Tomb Raider (2013) released 05/03/13, published by Square Enix and developed by Crystal Dynamics is a prequel from the Tomb Raider game series, conveying and highlighting the re-enacting origins of to the main protagonist; Lara Croft. In the opening cinematic of Tomb Raider we see a younger Lara Croft and her fellow crew members on a ship, setting off to her first expedition, until a storm occurs, creating gigantic waves crashing against the ship and causing the crew members to become ship wrecked and stranded on an island, based on Yamatai, Japan. This allowed me to gain an idea of the adventurous path for this young woman, embarking a story to become more intelligent, ingenious, and fearless and gain high will power when facing all sorts of danger and the need to do anything to survive, much like the Lara Croft in the sequel of Tomb Raider.
The plot of the game is in search of the lost kingdom of Yamatai, but gets diverted by Lara being stranded on her own and in need to find her crew members and a Military already based on the island. This created a connection between me and Lara as the game progressed onwards and having scenes of breakdowns and her urge to push forward during game play, having me not wanting to put the controller down until the end.
The first hour of game play of Tomb Raider can be tedious, as it was personally, although that is because it is a sequence of character development sections, but it was easily let off once the first hour mark has passed and allows the game player to free roam within the island and button/movement directions are removed. Crystal Dynamics really nailed the game play for Tomb Raider, although it is different from the rest of the Tomb Raider series, Tomb Raider 2013 game play progression involves both fast and slow paced sections; such as Lara’s first kill encounter becomes a very emotional cinematic scene of a break down, which I felt sympathy towards, then quickly changes to her being a ‘killing machine’ as she now has to attack numerous animals and people during game progression. There are very great and graphical animation occurrences that the game player will see during game play. Also, the game has a multi player option, to play online against other players, but was not very looked into and is not enjoyable, being compared to the campaign.
The graphics of the game during game play, being; the characters/bots, the island scenery, detailed objects etc is really great, Crystal Dynamics have done really well on this job also, as you can see here:
Tomb Raider 2013 gets a personal overall rating of 9/10.
It did not get 10/10 as the multi player mode was a let down, but very enjoyable game and would recommend other gamers to go and play it.
The Sound of Silence 