Tomb Raider is an excellent action game with truly next gen graphics.
Though this Tomb Raider is kind of setting it's own path, and doesn't have much in common with the old playstation Tomb Raiders, the path this reboot is taking is incredibly exciting. Laura starts out as an innocent sexy archeologist and her bad assness slowly emerges throughout the story. The game is BRUTAL and the combat extremely satisfying. All the weapons make good use of themselves. You'll find yourself quickly switching between weapons to handle the fast and furious combat and this just makes you feel all that more bad ass. (getting shot at roll behind a wall, take cover, equip shotgun, guy comes around shooting, you dodge, throw dirt in face, shotgun to the FACE! Yeah...that was badass) This game is very violent. The old Laura we all know was never much of a bad ass. This new Laura I could really see her developing into a bad ass. I'm talkin Kratos bad ass. Alright maybe not THAT bad ass but pretty close. The story is also pretty interesting...reminds me a little bit of LOST.
The game is not without it's problems though.The collectibles in the game just feel sort of worthless. There are gps parts, artifacts, and documents all over the map as collectibles, all without any real rewards for collecting. The only reason to collect anything would be for further depth into the story which only documents are useful for. Also I think the weapon and character upgrades could have been thought out better. Not saying they are bad upgrades, I just think they could have put more thought into them. A lot of times I found myself not really caring where I put my skill point cause all of the skills seemed slightly beneficial in some way or another. Nothing really sticks out and makes you say "ooh I want that!" Also certain skills seem to overlap other skills..at least I believe they do. There is definitely some confusion there. For example one skill you buy allows you to dodge then throw dirt in the enemies face to stun him for a few seconds. Then another skill you buy allows you to dodge and stab the enemy in the knee with an arrow to also stun him for a few seconds...with the same button execution as the dirt throwing skill. So what exactly is the point in buying the arrow to the knee skill? From the description they both do the exact same thing and will actually overwrite my dirt throwing skill since they both have the same button execution? Also I must say I'm a little disappointed there were no real puzzle challenges. Any puzzle in the game is extremely easy and solved in a few minutes. I miss the mind boggling puzzles from the old tomb raiders.
All in all the game is definitely worth checking out. The core gameplay is excellent, the graphics are gorgeous, Laura has perfect T&A. There is definitely room for improvement but that's what sequels are for right? I'm really looking forward to a Tomb Raider 2, because with the right amount of effort I think this series could be truly revolutionary.