Tomb Raider has been a gaming icon for more than a decade and a half. The first Tomb Raider game debuted in November 1996 and became an instant smash hit. Gamers couldn't get enough of the strong, sexy female adventurer who took on dangerous animals and traps while at the same time solving intricate mysteries and puzzles. In the seventeen years since Lady Lara Croft first ran across their gaming screens with her pistols blazing, fans have followed her adventures in numerous games, comic books, even feature films. After a strong start the franchise hit a wall in the mid-2000's and several attempts have been made at rebooting the franchise, each with mixed success. Now, Crystal Dynamics is rolling out the latest Tomb Raider reboot, and from early reactions it appears they have put together an intriguing, wild adventure that provides the origin story that other Tomb Raider games lacked. In this new installment, Lara Craft isn't the intrepid Tomb Raider yet. She's merely a student taking part in a scientific expedition by ship to a remote corner of the world. Shipwrecked on an island bristling with danger that is both four and two legged, we control Lara as she fights for both her survival and that of her friends against numerous threats. Because it's an origin story, Tomb Raider 2013 spends most of its first hour developing the characters and giving insights to what drives them. More games are taking the time now to establish characters and explain motivations and reasons behind conflicts instead of just throwing the gamer into the action. Assassin's Creed 3 was another game recently released in which the gamer spends much of the first hour learning game play and watching cut scenes that set up the coming action. Watching a character change and progress over the course of a story gives it more impact, and in this game Lara does not start out as a Amazonian warrior queen effortlessly fighting off threats. She gets hurt easily, and often her only recourse is to run and hide. Gradually as the story unfolds, the gamer controls Lara as she learns to stand her ground and fight, use various weapons, think strategically, and most of all, conquer her fears. tomb raider review conclusion Those expecting Lara to quickly engage in pistol-blazing acts of derring-do are going to be disappointed. It's clear the game developers see this more as a Far Cry/Uncharted: Drake's Fortune-type game. There's no globe-trotting to lush exotic locales; instead Lara explores the island and attempts to discover what her mysterious pursuers are after. Early responses on the game discuss the fact it is very violent, sometimes graphically so. Parents should be forewarned the game has a NC-17 rating for a reason. Instead of the cartoonish violence of the earlier installments, Crystal Dynamics opted for realism this time out, which makes the decisions Lara has to make even more challenging. If she chooses to kill, that choice means something, as we see a graphic death, not a cartoonish one. Tomb Raider 2013 retails for $59.99.
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