Shadow of the Tomb Raider: In search of lost thought

Despite the fact that Rhianna Pratchett was no longer engaged in the script, it did not become more interesting: we are facing a very careful, too predictable and therefore slightly meaningless conclusion of an adventure triptych about the Tomb Raider.

In addition, remember how it all began.

The first part of the new trilogy was supposed to compete with Uncharted, which at that time was already the best in the genre. Instead of the jovial and Drake rake, the fragile and suffering Lara; instead of linear gameplay - a kind of open world with tombs, secrets and puzzles, and the plot is not just another adventure story about the treasure hunt, but a great human drama.

The authors of Crystal Dynamics promised that the 2013 Tomb Raider would be dedicated to the emergence of Lara as a person, a strong woman, the same tomb raider who everyone knows. The game planned elements of a survival simulator, and in the script, according to rumors, even hints of Lara's homosexuality. In 2013, a few years before the MeToo online flash mob, it seemed like the developers were taking a big step forward. That is why Tomb Raider so intrigued.

What happened next, you know: Tomb Raider came out, and it turned out that all the sharp corners in the game were either smoothed out or completely disappeared.

From the "full survival in the jungle" left a couple of small tasks at the beginning of the game; all hints of any sexuality Lara just disappeared. She became just a defenseless girl in the world of bloodthirsty men, and the game automatically turned into an imitator of Uncharted, but with a big bias in gameplay and gathering. In Tomb Raider it was necessary to solve puzzles just as often and nykatsya through the caves, as in the game to watch beautifully put plot inserts in the game from Naughty Dog.

In addition, Tomb Raider was another game that confirmed one of the main axioms of the gaming industry: Rhianna Pratchett writes shitty scenarios. In addition, although according to rumors, the history of Tomb Raider was rewritten and shortened several times, we received a vague, albeit sometimes mysterious, story about the island of Yamatai, the Empress of the Sun and ancient rituals. Therefore, while remaining very fascinating from the point of view of a mechanic, Tomb Raider did not intrigue the plot at all. All the same, it was believed that these were rather classic shortcomings of the first game, and in the sequel, all problems would disappear.

It did not happen: Rise of the Tomb Raider again abundantly exploited the best fragments of the first game (battles, tombs, treasure hunt). But the story, part of which unfolded in Russia, was again, to put it mildly, nonsense. Now Lara fought with the mysterious organization "Trinity" - on this description of the plot could be completed. Instead of doing some work on the bugs, Crystal Dynamics continued to beat its head against the wall, ignoring the problems of the original.

With this long introduction to the actual review, I can, as far as I can, delay the moment when I have to talk about Shadow of the Tomb Raider - the most uninteresting and meaningless part of the new trilogy. Which, moreover, is similar to the two previous games to such an extent that they can be confused.

The catch was all smelled long before the release, when the development was given to the Eidos Montreal studios and Crystal Dynamics allegedly focused on developing a new Lara for the next generation of consoles. EM is undoubtedly a talented studio, but here they worked with someone else's material, and this always has certain consequences.

That is why the Shadow of the Tomb Raider turned out to be a professional, neat, but unbearably boring and predictable game in the genre "just to avoid spoiling the elders."

And instead of the grand finale, “The Shadow” looks more like a forced isolation, which was done simply because it could not be otherwise: you need time to pull up to the next reboot, and make the fans happy so that they do not run away.

Eidos Montreal did its job too sterile, copying not only the better, but also the worst qualities of the two previous games. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is still a very sketchy and completely uninteresting plot. In the third part, Lara continues to fuss with, as it seems at first glance, the transatlantic organization "Trinity" (however, already in the opening of the game, you will find out that she looks more like a small-town sect). She goes to Latin America to prevent the Trinity from finding there two powerful artifacts that give, of course, universal power.

With this set of colorful characters - Mexican terrorists, the queen of half-forgotten cities, descendants of the Incas and Maya, painted cave cannibals and so on - there are almost no memorable characters and stories, although the soil is fertile.

Moreover, at some point, SotTR turns almost into a game with an open world - with side quests, a study of the terrain, shops of merchants and other familiar things. However, to do all this, as well as get acquainted with third-party characters, solve side quests, or just help people, do not want to. The tasks are bland and tedious, the heroes speak the language of bad Canadian scriptwriters, and the most uncouth and little talker of all is Lara. Nevertheless, praise to the Indian gods: all these background activities can be neglected and go to the caves and tombs.

As soon as Lara leaves the people and the "Trinity" in the crypts with artifacts, and the "plot" takes a pause, you immediately begin to enjoy SotTR. The main game mechanics have been working together since 2013, despite the fact that there have been no significant changes in them.

One of the few new products is a rope, with which you can descend from plumb lines and rocks, but everything else has already been in the previous series. However, the most interesting thing remained: the search for tombs, not very complicated, but always interesting puzzles, and for those who like to gather, there are tons of loot hidden in the folds of the levels.

Generally, if you don’t get too distracted by the plot, don’t think about the trajectory of Lara’s character, don’t get into the dialogues and engage in other nonsense, but play Tomb Raider like in Diablo, that is, just press the buttons, the game becomes much cooler and more fun. The problem is that not paying attention to the fact that around this, all the same fails.

Rush through the South American jungle makes the game too much like the second half of Uncharted 4 and especially its spin-off. Nevertheless, Eidos Montreal could not help but notice: the final chapter about Drake was published more than two years ago.

However, the most annoying thing is that the new adventures of Lara, which began with bold statements by producers and developers, approach their intermediate finale in an extremely lax state. With a confused three-kopek plot in the spirit of a bad adventure film, a surface heroine who cannot connect a couple of words, and which only vaguely resembles the very Lara from the classic editions. With debugged, but now 5 years not a jot unchanging gameplay.

In addition, most importantly - without the main idea, which would be the core of these three-part exercises.

Uncharted was about adventurous people who put their lives on the line. Even a vulgar and predictable thought from Lara is unbearably difficult, because any dialogue or situation in the game still boils down to Lara has reinforced facial expressions or endless running around the grains.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider - not a bad game, do not think. Fans and fans of the genre will be happy to spend 10-15 hours in it: tombs, thugs, puzzles and a confused storyline will be enough for everyone. In addition, in the finals you will definitely say that these were not the worst 3-4 evenings for a video game in 2018.