Shadow of the Tomb Raider Review

 

Lara looking romantically at the moon.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a good ole fun time, if you like playing as a sociopathic adventurer with a rocking behind (boy do I ever). The latest in the reboot series of Tomb Raiders (released 2018), Shadow features a little less combat than previous entries, while upping the amount of tomb raiding, making it a bit more like the original games. If you've played Rise of the Tomb Raider, everything is very familiar. Lara has a pair of pick axes that she utilizes to climb dizzying precipices, and now her grapple hook has a repelling function, allowing you to run alongside cliff sides and descend from great heights. The platforming aspect feels great, and it's always a joy to make Lara leap like a manic from a narrow edge into a great abyss, with only a last minute throw of the grapple to save her. Similarly fun are the Challenge Tombs and Crypts. The former are presented more or less identically to how they were in Rise; you find them, solve their puzzle, and receive a reward, in this case an unlock on the leveling tree. Most are pretty easy, although one features a light reflection puzzle that forced me to use my brain a bit. Really, these don't need to be too difficult; the original Tomb Raiders had some pretty daft puzzles, and this is a series that's focused on as wide an audience as possible. Crypts have Lara traversing spooky terrain in order to receive some cosmetic item, which kind of sucks, but they're usually appropriately creepy and have a lot of underwater sections. A lot of this game takes place in translucent pools or submerged ruins, and the water effects are second to none. Really, this is probably the best looking game I've ever played. It's kind of amazing that nearly three years after its release, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is still being used as a benchmark on tech sites. My 5700 xt runs it at highest settings over 60 frames per second at 1440p, and man, I made a lot of use of the screenshot function. Graphical spectacle is one of the reasons for buying this game.

There is less combat in Shadow than in Rise or the 2013 reboot, but it still is an action game, and now Lara can hide against vine covered walls and pop out to grab baddies like Rambo. In a nod to Predator, she can also cover herself in mud to make herself less noticeable. The combat works best when you're playing stealthy, popping in and out of hiding spots while crafting bombs on fallen enemy corpses. Even on One with the Jungle difficulty, this isn't a hard game. Lara can only take a couple rounds, but the enemies give you plenty of time to shoot them.

Storywise, Shadow is better than Rise, although it still suffers from Michael Bayesque cheese. Lara travels to Mexico and then Peru to obtain a magic Macguffin that can keep the sun from rising, or some such nonsense. Jonah is back, still stuck safety in the friend zone, following Lara around like a lost puppy (I like Jonah, but man, Lara is gonna get you killed, brother). Trinity, of course, are the bad guys, and because they are bad guys, Lara has permission to unleash her barely contained sociopathy. I complained about this ludonarrative dissonance in my Rise review; it's still present here, but I've learned to live with it. 

If you're looking for a great triple A semi-open world action game, and you haven't played the Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, Assassin's Creed 100, Zero Horizon Dawn, God of War, Jedi: Fallen Order, or any of the other million big budget single player collectathons, then give Shadow a try. Despite my snark, it's pretty good. I've spent 24 hours on it so far, and I'm not quite finished with it. Screenshots below.