UPDATE: I wrote the opening post before completing enough of the game to know definitely that this is a total disaster and a horrible exploitation of the series. The only thing it has in common with the Tomb Raider series is the title....nothing else has stayed the same..in this horrid come down you are forced to butcher wildlife, see Lara injured in lurid and graphic detail and experience death and brutality in many forms over and over. It is a cheap and shoddy descent into the worst of modern shooter violence and if you have kids please do NOT let them play it. I dont reccomend it for sensitive and mature adults, it may appeal to hardened gamers who have no trace of senstivity left and who dont mind bloody and nasty violence..but for those who have some decency left, avoid this rot at all costs.

The new Tomb Raider game is out, and i tried it out today. the graphics are stunning and the action is fast and furious and it is a departure for the series, more of a shooter-gritty realism- dark side versoin of Tomb Raider and some will love it, many of the reviewers did becausei it is very much in line with the current crop of shooters and action games.

Lara the character is a drasatic make over and not for the better. BAsically Crystal Dynamics bowed to the politics of modern Engloand which says that women are NOT beautiful or aristocratic not even Lara..and made her over to look like a London hairdresser who lives in Putney and speaks like a shop clerk. She has lost her stunning looks and her special flair....  i wont go on too mcuh but a word to the wise, if you treat it the new game as if Lara has taken a busman's holiday you will be ok, and may enjoy it.

For those of us who love the classic Lara and the long heritage of Tomb Raider ...we have all the seven other wonderful games to play and check out my thread on Tomb Raider Underworld which was the previous full game release. ...the Guardians of LIght pastiche that was released in between the two is hardly a TR game at all, it is more like an animated platformer with an isometric view. Not even woth bothering with. But we have plenty of wonderful other TR to enjoy.

Lars ia on vaction and she has earned it.

What's this "drastic" make over? London hairdresser? Lara still looks great, and if that's the normal average looking woman I'm moving to London asap. All they did is bring her breastsize/lips down to a more REALSITIC level, and didn't make her look so overy sexulaized, she still looks like "Lara," just a more believable one and not so overly sexualized.

The game is still very much a Tomb Raider game. The old Tomb raiders had PLENTY of action elements in them, even off the wall John Woo action with Lara doing flips and cartwheels to dodge and shoot akimbo style with two pistols. If that's not "Action" I don't know what is.

This game is the Origin story of Lara, it's not a "Vacation" nor is it a departure, it's telling her origin and it does a pretty good job of it imo.

Sorry this is not a  Tomb Raider game at all, it is a Horror shooter made by sadistic thugs who want to troll the TR series name to sell game units. It is just plain god awful and i will never ever reccomend it to anyone for anything. It sucks and is just bad. The gratutious violece and nasty stuff they force Lara into is sick beyond detialing and i am very sad to see that not even Tomb Raide which for long was one of the interesitng and well done series has escaped the modcern trend for violece in its rawest and most meaningless forms. Yes it has a story that COULD have been a subject for a real Tomb Raider game but this is NOT it.

Eventually i hope good taste returns to the game universe but for now, Lara is out to lunch and the Tomb Raider series is on hold unitl they made a decent title. I am very sad about this, as i had high hopes for it inspite of the depressing images that have come out over the past year.

It is ugly, sordid, nasty and mean. Nothing more to say. And i stick by my judgement of the new Lara, she is cheap, shoddy and just plain ugly. Nothing at all to do with the real Lara, at any age....orgin or not. The opening part of Tomb Raider IV is a much better intro to the real lara at least that young version has her real character in the voice acting. instead of a lower class wannabe socalist egalitarian make over.

Among the other serious problems the game suffers from, much of the action takes place in cut scenes so you feel like a passenger in a bus or a audience at a movie, you have limited control over Lara and of that, it is channeled into ridiculous things from MMOPRGs like buildings up XP of all ridiculous ideas for a Tomb Raider game, developing Skills and progresisng on a rigid track of development that makes it boring to a great extent even when the action is intense. The problem with so much cut scenes is that the charcters in the story, the members of Lara's party and the enemies are very very badly voice acted and animated, they are still and wooden and contain all the socially acceptable minorities and feminist sub groups to satisdfy the social correct modern socalist agenda. That makes is just silly, and since Lara herself is both ugly and unappealing in just about every way, you have no affiliation or desire to really help her. I tend to think that some of the designers of this parody actualy HATED the Lara we have loved and enjoyed for years...a sassy sophisticated very superior and very capable aristocratic woman of nerves of steel and a fast trigger ...she has been a great heroine to follow and has had a lot of class even as a young person for this  is NOT the first time we have seen the younger Lara and this game is certainly NOT going to set the bar for her Orgin story.

