Unlike others coming to the new Tomb Raider, I don’t have any previous experience with the franchise. I never played Lara Croft’s original adventures or saw her as played by Angelina Jolie on the big screen. I went into the game with mixed feelings. The marketing campaign was juvenile and disgusting, with the marketeers poorly positioning the game as “mature,” in the most shallow and offensive way: the threat of rape and violence to the game’s protagonist. I almost wrote the game off then. But, friends went out and purchased it and they loved it; reviewers also found the game laudable. People I trusted said the game was not about these things, that they were not important to the story, and that if one focused on that they’d be missing a great experience. They were right.
The game play in Tomb Raider is wonderful: responsive controls, engaging puzzles, satisfying combat, all set in a beautiful, haunting location and peppered with some fantastic set-pieces. This isn’t archaeology as practiced by real archaeologists but it is faithful to the action-romantic view we have of it thanks to the Indian Jones series of movies. It might be the first 3d metroidvania game I’ve ever really enjoyed. I wish the game had been more open ended, that instead of being shepherded from area to area I was given free roam of the island and its mysteries. This games almost captures the sense of raw discovery but the feeling is stunted every time you transition from one area to the next.
Most compelling though is the protagonist, Lara Croft. The designers and writers at Crystal Dynamics have done an excellent job realizing her as a character. I do feel like this young woman is not ready for the job she is given at the beginning of the game. She’s just out of school, she’s surrounded by her friends, mentors, and caretakers. She’s a nobody and everyone, even her sees it that way. And that’s okay these people are here to make sure everything works out, to help her. Then it all gets taken away. As you play, as the story progresses, the naivete, the idealism, the innocence, the irresponsibility is peeled away, sometimes violently. Lara might always have been strong willed and intelligent but she is untested and it shows. But she grows, you help her grow. It’s tragic, it’s sad, it’s scary and yet she comes through it. She enters adulthood midst tragedy and horror and like me, like most of us, finds it all somehow life affirming. It’s powerful stuff.