Things have changed, and these are different times. The new addition to the Tomb Raider series makes that very clear.

User Rating: 9 | Tomb Raider (The Final Hours Edition) PS3
Tomb Raider has been one of the most recognized games series' in the industry for over a decade.

I remember when I played the original Tomb Raider games for playstation, and played my first Tomb Raider demo on PC. Back then, it was amazing, and groundbreaking, and truly entertaining.

I've been playing Tomb Raider as long as I've been alive, Lara Croft might possibly be (without a doubt) the most popular, and recognized female lead in entertainment, and most people can agree she that she is one of the cornerstone characters in the gaming industry.

This addition to the series, is much different, and offers us a completely new perspective to view Lara from.

I remember when I saw the adds for the new upcoming "Tomb Raider" and initially thinking... hmm, another one? (Why am I not surprised?)

I had played Underworld (The latest Tomb Raider game at the time) and I really enjoyed it. I liked it a lot more than Tomb Raider games such as "Legend" and "Anniversary", but it still wasn't a truly "Great game"... it was just "entertaining".

I was used to (as I'm sure many where) Tomb Raider being the game that really only got purchases because of its title. Not so much because it did anything amazing, and/or was groundbreaking in anyway.

I always purchased them, because of my childhood memories... when someone said the words "video game" I always pictured Lara Croft leaping from one pillar to another, or crawling beneath some dangerous lasers, or running from enemies/guards while the alarm is raised.

The original Tomb Raider trilogy... those were THE games for me, but ever since then, the tomb raider series got lost in the same adventure as some of the others.. like Indiana Jones and Daniel Boone.

It started to seem like Tomb Raider was passing into Legend.. left behind, only to be remembered by how great it once was.

But then... Everything changed.

I remember seeing for the first time "Tomb Raider - Rated M for Mature/18" and I thought to myself. "You've gotta be kidding me."

I was starting to think that just like some other great game series'... someone would come up with the bright idea to make a bloodbath out of an iconic game, and make it all about slaughtering at random, and it would crash in burn in the process.

Tomb Raider had always been rated T for Teen.. sure, Lara has always been a sensually alluring character, and over the years has become somewhat of a Sex-Symbol. Sure, the previous Tomb Raider games had their fair share of violence and bloodshed, but never to a brutal and/or mature degree.

I was starting to wonder what would become of the legendary series.. and when it came around, and I purchased it. Well.. it was just unbelievable.

The game tells the horrific story of how Lara (A Young and Innocent Woman) and her friends/crew mates shipwreck on an uncharted island. It would seem bad enough that many lives were lost, and that her and her friends are stranded out in the middle of God-Knows-Where, but to make things all the worse, they figure out that the island already has its inhabitants.

These include Wolves, and many other animals, and other survivors, who have been stranded here long before them, and have adapted to the harsh nature of the island, and in the process most of them... have gone insane.

Horror after horror, death after death.. Lara's young innocent eyes witness terrible acts of cruelty, and she is pushed to do horrible things to survive. She now realizes that it is the survival of the fittest, and she and her fellow crew members are all unwelcome guests at the dining table of death itself.

It is a captivating experience from start-to-finish, and there isn't really anything quite like it.

No game I've played has captured the sense of cruelty, hopelessness, and survival... quite like this one does.

The dark and grim visuals set the tone for the game right off the bat, and the eerie soundtrack, along with the haunting sounds of the island welcome you to the extraordinary and tragic new world of Tomb Raider.

Lara's movements are perfect... the player cannot simply sprint their way through this adventure, unrealistically never growing tired, pushing on and on without a single stop. Lara at her full speed is usually a stressed jog, just fast enough to make it feel like you are making distance, but just slow enough for you to observe the lands and structures that await.

Jogging through the jungle, only to hear the faint sound of howling in the distance, and some snarling in the bushes around you, not knowing whether or not you have been selected as the next course of the wolves desperate feed.

Lara reacts to every situation accordingly... when she is casually jogging along a cobblestone path, with buildings and camps all around her, and then hears the sound of a few men talking.. she instantly gets low, and tries to move silently, without the say so from the player. You then come into a close encounter with these perverted killers who are unaware of your presence, they may search about with flashlights in the dark hours of the night, or get to high ground to survey the roads below in the burning hours of the day.

