Rise of the Tomb Raider Reviews
Rise of the Tomb Raider delivers everything you would expect from an archaeological action-adventure game, and deserves plenty of cinematic praise. The story pulls you forward with only a few pauses to wander off the trail, but even on the scripted path, there are always several options to overcome each obstacle before you. It's a grand journey for our budding heroine, whose skills grow with each relic found and enemy defeated. You'll enjoy the quality of the endeavor, but likely feel uninspired by its somewhat banal story.
With Rise of the Tomb Raider, Crystal Dynamics has created a well-polished and impressive sequel to one of the best reboots I've ever played. It isn't perfect, and can be a bit overwhelming at times, but it's still an excellent game and well worth checking out.
Rise of the Tomb Raider isn't the biggest open world game. It doesn't have the most quests or the most collectibles, and heck, you don't even climb tall structures without a darn good reason. What Rise of the Tomb Raider has in spades is balance. Everything about the experience screams quality, and every objective has a good reason for existing.
Over the course of my 14.5 hour playthrough of the game's story and the many, many more completing side content, it's very easy to see why Microsoft made the investment they did. Say what you want but Rise of the Tomb Raider is one of the best games released in 2015. Rise of the Tomb Raider is the best Xbox One exclusive in 2015. Fans on other platforms will absolutely love this game when it arrives elsewhere next year. Rise of the Tomb Raider is the type of journey you will want to visit a lot more than just one time.
The new Lara Croft works out some kinks in a second act that, while slick and enjoyable, doesn't resolve Tomb Raider's identity crisis.
Rise of the Tomb Raider is better than its predecessor, but only because of its additions; it doesn't fix any of the things that were wrong with Tomb Raider (2013). The story is smoothed down, much of it hidden away in dull audio logs. It's not about "survival" as billed, given the ease of mowing down dozens of folks and plenty of resources. But finding tombs wherein to clamber about ancient Rube Goldberg machines, coupled with the gorgeous visual flair and diverse environments, make Rise's wilderness one worth exploring and elevate Tomb Raider's otherwise perfunctory take on the third-person action platformer. I still get a strong sinking feeling in my stomach when I've misjudged a jump and watch Lara careening towards a splat.
A bolder, more capable Lara Croft returns for an adventure that's more varied and fun than Tomb Raider has seen in years.
Rise of the Tomb Raider executes the franchise formula with confidence
Rise won't have a difficult time standing out among the CODs, Halo 5s, Fallout 4s and MGS5s of the world.
Rise of the Tomb Raider is not perfect, but the areas in which it lacks are relatively minor technical issues and the story does a great job of picking the player up to ensure that they jump right back into the action if they fall foul of a problem. Once you've beaten the campaign, you'll be tempted by the addictive Score Attack mode, as well as having an eye on playing through the whole thing again to pick up a few more achievements, something which - rarely these days - is no chore. The switch to a style of play that doesn't rely solely on raw firepower is the absolute key to the game's success and that, mixed with a plethora of action-packed adrenaline-boosting scenes, makes Lara's second return an absolute blast to play.
Rise of the Tomb Raider continues Crystal Dynamic's standard of excellence, and creates an introspective and engrossing journey that combines a compelling narrative with fluid, exciting gameplay. Lara Croft is back, better than ever, and this series definitely proves to be the best Tomb Raider experience around.
The old style Tomb Raider is never coming back, but this is a more satisfying compromise than the reboot and a fun alternative to the Uncharted series.
A worthwhile follow-up to Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider is also an incremental improvement over its predecessor, with more spectacular sites to explore and sights to behold. And tombs! More tombs!
Ultimately, Rise of the Tomb Raider is definitely one of the best games released in 2015. It improves on its predecessor massively, and on basically every aspect of the game. It looks better, it plays better, it comes with more and better puzzles, a better story and a better Lara Croft to boot. While the Tomb Raider we got in 2013 wasn't by any means a bad game, I have no hesitation in saying that this is the game that finally does Lara Croft's glorious franchise justice.
The story takes bigger risks, and is all the better for it. By no means is it perfect, but the negatives are so slight they don't really warrant full disclosure. This is a bigger, meatier sequel, one that improves on an already great game. And again, it gets the balance right. The balance between survival, in terms of facing off against an army of foes as well as giant killer snow bears, and exploration, in the form of archaeology-by-the-way-of Lara being genuinely excited when she comes across an ancient trinket or mural.
Rise of the Tomb Raider is an epic adventure, and it's a story well told and well played.
The nit-picking aside, Rise of the Tomb Raider is a front runner for action game of the year, if not Game of the Year for 2015. The traversing in a platform adventure is the most fluid and seamless I've ever experienced, and the story gave me chills the more I unraveled, especially with the collectibles I found. It's a downright shame that Rise of the Tomb Raider releases the same day as Fallout 4, as this gem will unfortunately get mostly lost in the shuffle.
Rise of the Tomb Raider feels like a confident improvement on its predecessor, giving players more tombs, better crafting and increased options for stealth.
Whether you're facing off against giant bears or making a risky jump, Rise of the Tomb Raider is an adrenaline rush
As a package Rise of the Tomb Raider is sublime pure Hollywood blockbuster entertainment with the only real negative that some could level is that the minute to minute gameplay presents very little that would be considered groundbreaking or new and at times it might feel similar to the previous iteration. This is really clutching at straws though. Looking at the package as a whole, as a cinematic adventure experience one of this stuff matters. Lara took it up a notch!