I can see that they intend to maker her suffer and go thru agonies to become her mature self but wat these writers did not realize is that they are just being plalin stupid with brute manipulation and very coarse and gross overdoing of their plans. There is just about nothing to redeem this game sadly and i hope if there is a future for the series the next title is made with much better taste.

Negative 100 points out of 10.

So Cris, you are bascially pissed at the game, because now they show the gore/blood of the violence? Even though the OLD ORIGINAL tomb raider games had a LOT OF ACTION and gunplay in them, it just wasn't as graphically detailed back then, for obvious tech limations and other things. I mean you'd dual akimbo pistols, shoot people in the head, animals, etc, even a bloody dinosaur, and now you seem to toake offense when the violence is more focused and detailed?

Yet you are also pissed that the game made Lara have more average proportions for her breasts/lips, and you're mad she isn't designed as the overly sexulaized female that she used to be, so that she is more releatable to gamers and as a character?  You say she looks bad? She looks GREAT, and very "Lara Croft" like minus the changes to the size of her breasts. If that's how the average woman in a London shop looks, I'm moving over there.

What do you dislike about the story? What makes the actual game bad? You know the gameplay elements, story, character, dialogue, combat, etc? 

Because from the majority of both critics, and people that have played it, the game is getting good marks across the board.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/tomb-raider

You just seem to be focusing on saying it's bad because "the gore is too detailed" and Lara "no longer has big breasts" Instead of the story, gameplay, etc.

If you weren't aware with the series, it's been going downhill for a LONG time, not selling as well as it used to. The Uncharted series bascially took over the mantle that Tomb Raider once Held, and Square Enix made the choice to go back and tell the Origin of Lara and try to get the series back on path. So far from both reviews and sales, it's did just that.

My only complaint from the game is too many QTE's, which I haive no love for, but apart from that it's got most of the elements of a Tomb raider game, perhaps it could use some more puzzle elements (and a harder difficulty) but for a reboot/origin story it's fine, and hopefully the next game expands on those elements and opens up more to where you can explore more and more.

edit - I just saw your edit.

You find the new Lara "Ugly and unappealing?"

You call this ugly?

I mean it still looks VERY SIMILAR to the original Lara, just smaller breast size/lips, that make her look more like  a real woman rather then a playboy model with giant fake sillcone implants.

Here's a screen showing the older Lara Croft model with the newer one:

Since 2003 or so they've made Lara have smaller proportions.

Also do you not understand the point of this Origin story? Lara isn't MEANT to be like the "old" Lara, the sassy sosphistated, with nerves of steel Lara that we know, this is an ORIGIN story, it's meant to show how to develops, changes, and gets into that character.

The entire concept of the game is to show how Lara is BEFORE she becomes "Lara Croft" in the older games, before she's even KILLED anyone or explored and things.  It's like you completely ignore this and expected the game to be something it wasn't meant to be.

The "rpg like" elements fit the game and story, Lara isn't some trained marksmen, she isn't experienced, this is how she becomes that. It makes sense that put in this situation she gets BETTER and more skilled throughout the game, rather then having her be skilled with guns, surviving, climbing, etc, that wouldn't fit the context of the storyline.

Sorry that dog wont hunt

firstly the most horrifying thing is the degree of gratuitous gross and nasty violence, having to butcher wildlife for pets sake, and go thru the Lord of the Flies altars decoraed with decyaing dead meat..and the brutality of the graphic injuries they inflict on her in the game and which we are forced to witness let alone the graphic death scense of her being mauled to death by wolves which you are forced to watch because the wolf attack animations are bugged and you will miss as often as you hit them no matter how well you aim.

It trivalized and demeans the story and the series, there are plenty of other violece ridden simplistic and horror filled titles out there.