You may sneak past them, with patience and luck... but there are many instances where you can never know for sure what the men you are hiding from are gonna do, which way they are going to turn, and what they are going to see. There are many stressful moments, like where a towering/intimidating killer stands just on the other side of the crate you are hiding behind.. taking a smoke, or a man walking right next to you in the bushes, as he takes a leak onto the tree immediately next to you.

These moments happen at random, depending on where and when you move, it makes these stressful situations all the more tense, and gripping.

The graphics and animations help bring everything to life, everything looks and moves like it should, and the complete absence of visual and audio hinderances lets everything flow smoothly, realistically, and perfectly.

The excessively loud sounds of gunfire add to the intensity, and everyone including Lara reacts to gunfire realistically... When you aim and fire at an enemy but miss, they'll shout out the according obscenities that anyone of us would in such a situation.

When they fire at you, and it breaks away part of your cover, all while Lara is helplessly flinching and crouched, leaning her cheek on the cold metal handgun that seems so big and overpowering in her smaller innocent hands, its just astonishingly realistic.

Whether you are a male or female, in this game, you feel like the helpless and frightened young woman that is Lara Croft, whether you are actually afraid or not, you can feel the severity of the situation when it occurs, and you can understand the dangers that lie ahead, and the emotions that are running through her mind as you slowly make your way towards them.

Overtime, like any could guess.. Lara goes from being the victim, to the survivor that she needs to be.

The weapons that seemed so cold and intimidating in your hands before, are mere tools of destruction you wield against all who wish to harm you. The scarring images of death and suffering, become just another day in hell on this island.

Tomb Raider has very little similarities to its predecessors. It strives to stand out from all the others, to come out of the Legend's shadow.. and that it does with elegance.

The game is so perfectly put together, it stays entertaining till you're finished, and even after, its hard not to break away and play it all over again.

The multiplayer for Tomb Raider however, is very disappointing, and it is the only reason that Tomb Raider is not perfect.. It is the definition of tacked on multiplayer. It feels like they threw it in there "Because they could" and the movement, animation, mechanics, gameplay, gamestyles, and combat are all SIGNIFICANTLY decreased in quality.

The multiplayer for Tomb Raider doesn't do anything that is new, or entertaining, which is really unfortunate, because they could've done so much more in that arena.

Its okay though, because everything the Multiplayer isn't, the campaign is and much more.

My only complaint, and its a very small complaint... is that in the Campaign, when switching weapons, the previous weapon disappears, now I don't think that is completely bad, since it would not be realistic for a relatively small woman like Lara to have an entire arsenal hanging off of her clothing, but in the multiplayer, when you take out your handgun, your other weapons (Such as the Assault Rifle, and Grenade Launcher) are still seen on your back, or on your toolbelts. While in the campaign, the weapon located on your back fades into oblivion when taking out your handgun, or switching to your bow, or making any kind of switch.

It wouldn't be a problem, if they hadn't taken the time to give Lara a holster for her handgun and a belt for her pickaxe and also a tool belt on her torso to hold onto any primary weapons (Shotguns, Rifles, etc.).

It just takes away from the realism, and this game is EXTREMELY realistic, so when you're in the middle of a tense situation, and every movement, reaction, and sound seems real, but Lara pulls a rifle out, instantly having her bow "beamed up" and left into the twilight zone, then putting the rifle on her back, and pulling out her handgun, but the rifle disappears quicker than you can say Ben Kenobi... it really does make the moment feel less realistic at times, if you're someone who pays close attention to all the visuals, like myself.

Besides that "Small Complaint"... Tomb Raider is phenomenal, and outstanding. It is officially one of my favourite games of all time.

PARENTAL SECTION

Tomb Raider is the first game in the series to be rated M for Mature, and it is rated so for: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, and Strong Language.

Tomb Raider is a beautifully made experience, but it is extremely dark, and actually could be quite depressing for some... the atmosphere is very heavy, and you know that horrific things are being done to innocent people at all times on this island, you're just trying to do your best to not end up being one of those people.

Although you rarely see any form of torture or suffering, you can hear the "bad guys" talk to each other about the things they did to people, and occasionally, even laugh about it.

BLOOD AND GORE:

The game's brutally realistic atmosphere comes into the picture immediately after Lara is caught up in the shipwreck. She wakes up during the beginning credits, to find herself hanging upside down, rapped up in filthy cloth. She is high up, and she looks down to the shallow water below, when she falls out of the cloth, she lands on a metal screw-like spike, that tears through the far left side of her stomach, just below her rib cage. She goes into a state of shock, terrified at what she sees impaling the side of her, she takes a firm grip on it, and then pulls, the player is required to rapidly press a button, letting them feel like they're exerting some strength, as if they were pulling it out themselves, and she rips it out, crying and shouting as she begins to bleed.

This pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the game... a man shortly after that chases you, but has his head crushed by a falling boulder, and also if the player does not correctly complete certain actions with accuracy, it usually results in Lara's death. The player must helplessly watch as some unspeakably terrible thing happens to her, some of which are quite graphic, like her head being smashed by a boulder also...

Depending on the player's skill, you will either see a great deal of these deaths, or very few, maybe none at all.

The most infamous scene of gore/bloodshed in the game, is when you awaken, once more, hanging upside down from a trap, but you are inside a cave, that has scattered remains and limbs laying all about, and puddles of blood and gore flood the ground beneath you, skin and bones, and entrails lying everywhere... This is because you are in a cannibal's lair of sorts.

You enter environments like this occasionally towards the end of the game, since you are getting deeper into the heart of the Island's problems. One of the most disturbing scenes in the game for some, might be a scene where some of the bad guys throw a prisoner into a "habitat" for insane people, and we watch helplessly in the shadows, in the habitat ourselves, as ten or more insane, bloody, and starving people lunge at the prisoner, competing for who gets which part of him to eat. You sneak away from this terror as quickly as possible, hoping to God that you do not alert them to your presence.

People get their legs shut into bear traps, set on fire, impaled, decapitated, dismembered, and bludgeoned at least once throughout the game, specifically towards the game's climax/ending.

Tomb Raider is not very gory, but when it is, it is quite memorable, and very disturbing.. that is what its meant to be, since the story is all about how Lara got so screwed up in the first place, and this more than makes sense of that.

STRONG LANGUAGE:

The game has a pretty standard usage of the "S" word / S**t. It isn't over used, and it isn't occasional, it is used on a pretty standard basis, and you'll most likely hear it about 20 times. (Much less uses of the word than other games, even T rated games like Uncharted [Uncharted 2 has about 200 uses of the S word] or Battlefield: Bad Company) So the S word isn't common, but it is definitely used. Mild vulgarities are rare, you hear some throughout the game, like dammit, damn, hell, bastard, b**ch, probably a few uses of each one. (It still has a lot less uses of these vulgarities than most T games). Finally, there is the "F" word, the mighty F bomb. At first, it is never used.. times goes by, it still isn't used, then you come across the rough, immoral, and violent bad guys, and you start hearing a few uses.. These words are mostly used when the bad guys are having conversations with one another, and are unaware of your presence. Then, when there is conflict, they usually use mild vulglarities. However, it should be noted that they may sometimes throw out an F word when they are close to death, or about to be killed, it is extremely rare, but it could happen, and is most likely to happen a couple times in a single playthrough.

Lara hardly uses language, but she does when she is at a peaked stress level, her uses of language are placed in such a fashion, that she is saying what we are thinking or feeling. Her mouth is pretty clean throughout the game, most likely the cleanest one... which is a bit odd since she is the one who experiences the worst things.

STRONG VIOLENCE:

The game starts off, with very little violence.. its meant to be disturbing, and they accomplish this by making you feel helpless, running from things instead of fighting them. Things get progressively more violent as the game goes on. Lara stands off as one of those people who couldn't pull the trigger at first, but after she is forced into doing certain things, she realizes that she has no other choice, fight... or die.

Players can try to avoid conflict, but through the course of the game, you will be forced into violent situations, that will require you to take quite a few lives. As you upgrade Lara's abilities, things get a bit more graphic. She gets close-up kills, that let us watch as she takes a shotgun and presses it into an enemies face as she pulls the trigger, resulting in blood-splatter. Same thing with other weapons, most times involving an "execution styled" finisher.

The game is much more graphic than it is violent, but it is violent.

Since I've touched-up on everything now, I will close with this.

Tomb Raider is a very deep, and dark experience. It (in my opinion) shows Uncharted who is boss (which is a lot coming from me). It also gives us an idea of how an Iconic figure such as Lara Croft came to be.. through tragedy, like most great heroes.

It is through the terrible things that occurred in her past, that she became the person she "was meant to be". It is an eye-opening experience, that tells us the story of how a frightened young girl, became the pinnacle of Female Heroes. Tomb Raider is an Epic..

Thanks to all who took the time to read this review, and I hope that it was helpful.

-ARBALON.