Shadow of the Tomb Raider

I've finished it and only have to do the Deadly Obsession playthrough for the platinum, which I hear is horrible due to lack of checkpoints but I’ll be critical-pathing it on New Game plus so hopefully it won’t be too bad.

Overall, the game is ok. Enjoyable but forgettable. I much prefer it to Rise but it's nowhere near as good as the first one. The only time I felt emotion was when Lara and the camera pans to the bloodbath she's made :D:D:D

Lara overall is far less annoying than she was in Rise. She doesn't cry and whimper every 5 seconds and doesn’t act like a traumatised victim after killing. The voice actress is still terrible though and her lines of dialogue almost feel like they were recorded in a bathroom at times (the audio mixing isn’t great).

The combat is the best part IMO, the stealth is much improved although up-close shooting can be a pain. The weapon upgrades have the same problem as Rise where you’re given the best weapons first and the rest is just down to preference in playstyles i.e. do you prefer damage over rate of fire etc.

When the game embraces what it has become rather than trying to appease fans crying that there needs to be more tombs and less killing it becomes a much better game. The first one was great because it was a linear cover based shooter with tombs scarce enough that they actually felt like a big deal when you found one. Here, they've gone the opposite way with combat being replaced with pointlessly long stretches of platforming and OMG guys the climbing in this game is so bad. Wow.

I don’t remember it being this clunky. You will die so many times due to Lara not doing what you instructed her to do. The camera during climbing is obstructive and sometimes downright nonsensical. The signposting is not good, with it sometimes being unclear where to go next so a lot of it is trial and error. The tombs here are OK but I'd wager they've been included as a bit of checklist ticking TBH. I like the one with the mirrors but the rest were meh, and I think the devs kind of give up by the time you reach Mission of San Juan, replacing finely crafted puzzles with spawning enemies and piranhas. Also, Lara crawling into those tight spaces to mask loading screens is at it’s most frequent here and still annoying.

As for the open world, it’s OK I guess. Pretty, but largely uninteresting. There’s something really lifeless about it despite how graphically impressive it is. It doesn’t feel like a living, breathing world but rather one that has been laid out like a playmat for the player. The collectibles are too abundant and just feel like padding. It stops being a "discovery" when you're grabbing the same types of things over and over. I think it's telling that the one gold trophy in the game is 100% completion - showing the devs value length over skill which is arguably the problem with a lot of triple A titles today.

I think the ending was really weak and the post credit scene seemed tacked on. Overall, a passable but somewhat disappointing finale to a trilogy that had a lot of potential.

For anyone who liked the game and hasn't played the DLCs yet, I'd thoroughly recommend them. You can get them all for £7.99 in the U.K and the tombs in them are fun. Seems like they saved the best for last. I've got the platinum and 100% all trophy DLCs so think I'm done with the game for now and can uninstall. It's been real.