I played every Tomb Raider since 1996, loved the stories, the character, the maps - especially the maps. (I never liked the movies though).
The new era games, starting with Legend in 2006 , Anniversary and, best of them, Underworld continued the line in the best possible way. I was a fan of TR with all its ups and downs.
Then came “Tomb Raider” in 2013, the greatest downfall in game history!
First of all: what did they do to Lara? The former archetype of a heroine has all of a sudden been degraded to a whiney, overly dramatic crybaby, saying “oh god!” every minute. She is now Lara The Victim. And her Face: Who is that? Ever looked at her in the previous 17 Years? That is not Lara Croft. Neither is her body.
Hey Guys, this is a videogame, was it really necessary to turn Lara Croft into a politically correctly shaped but boring character that looks and talks like the depressed, unemployed girl next door?
Gameplay has also been totally crippled. Gone are the days where you could freely run through huge levels in search of something.
The player is now basically allowed to press a few buttons in between two cutscenes. There is no flow in the game as it is constantly interrupted by cutscenes. Always cutscenes! Short cutscenes where you just lose control over Lara and the camera angle. Long cutscenes with annoying dialogues. You can skip some of the longer ones but you never get the feeling of moving freely through a map. Instead the player is kept on a very short leash, there is only one path to follow, very linear and predictive. It is more like a slightly interactive hollywood movie, bloated with drama and painfully stretched actionscenes that you have to endure while you wait to actually continue playing.
Positive thing is the graphics. It looks marvellous. But that is about it.
I got so annoyed by the gameplay and Lara’s constant whining that i uninstalled the game when i was only halfway through.
Same happened to the sequel “Rise of the Tomb Raider”. Gave it a try, got annoyed, deleted it. Won’t buy the newer games and i think this is very sad.