Rise of the Tomb Raider is the sequel to 2013 reimagining of the original Tomb Raider games, which was named simply Tomb Raider. I played through most of the 2013 game on the PS3, and while I thought the game was very good, both from a story perspective as well as a gameplay perspective, I still felt like something was missing. I couldn't quite put my finger on it at the time, but whatever it was, it did result in me never finishing the first game. And so I went into the sequel with a little bit of hesitancy, as I was afraid that I would end up in the same boat, and would not finish it. After about a month of playing, I have now finished the game, and have actually completed it at 100%. Whatever it was that was missing from the first game was completely erased by the creators, and I felt myself compelled to finish up all the side quests just as much as I was compelled to finish up the main story line as well.
First off, the story is excellent. This game picks up some time after the events in the first game, and we find Lara and her friend Jonah heading up a mountain, looking for an artifact that Lara's father was looking for before he died. This intro works as both a beautiful landscape and introduction to the story, and also a tutorial on how to use Lara's abilities. There more than a few moments that I found myself holding my breath as Lara makes her treacherous climb to the top of the mountain. The way that the game designers laid out this intro was amazing, and I was hooked in right away.
After the climb goes terribly wrong, and Lara gets separated from her friend, we get some more of the backstory. It turns out that Lara's father was searching for this artifact, and it ruined his career, as what he was looking for essentially amounted to the fountain of youth, and so nobody believed that it existed. He continued to pursue it, even up to the point that it appears he took his own life, after running his family name and his career. Lara goes in search of the artifact because she believed in her father, and also wants to clear his name. I will not ruin any more of the story, but it takes many twists and turns along the way, and plays out like a well written movie, not the typical writing you get from a video game. The voice acting for all of the actors was very well done, which really added to the overall presentation of the game.
Next, I want to talk about the gameplay. Every aspect of the first game that I can recall was improved on and worked out to near perfection. There were a handful of times that I would try to do something, and the controls would cause me to fall to my death, or would maybe not quite land on the ledge I was trying to get to, but these moments were few and far between, and normally I found Lara doing exactly what I wanted her to do. I also thought that the actual fighting (the bow and arrow, and the guns) was well improved from the first game. I found it rather easy to switch out between the different weapons on the fly, and to then aim my weapons at either the bad guys or the various objects around the landscape.
There is plenty of side quests and additional items that you can obtain along the way as well. The map layout was very well done and it was almost always easy to see just how much of an area I hadn't completed yet. If you missed things from a previous section, it was also easy, via the Fast Travel from the various campsites, to go back and pick up the things you missed. There were a handful of puzzles along the way that were a bit tricky or hard to see what to do at first, but this only added to the satisfaction upon completion of the puzzles, and you would get a worthwhile reward at the end, through upgrades that made Lara's journey a bit easier.
I think my play through with 100% completed was somewhere between 30-35 hours. To just play through the story itself, you could probably completed it all around 15-20 hours. Pretty satisfying amount of gameplay from a mainstream, $60 game, and I would say that Rise of the Tomb Raider was worth every penny. I even find myself wanting more now that I have finished it, and I will likely be looking into the DLC that is available for the game, which is something I normally don't do. The only complaint I have at this point is that I will likely have to wait 2-3 more years for the next one. But if the next one is even half as good as this one was, it will be well worth the wait.
My rating for Rise of the Tomb Raider is 9.5/10
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