When I heard that they were going to make a new game for Tomb Raider or basically a reboot to the series I was ecstatic. Not only because it was about time but to see what direction they would go with and to see the new generation console's graphics shine would be a awesome thing to see.
Honestly, I was pretty impressed with how the game was made and designed by Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics. The direction of how she got started to become "Lara Croft Tomb Raider" and her surviving the elements was pretty thoughtful or good.
SPOILER!
The gameplay was easy to follow. Your stranded on an island and notice strange things going on and your trying to escape, during that time you hypothesize that the island could be Yamatai, which turns out later that Lara was right when everybody else that she was wrong and wanted to move on. So your completing challenges, raiding tombs, seeing people sacrifice themselves to save you and others, seeing that there are a lot of people who believe a guy and believe that the "Sun Queen" will save them, saving your shipmates and your best friend Sam who is "mistakenly" thought to be the "Sun Queen" and finding people that betray the trust of the whole crew and also you.
The maps are pretty impressive, you have maps that are small or maps that are huge and there is treasure and challenges everywhere. It is pretty nice that they give you a treasure map because some of the artifacts and GPS units are sometimes hard to find because you would never think to look there unless you search every square inch of the map.
Controls are pretty simple to use and learn. They are smooth and just flow easy, there is no cryptic work to figure them out like some games. One thing I did notice is that when Lara does the rock pick, she moves around like Kratos in God of War when he climbs on walls, that is a minor grip that I found, nothing too serious.
Graphics was awesome. 2008 was the last time I believe that the PS3 and the Xbox 360 showed its graphics power otherwise it was the PS2 and older, I remember when I first played Tomb Raider on the PS1 and how the graphics felt fuzzyish and well PS1 graphics. But for this game, the graphics shined and was brought out in the greatest detail. Now I know that the PS4 and the Xbox One will have a version that will top that but I am still pretty impressed.
Overall, this game is solid and good. I give this game a score of a 9/10.