POSTED 6/3/13


TOMB RAIDER

Square Enix
PS3 (also on Xbox 360, PC)

“I hate tombs.” Inspired words from a woman who knows how to raid...

Yes, she of the formerly polygonical breasty-bits has returned, but she hasn’t. Huh? Well, it’s the in thing – Lara Croft’s been rebooted. This is an origin story, starting with a scared young woman undergoing a Titanic situation and ending... now that’d be telling. But, thankfully, there’s no barefootedness or pregnancy.

Taking numerous cues from Uncharted (adventurer, puzzles, weaponry), and a splodge of Far Cry 3 (open worldiness, hunting, upgrades), Tomb Raider – or UnFarted - doesn’t fritter time getting actiontastic. As the camera ducks and dives like it’s held by Lars Von Trier amidst a brawl in a bouncy castle, you’ll notice cutscenes seamlessly flow into gameplay and back. There’re oodles of ’em, sometimes with burdensome quick time events, but pacing rarely abates.

You’ll quickly really feel for young Lara. She morphs from Bambi to Rambo remarkably speedily – we would too if faced with some of the shit that’s lobbed at her. You’ll also soon realise that she’s a monster pyromaniac. Now Lara, put down that Zippo...

Her Rambotastic arsenal’s ever-evolving, from peashooteresque bow/arrow twinset through pistols, rifles and more, which you upgrade from collecting crap from random boxes to baddies you’ve corpsed up. Standard stuff, sure, but the cover system’s superb – unlike the difficulty, which ebbs and flows, often frustratingly as you suddenly confront every bloke to ever have donned khaki duds, grabbed a boomstick and extracted cheapies from hunting wascally women. You’d swear they’ve jammed a tracking device up your clacker.

Crazed feminists could level criticism at various occurrences in the story, but we won’t. After all, we’ve played as innumerable blokes throughout the years who’ve suffered all manner of horrific, emasculating indignities in the name of us getting our gaming fix.

Better off dead? No way! Despite occasional clunks, Lara’s rebirth should buck up any little camper.

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