In the opening scenes, it’s Lara’s thoughtless plundering of a Mayan tomb that kicks off the apocalypse, but any commentary here about Lara’s penchant for nicking artefacts from other cultures is undermined by a plot that later casts her as saviour of the natives.īeautiful backdrop … Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Killing endless streams of militiamen might be uninteresting, but at least the optics aren’t so cringeworthy. It’s also worth noting that seeing aristocratic, English Lara Croft running around ancient central America wearing feathers and animal skulls and shooting enemies garbed in ceremonial dress is deeply uncomfortable. To pick one of many examples: why, when Lara shows up in an undisturbed native settlement filled with people who have somehow avoided the outside world for hundreds of years, is she instantly welcomed into their midst and put to work resolving their disputes? How does she communicate fluently with them? At first, Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s narrative inconsistencies are ignorable, but with every new convenient riddle or magical artefact, pointless revelation or paper-thin character, my tolerance for nonsense wore thinner. The plot makes little sense, basic character motivations are entirely absent, and Lara uncritically takes on random busywork for practically everyone she meets. The narrative is an incoherent mess that goes well beyond the usual action movie/video game suspension of disbelief – how are all of Lara’s guns still fully-functional after spending an hour diving through an underwater tomb? – and shreds your investment in what’s actually going on in the game.
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Sadly, Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s series of amazing places is held together by a plot that collapses under the slightest scrutiny. The animation and environment design is truly impressive, and you’re usually given time to take it all in rather than being rushed along by combat.
Clambering around cliffs and crumbling buildings is vertiginous and exciting it always feels like you’re an inch from falling to your death. The camera lingers on sunset-yellow vistas and beautiful temples whenever Lara emerges from the jungle or a cave to discover some new marvel of the ancient world.
Sending a poisoned arrow into the thigh of a guard from the jungle canopy before dropping down into the grass and picking off his panicking companions one by one is more interesting than pointing a pistol at them and pressing a button until they fall down.Īs a spectacle, Shadow of the Tomb Raider can compete with the best. Lara has “evolved” here from desperate survivor into a silent killer, which gives the player a welcome break from shooting things. Lara gets caught up in mudslides and earthquakes, scrambles from collapsing buildings and blows up attack helicopters, but instead of hiding behind cover with an assault rifle, more often she crouches unseen in long grass or presses herself against walls, hunting oblivious militiamen in the darkness. Like the first two Tomb Raider games in this modern trilogy by Crystal Dynamics – though this concluding entry was developed by a different studio, Eidos Montréal - Shadow of the Tomb Raider relegates slower-paced exploring, treasure-hunting and puzzling around ancient tombs to make way for high-adrenaline action-movie-style play. It is so silly that you can’t explain it without sounding ridiculous: Lara is chasing a secret militia organisation across the south American continent to prevent them from stealing a silver box and bringing about the end of the world. But it does Lara a disservice, turning her into a deadly mud-camouflaged jungle warrior without much interesting to say, pushed along by a plot that’s more concerned with prophecies and supernatural artefacts than with its main character. Shadow of the Tomb Raider nails the former, with sumptuous South American locations to climb, dive and rappel around, ranging from ancient Inca cities and missionary crypts to modern-day Peruvian jungles and towns. T here are two things I’ve always loved about Tomb Raider in all its incarnations over the years: beautiful, exciting and dangerous places to explore, and Lara Croft herself.
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