I iknow the canon and all of the storeis and all of the literature and even as a very young girl, Lara was never this sorry sad sack of immaturity and grief. Yes i know the theory of this bieng her formation story but it didnt happen this way, she was fomed by much more that some violent events..she evolved in many ways....and her image is part of the mysitque and the way the entire theme works, it is not just supervicial it is a complex and sophisticated tapestry of culture that most americans have no clue about and that was part of the power of the story. It has nothing to do with her "cover girl' prporotions or image it has to do with essence:

Crystal Dynamics you should be ashamed of yourselves. You have headed for the bottom and tried to take our Lara with you.

I am so glad you cannot touch the older titles and we will always have that much of Lara that is real to enjoy.

compare this sad bedraggled girl...





with the real Lara 










Lara has been an idealized figure to a degree and that is all to the good, to drag a character like her down into the mud and the blood and the gore is to demean the entire series and the theme..it is not about destruction of the enemy, brutalizing and using anyone for any purpose, nor about telling the story in minute and appalling detail and graphic depth, when you drag a series like Lara into the modern type of down and dirty detail, yes you can sell games and thrill people with no imagination or brains for solving puzzles or surviving trials of complex levels..but you lose what the series has been and should be all about.....and you lose Lara in the end too. Hope that wont happen.  If you agree with me I would enjoy seeing your posts if not, please go somwhere else and defend this travesty, i have no interest in arguing, for I have played almost all of the classic games and many other genres and games beyond count, and I don't have any interest in discussing with those who LIKE this game why they do. It just is impossible for me to conceive that this could have happened to our series and our Lara but it has.

I just don't understand your point of view, you seem upset that lara "kills people" and "animals" (even though she did in the older games too). It even fits in with the point of the storyline, she's surviving on an island, of course you're going to have to hunt/find food and such.

Then you're other main critisim is the change of Lara's game model, which is very similar in design to the old Lara croft model (obviously more detailed as technology has came forward since then) but with smaller breasts/lip sizes, instead of the usually overlarged playboy centerfold style breasts. You seem to focus on calling the new Lara ugly and a "shopkeeper" (as though that's somehow beneath you, as shopkeepers/people in medium wage jobs are people to be looked down upon) even though she looks still strikingly "like" Lara croft in the face, just with a more average sized bust and lips. She's still beautiful from my standpoint, and I don't see how you can call her "ugly" in any way.  She could easily be a model/movie star were she a real person.

The origin of Lara in the older titles wan't really covered in a lot of detail or gameplay, It was mostly said that age 9 or so she was in a plane  crash in the mountains that claimed the life of her mother, and she survived on her own, as her father raised her and she got an education from tutors and traveling with her father. She was also a big game hunter (which to me is terrible, Hunting for sport, rather then survival is not something I agree with/like, especially Elephants/lions and big game like that) and a mercenary (which are peopel usually paid to kill for money.

I just don't see why you seem to be overly sensitive about the "violence" in this game, when you kill plenty of people and animals in the old games. It's not real life, seeing the "detail" of the violence doesn't chang ethe fact that you are killing virtual people/animals, just the same as you did in the old Tomb Raider games, which you seemed to enjoy.

Also saying she was never this "sorry sad sack of immaturity/grief?" She is not the older and wiser Lara croft, this is meant to show how she becomes thta. Do you not understand how character is built?  Even so how is the new LAra Immature? And Grief? She just survived a boat sinking and has to survive on an island whiel she's being hunted and seeing peopel she loves KILLED, would that not make someone grieve?

I doubt you are the same now as you were as a child, just as most people change and develop over time, they learn lessons, sometimes very hard ones.

You think in the old original Tomb Raider origin where she was in a plane crash in the mountains for two weeks or so that she didn't have to kill animals or find sources of food, etc? Hell if it were real life and that happened, there's a good change that she would have had to cannabilze her own mother or other people involed in the crash to survive (if it was the winter), just as those people in the 70's Andes plane crash had to do.

It's simply because it wasn't shown int eh old games/gone over in detail that you glossed over it, how do you think that Old Lara Croft got to be like she was? You never played her as a young adult or got to see her life before those games, that's the point of this game, to show/explain and develop how she becomes the Lara Croft we know, even if the Origin story is different thent he one used int eh older games (which was never a big part of them or explained well).

Apparently, a potential game-breaker has been experienced by quite a few people appx three-quarters of the way through the game. I don't know if a patch has been released, but this page has a video that apparently shows a workaround.

