successfully raiding tombs, gun fights, puzzle solving, and the occasional archeology Lara was in need of a break, so she hung up the guns and the tank top, and took a break. When it came time to get back out there,Crystal Dynamics went back to the drawing board with Tomb Raider with great success on the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. Now its the new consoles turn, with Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition.
Release Date: Jan 28, 2014
Genre/rating: Action adventure / M
Our girl Lara was in dire need of some TLC, and she needed to be handled properly or she was probably going to be shelved. This happens all the time when games or their protagonists can’t evolve or make it out of their respective eras, as the cheap bins at your local game store can attest. I don’t think we can afford to lose Lara though, aside from being one of our oldest upper echelon characters, she’s also one of our boldest female protagonists, a thing I hope won’t be a point worth mentioning much longer. Lara is special and she deserved special treatment, she got it and we got Tomb Raider, and now we have Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition.
If you were living under a rock (or perhaps on a deserted island?) Tomb Raider was the series reboot that fans actually wanted and craved. Taking Lara’s strong points (Tomb Raiding, weapons wielding, environmental puzzle solving) and added vulnerability, humanity, and a character that was more than a pair of guns, some booty shorts, and a tight top. Harkening back to her early, pre-raiding of tombs days, Lara is out in the wide world searching for adventure. She finds it, or rather it finds her, in the form of a shipwreck and a mysterious island, which I think we all can agree is a pretty fantastic adventure, though better without the insane cultists perhaps… (did I mention insane cultists?). A huge success for both fans and Crystal Dynamics, Tomb Raider received many accolades and was widely considered one of the best games of the year. With a new console generation comes new opportunities, and so we have Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition.
Definitive Edition is primarily just a staggered release for our two lovely new consoles, the Xbox One and PS4. Visual fidelity is the primary sell here, with some truly spectacular hair effects taking the cake (I’m not kidding, hair is tough) but Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition also incorporates voice command, using the Playstation 4 and Xbox One cameras, allowing you to call up the map and menus with a barked order (it doesn’t have to be barked, I assume you can ask politely). This is cool of course, but I have yet to see the game which provides a strong argument for voice commands, Tomb Raider included, but it is even better looking on the new consoles (though I understand the frame rate is currently better on the PS4)
For those of you who (hee hee) ‘missed the boat’ on Tomb Raider the first time around and now have yourself a spanky new console, or, if you DID play it, but have been looking for an excuse to take Lara for another spin around the island, here’s your chance.
What did you think of the Lara Croft Reboot? What would you like to see in a Sequal (more tombs!)? Comment Below!
