Miss Croft is back again – this time, complete with a muddy makeover. Tomb Raider: The Definitive Edition is exactly the same game as plain old Tomb Raider was last generation, the only difference being a layer of current-gen shine. At its core, it’s an extremely enjoyable and very polished game – even more so now – but is held back from greatness by a few minor flaws.
Just in case you’ve been living in a shoe, this reboot features a re-imagined Lara Croft, and a story penned by Rhianna Pratchett, who also wrote the story for Mirror’s Edge and Overlord. However, it’s in the story where the game hits many of its bad notes.
The plot itself bears many similarities to the TV show Lost, but the characters aren’t nearly as complex. It begins with Lara and her colleagues being shipwrecked on a strange island, whilst in search for the place that, funnily enough, turns out to be the island they’re shipwrecked on. Downside is, the crazy cultists who live on the island want to kill everyone. Bit of a bad situation, really.
The island has a habit of bringing down ships, planes and helicopters with freak storms that appear to be sentient, targetting anything that comes within range of the island. That’s the basic premise. Underpinning that, it’s all about Lara’s transformation from a softly-spoken, innocent young woman, to a softly-spoken, mass murdering nutjob.
It’s appealing watching Lara grow from fresh-faced gap year student, to Rambo with oestrogen, but the transformation is a bit sudden, to say the least. It’s in the characters where the game is weakest. You can guess the direction of each cast member as soon as you meet them. There’s the friendly stranger, who turns out to be evil. There’s the fumbling scientist, who turns out to be a coward. There’s a gravel-voiced silver fox, who turns out to be Lara’s mentor. There’s even the Scottish guy… who headbutts people.
Characters aside, Tomb Raider is a very good game. The first half feels very much like a survival horror. Not because resources are finite, or it controls like a helicopter carrying a nuclear payload, but because the atmosphere is just so grim and creepy. It’s definitely a shift in direction for the Tomb Raider series, but it nails the horror vibe with clever sound design and sickeningly graphic death animations.
Obviously there’s also a lot of climbing involved, but it’s mostly very scripted – yet it still manages to ‘feel’ right. There are some optional areas – like the hidden tombs, which are about as hidden as the sun – where you have to use Lara’s skill-set more imaginatively, but these are pushed aside for the most part, replaced with a more shooty flavour.
It’s a good job combat is satisfying then. There’s often the option to strangle a few sentries with your bow (or pierce their skull with a pickaxe later in the game) or pick them off with a few arrows, before breaking out the big guns. Each bullet lands with a sickening ‘squelch’, giving the player a satisfying sense of feedback as the enemies react to the damage.
The only shame is that the game feels the need to reward you for things like headshots, especially after Lara so reluctantly kills her first person – two minutes later she’s headshotting fools like nobody’s business. Again, it all leads back to that inconsistency in tone, made more visible by the narrative that’s trying its best to be serious and edgy. If you go into Tomb Raider expecting a dumb action movie, however, you’ll likely love it.
There’s a lot of things the game does right. The pacing is almost perfect, with massive gunfights broken up by, say, a vertigo-inducing climb to the top of a radio mast. Rudimentary physics puzzles follow on from slow creeps through eerie basements and are punctuated by thrilling set-pieces. The game never falls into a routine.
All those things, good and bad, are retained in the PS4 version of the game, but this time it looks the business. Tomb Raider was a good looking game before, but it’s elevated this time by the TressFX enabled Lara and impressive particle effects. Now, Lara’s hair moves naturally, instead of bunching up and flapping wildly at the side of her head. Although the rest of the cast obviously use a different shampoo.
Lara still gets covered in dirt and blood, but it’s washed off by the rain, only to be replaced by yet more dirt and blood as she’s battered, bruised and impaled throughout the adventure. Strangely, a surface layer of mud seems to stay on the character model forever. That surface layer of dirt is fine within the context of the main game, but even during flashbacks – when Lara finds video recordings of their ill-fated journey – her face still has a thin layer of grime on it. She’s either got a waterproof face, or the developers forgot to use the clean, ‘Innocent Lara’, character model which can be found in the extras menu.
The main thing you’ll notice is the particle effects, which sees dust motes, fire embers, and flies – presumably attracted not by the many dead bodies, but by Lara’s constant dirtiness – lazily floating through the air. It’s hard to not stop and stare at all the things going on on-screen and it’s mainly in those moments of reflection where you truly notice that extra layer of polish.
Other than particle effects, Lara’s skin looks more realistic, its translucency catching light depending on the lighting of the scene. The lighting in general is much more impressive, too. There’s a section later on in the game where Lara is sneaking through an open forest at night, guard’s torches slice through the gloom and make lining up that headshot much more difficult. Even shadows look sharper and react to the dynamic light sources, making a slow, torch-lit trek through a dark cave that much more atmospheric.
On top of all this, the PS4 version of the game runs at 60fps for the most part, except during the busiest of scenes, but the drop is hardly noticeable and certainly not significant. The PS4 version runs like butter, compared the last generation’s gravy granules.
If you’re a huge fan of last-gen’s Tomb Raider reboot, you should probably pick this up. The same goes if you have yet to play it. If, like me, you played Tomb Raider the first time round and enjoyed it, there’s not really enough here to justify another, full price purchase, however. This is for superfans and newcomers only – casual veterans need not apply. Now, where did I put my waterproof face cream?
Final Verdict
8/10
Summary
A great game held back from greatness by a mundane story and unlikeable characters. The PS4 version is slick and beautiful, however. A true showcase for the power of the machine.
