We mentioned a little last week that Lara’s latest adventure might have gotten a little overlooked. Let’s talk about it for this week’s Community Review.
I’ve been holding off lately on playing through Shadow of the Tomb Raider in its entirety since I was meant to test the game with the new Nvidia RTX cards, which should arrive in the office sometime this week (after a snafu at customs). I’ve seen multiple versions of the game already on all platforms, but I was rather looking forward to nipping around the full game in Lara’s oldschool skin following a lengthy preview earlier this year.
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/08/the-unintentionally-funny-way-to-play-shadow-of-the-tomb-raider/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/08/shadow-of-the-tomb-raider-bow-1-410×231.jpg” title=”How Shadow Of The Tomb Raider Became Unintentionally Funny” excerpt=”Shadow of the Tomb Raider is, for the most part, not a particularly funny game. It’s a serious tale about Lara’s embodiment as the Tomb Raider; it’s a tale about redemption. That said, there’s also a way the game can be – unintentionally – very funny.”]
I tend to have an unconscious rule with open-world games that often serves as a useful hint into how much I’ll enjoy the rest of the game. It revolves around how much I find myself meandering around, searching for collectibles, doing side quests and hunting down unrelated content.
The more I enjoy an open-world game, the happier I am to stay in that world. The less interested I am, the faster I’ll find myself carving through main quests. It’s especially noticeable when you’re previewing a game: you’re on the clock, which generally encourages people to focus on the story quests exclusively for the sake of brevity.
But whether that remains the case after 20, 30 or 40 hours is another matter entirely.
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/09/shadow-of-the-tomb-raider-the-kotaku-review/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/chepwtjnsd4yzczvvxty.png” title=”Shadow Of The Tomb Raider: The Kotaku Review” excerpt=”The new Tomb Raider’s freshest idea is the floating of a question. What if all this tomb raiding that Lara Croft does indicates that she is a treasure-plundering jerk who wrecks other people’s cultures and, worse, their lives?”]
I’m intrigued by the alternate ending that was accidentally left in — how it was left in the game long enough to the point where it actually shipped with retail code to begin with? Either way, it opens up some interesting paths for future DLC.
But before we get that far down the track: have you enjoyed Shadow of the Tomb Raider? And would you recommend it to others?
Leave a Reply