A Survivor is Born: How I Fought My Way through the 2013 Tomb Raider Game

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ilovewintergem124.784 days ago4 min read

Back after a while of feeling a certain kind of pent up stress, decided to pick up my gaming controller and ~~figuratively~~ went to town on this game I've downloaded on my Xbox quite a while back but only just happened to finish it in a week's time just 'cuz I was feeling trigger happy:

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Disclaimer: GIFs and screenshots below this are from my own gameplay - I'd consider them sparse and inbetween 'cuz actually playing this game needs to have all you focus on it even if you think you're just in a "cutscene"

Trigger warning: May contain blood and murder

That's right peeps, actually sat down and felt possessed when I finished the first of what's called the Survivor Trilogy in this reboot from the Tomb Raider franchise. Never actually played the older versions and just watched the movies (both Jolie's and Vikander's), but for a 2013 game I'd consider this to be a great introduction into the lore that is Lara Croft herself.

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To start off with though, this is more like an origin story for Lara as it's her very first big adventure in search of the lost kingdom of Yamatai, once ruled by a legendary 'Sun Queen'. While the travel through Dragon's Triangle to reach the island's fabled location itself is as perilous as irl Bermuda Triangle, who knew that upon getting shipwrecked, Lara would encounter stuff outside of a nightmare cult edition complete with blood sacrifices and caged cannibals...

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Def not me

But before all that though, there's also the problem on how to get off the island. We then learn to climb rocky edges with our later modified pickaxe:

And actually have to fight our way up a cell tower:

The way down is just as treacherous and personally more nerve-wracking than just watching the films as one is really in on these cutscenes that have these quick-timed events sprinkled in:

Yowch!

I did mention the fighting along the way right?

Yeah, you gotta have a certain bloodthirst in you to get through this game or maybe then it'll just grow on you whilst picking your weapon of choice-

Then again, there's a certain satisfaction in using Lara's main bow and arrow:

Overall, the game is quick but gives you enough time to breath inbetween scenes to just think about the side collectibles, which also let's you Fast Travel between camps to catch up on:

Managed to finish the game at 100% at the ending as collecting stuff boosts Lara's XP and gives the player the currency of Salvage to upgrade her weapons, which is loads helpful once you near the final boss fight. Raiding the optional Tombs also adds to the incentive and fun to just solving situational structures on how to get to Point A to Point B while also taking in the detailed work the devs actually put in to a game that's actually more than 10 years old:

Definitely one for the books and I've still got the other 2 in this trilogy to be excited about in starting! Kinda remembered floundering about in each of their intros when I first downloaded the pack but I've seemed to have activated a fresh set of skills from this gameplay so here's to me going in gun ready until the next gameplay!

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