Title: Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Platform: Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
Cost: $59.99
Rating: Mature, with Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, and Strong Language
Score: 9/10
Intrepid adventurer Lara Croft is back and at her best for Shadow of the Tomb Raider, an exciting, jungle-focused finale to the trilogy that started with 2013's Tomb Raider reboot.
Croft's latest adventure is a claustrophobic, nerve-racking thrill ride right out of the gate.
One segment where Lara struggles to escape a cramped, collapsing underground cave filling with water had me literally holding my breath alongside the protagonist. Later, Lara will edge along a crumbling mountainside, leaping from ledge to ledge in a dizzying and terrifying display of athleticism.
Tomb Raider showed us a naive, fresh-off-the-boat Lara Croft just out of college. While whip-smart and gifted athletically, she was not a warrior -- but was then shipwrecked on an island filled with cultish crazies and an evil paramilitary organization named Trinity, which has continued to be the primary antagonist through the series.
Cue Lara's being impaled, shot, sliced, clawed, nearly drowned, buried and so on, an unending torrent of trauma both physical and mental that would see anyone else running for a psychotherapist.
The sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, showed Lara embracing the skills she had to learn to survive, growing into the gun-toting persona we saw in her 1996 debut.
Now, in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Croft is at the height of her prowess -- a veteran warrior who is equal parts Indiana Jones and Rambo. Rather than simply struggling to survive (although there's plenty of that), she's also decided to willingly chase after nefarious organizations, trying to right wrongs and track down criminals.
This Tomb Raider game is at its most interesting when it questions whether she's making things better or worse. Does that relic belong in a museum? Or does it deserve to be left alone? Sometimes, this game shows us, the answer is "it deserves to be bartered to an arms dealer in a small Peruvian village in exchange for laser sights and gunpowder."
Shadow of the Tomb Raider also attempts to capture a bit of the spirit of the modern world when, usually through cut-scene dialogue, it addresses the issue of whether it's right for Croft to be, you know, raiding tombs of ancient civilizations with nary a government permit in sight.
A brief conversation with a villager in the game's first arc is telling: "It's a shame you're not a tourist," an old woman says. "Tourists bring money. Archaeologists just take."
Croft's tomb-raiding has severe consequences in the game, when she seems to accidentally trigger a tsunami that wipes out a small Mexican town, killing thousands and causing a serious rift between her and companion Jonah, who has been supporting Lara since the first game of the trilogy exploring her origins.
The main plot of the game is that the tsunami was just the beginning -- unless Lara retrieves an ancient relic, the whole world is in danger of being destroyed through natural disasters such as floods, storms, earthquakes and volcanoes. Meanwhile, evil Trinity is seeking to claim the power of that relic for themselves.
As Lara explores, she'll gain experience, resources and gold, earning the ability to upgrade weapons and outfits and gain new skills that enhance her ability for combat, exploration and more.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider features three difficulty sliders: combat, exploration and puzzles. For the third, at the easier difficulty level, Croft will offer hints when a player takes too long to solve a puzzle. At medium difficulty, her hints will be more vague, and at the hardest difficulty there are no hints.
Another interesting option is an "immersion mode," where instead of English, background characters will speak in their native Spanish or Yucatan Maya languages.
There is a Season Pass available that adds more tombs to explore, more outfits and weapons, and some side missions that will be released incrementally over the next half-year. There is no co-op or multiplayer option on this game, but co-op challenge missions might be added later on.
Overall, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a 25-ish-hour, high-concept adventure that serves as a satisfying bookend to the rebooted series.
The voice-acting and motion capture by Camilla Luddington are competent, as usual, and the deadly Rube Goldberg-esque traps and puzzles are more difficult (and thus more satisfying) to solve than ever before, especially on the harder difficulty levels. I recommend playing through the trilogy to fully experience Lara Croft's transition to bold-as-brass action hero.
ActiveStyle on 10/01/2018