Never played Tomb Raider but this llttle discussion has me interested. The only comment I can make it that after going through Lara's stunning resume I think it might come as a shock to have to follow a tween waif into battle after years of going hip to hip with one stunning Mud Flap Girl amazon

Until now I had assumed the new girl was just part of a "Hunger Games" themed thing - which I actually read on a lady friend's recomendation - no interest there.  

I had no idea how expansive the TR franchise had become. I gave my brother a copy of the first game when it came out - a sort of clever "ironic" Christmas present for us 30-somethings. But after he reported back that shooting bears and wild animals was getting too depressing he gave it a pass, and so did I.

Last night I did a little online 'vestigating into the series, downloaded a bit of stuff to check it out, and came away thinking there may be some good gaming in there - not all shooting kangaroons from a Air Force gun ship after all.. So, as I always do after discovering an un-tapped gaming vien.. sourcing eBay for a copy of Anniversary, and maybe Legend. I may even look for one of the earlier anthologies.

As usual, the big hurdle for me is third-person. But maybe this time - she may be worth it.

I totally agree that I dislike gratuitous gore and violence. 

But i must say, that from a woman's POV, looks-wise I much prefer the latest Lara with more natural looks.  That image where her breasts look like... like  something wooden has been tied around her chest and they stick out horizontally like nothing soft and natural would do... ummm,  it just looks weird.  (Where she is wearing the chocolate brown top)

Originally Posted By Traveller (22 APR 2013 12:21pm)

I totally agree that I dislike gratuitous gore and violence. 

But i must say, that from a woman's POV, looks-wise I much prefer the latest Lara with more natural looks.  That image where her breasts look like... like  something wooden has been tied around her chest and they stick out horizontally like nothing soft and natural would do... ummm,  it just looks weird.  (Where she is wearing the chocolate brown top)

I think that one is from a modded game. It did not look quite that odd even in the original Tomb Raider

OMG, those look dangerous.

Personally Lara's looks are the only improvement for me. I never thought her old image was attractive, and not because of the oversized proportions.

I don't care about the blood either. CrisGer is totally right that the essence of Tomb Raider is gone. It's now a gun-wielding rampage from start to finish. There are no large, open maps of difficult interlocking puzzles to solve requiring thorough exploration, only a series of goals of getting from A to B by killing everything in your way. They have kept some of the jumping and wall-scaling but seemingly only as a tribute: they are only used when there's a wall in your way and you need to get past. I won't say it's a bad game, just different. They need a warning on the front: No thinking required.

There are still puzzles, and tombs to find, you just aren't required to do "everything." If you only follow the waypoints and go from A to B yes it can fell that way, but you're missing a huge chunk of the game by not exploring the islan d(and it does open up a LOT more later on in the game, the starting hours are more of a tutorial kind of thing).

The old Tomb Raiders all had plenty of action in them, plenty of "ways to die" (traps, bolders, animals, etc), no they weren't as gory back but still the old TR games featured plenty of ways showing Lara being killed and had her guns blazing akimbo style through enemies like a John Woo film.

Just not getting where yout wo say it has "lost" the TR touch and pointing out action/gore, whent he old games had just as much action in them and gunplay/traps that killed Lara.

Yes the new game doesn't have as many "tough" puzzles as the old one, and I do wish it did, but it's still probably the best TR game in over a decade compared to the others in the series, imo.

It's not the action or gore I dislike. You're totally right that the old games had plenty of that.

Here's what I miss: I miss standing at the beginning of a large and complex new area and seeing a door or a treasure I have to get to, then spending the next hour exploring and reaching ledges and pulling switches and avoiding traps to get there.

The new game doesn't have that. It has shifted to a "press X to see where you have to go" and you simply do that, maybe doing a few simple jumps and icepicking up a rock face. Being restricted to a straight narrow path forward seemed to me to be against the spirit of exploration and discovery that I so enjoy in these type of games. I don't remember any real puzzles at all. I know there are a few optional puzzle rooms and I did some of them but they were very easy and I'm not usually keen on optional stuff in games anyway. I like the puzzles to be related to the story and besides, it didn't seem befitting for me be spelunking while my friends needed rescuing.

You probably look for different things in games, which is fine. My perspective is probably an out of date one, which is why they made the changes they did. 

Yes I can understand that, it is one area I hope they improve on for hte next one. There should be main story parts that require you to explore/complet epuzzles, moreso then the fairly easy ones in it.