Tomb Raider 2013 is Embarrassing

 

I didn't play the Tomb Raider reboot back when it launched because I knew I was going to hate it.  But then I picked it up for less than 5 bucks in a Steam sale and then it was given to me for free (along with its two sequels) on the Epic store so I installed it, fired it up and decided to give it a whirl anyway.

And I was totally right, the game is absolute fucking garbage and I hate it.

If you're an embyro that wasn't aware, Tomb Raider 2013 is a reboot of the long running Tomb Raider series that's been going since 1996 back when Lara Croft had 2 pistols, triangular titties and the game was a sort of Prince of Persia-esque platformer type thing.  So of course for the reboot they stripped all of that away and made it ANOTHER fucking over the shoulder 3rd person cinematic adventure game/fair ground shoot the ducks sideshow attraction.

Putting itself before the events of even the 1996 original, it shows a young Lara on a boat to go and explore an old Japanese island only when she gets there she finds that its full of cultists that want her and her friends dead AND an ancient mysterious power that wont let them leave no matter how many times they call for rescue planes.  The rest of the story is just bad voice acting and Lara getting beaten up by both the baddies and mother nature and that's about all their is to it.  It tries to do some "maybe YOU'RE the bad guy here Lara" at the end but it's such a pathetic attempt at giving the plot some depth that it doesn't so much fall flat as much as it falls right through the Earths crust and disintigrates into the core.

The gameplay is Uncharted.  Not "like Uncharted", it is just Uncharted.  Run from place to place climbing on things and shooting dudes until you get to a big set piece where you'll run away from something thats exploding or crumbling beneath you and there's no actual risk of a game over unless you have a sudden stroke and let go of the W key, or maybe S if its doing the run towards the camera thing.  Slightly different from Uncharted though it adds experience points for you to learn skills and gun upgrades, none of which you ever really need but you have to spend those skill points and salvage on something I guess.  It also adds a TON of optional collectables that aren't fun to look for and aren't actually worth anything except exp for more skill points so thus making the completion percentage on your save slot completely fucking worthless.

Worse than generic, boring gameplay however is the fact that, at least on PC, it's buggy to all hell.  I say without hyperbole that every single death I experienced during my time with the game was due to a bug.  Lara not grabbing things, Lara not shoving her pickaxe into a craggy wall after a jump, Lara's melee attack just going right through enemies thus giving him a chance to fill me full of hot lead, the whole works and every time I would shut the game off and refuse to play it for a few days thus making the playthrough feel PAINFULLY long.

The game ends with "The team worked the hardest they could to bring you the best possible game they could make" and I know it's harsh but if THIS is the best game you could possibly make then you should quit making games because your attempts are sad at best and anger inducing at worst.  Still though, enough idiots bought and enjoyed this pile of crap for it to warrent TWO bloody sequels which the Epic Game Store vomited into my backlog so I'm hoping that the other games are at least slightly better at this one.  I hated 1996 Tomb Raider and I hate this one even more and for all the shit I give old school Tomb Raider at least it had some personality and stood out as an original game.  2013 is just another generic, "cinematic" piece of shit to add to the pile and be forgotten.

Fuck this game

Was Tomb Raider Ever Good?

 

Obscenely late to the party once again thanks to my insanely large backlog, I picked up a cheap copy of the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot on Steam and finally started playing it not too long ago.  It's a painful "OK" game, competently made and fun to fiddle about with for 30 minutes to an hour at a time but nothing special.  It's the gaming equivalent of eating a piece of plain bread or a bowl of plain, unseasoned rice with no side dish.  Not terrible enough to really complain about but not something you'd want to consume regularly.

The one thing that keeps going through my mind as I'm playing it is "why does this exist? we already have Uncharted".  Everything that set Tomb Raider apart back in the day when Lara had a lot more polygons and significantly stiffer movement is completely gone in favor of making it just Uncharted if it was a semi open-world game.  The problem with it being so similar to Uncharted is that it sucks at being Uncharted and it sucks at being a semi open world game.  The Japanese island that Lara runs around on in this game just isn't an interesting location and I find myself sort of glazing over as I'm playing.  The only real interesting thing about the game is how much effort went into the animations for Lara getting beaten up and killed and quite frankly I don't get that much enjoyment from watching game over screens and Saw-Lite levels of gore.

But here's the spicy hot take from the title, was Tomb Raider ever really good? 

I know there are plenty of people that claim to like it, it was a hugely popular franchise for a while and triangular tittied Lara Croft was and still is a video game icon but the games are just So. Fucking. Boring. I remember when I first got my Sega Saturn that had a playable demo of the first Tomb Raider game and I fired that thing up and prompty put it down.  At first I chalked it up just to being too young to "get" it, so when I was older I gave the classic Tomb Raider games another shot and gave up a few stages deep because I was so painfully bored.  The sequels I also gave a fair shake too but didn't fair any better and then as the series moved to the PS2 I feel everyone came to their senses with Angel of Darkness because I've never seen anyone defend that game. 

Then the reboot comes along with is bombastic cinematics and modern gameplay but still sufferes from being just painfully fucking boring.  Only this time instead of stiff movement and boring levels it's generic gunplay and boring semi-open environments I'm expected to scour for trinkets.  At time of writing this post I stand by the idea that Tomb Raider is, by far, one of the most boring franchises to ever exist in the history of the medium.

Granted I've not finished Tomb Raider 2013 and what it does have going over the original games is that I do feel at least somewhat motivated to at least get to the end, which is a huge step up from the original games.  Also I'm not sure how far into 2013 I am, I'm trying to fix a fuse box on a radio tower or some shit and maybe in a few hours more the game will get really good and my opinion will completely change.  The other thing I'm willing to consider is that maybe I'll have a lot more fun with the later games in the reboot series, Shadow and Rise of the Tomb Raider.  Maybe I'll come back after playing those games and have a completely differernt opinion and gush endlessly about what a masterpiece of gaming they are....

But I fucking doubt it