This is a very high-quality game with excellent production values. You can tell the developers went to great efforts to create a genuine experience.
Controls are excellent, making even advanced acrobatics feel completely natural without getting that scripted aftertaste you get from other games that try too hard. The only spot where things aren’t spot-on is while diving, but that’s probably more due to camera weirdness than anything else.
The graphics are exquisite. Backgrounds are rich in detail, lighting is good, character modeling on the upper end of the spectrum, and while less than perfect, even the water is definitely acceptable.
Is it cold in here?
Sound is simple but effective. Lara is running around in a largely deserted world, and the gentle background sounds echoing through the stone hallways and corridors convey just the right sense of loneliness and intensity. The level design is mostly good, with clever and imaginative puzzles aplenty. Of course, the concept itself is as old school as it gets, but that only makes it more of a feat to actually make it fun when it should make you groan like a n00b getting his umpeenth FedEx quest in the latest MMO. There’s big, one nasty flaw here though…
Lara has some awesome acrobatics
The bad
I don’t mind platform jumping through elaborate contraptions, slowly but steadily working my way up through a level. But then there’s that cardinal sin: if you fall or make a jump to the wrong platform, you should NOT, EVER, have to retread the whole damn sequence again to get back to the point where you goofed, especially if it takes 3-4 tries before you can even visually see the next ledge or pole you’re supposed to aim for.
Lara can read!
Remember that frustrating motorcycle-jumping mission in GTA: Vice City where you had to jump between buildings to finally light a promotional searchlight? Yeah, every half-dozen jumps or so you cleared, a ladder was lowered so you could pick up it up if you fell. TR:A kinda missed that point, and even made it much worse by sprinkling a gazillion savepoints throughout each mission.
Lara looks better with age, but I have always digged older women
That means you have to willfully commit suicide to respawn near the troublesome obstacle if you fall. If you’re lucky, that is. Odds are you’ll trigger a savepoint on your way to pool or water or whatever your choice of suicide is, which forces you to start the tedious process of retracing your steps.
Another weakness is combat. I get it; this is a puzzle game, not Serious Sam. But the combat system feels both contrived and skimpy at the same time, and the peekaboo-playing adversaries feel like more of a distraction than value-add. Boss monsters like the T-Rex are a pain to kill, as you have the feeling of a carpenter being asked to build a house given only a hammer and a screwdriver; it can be done, but it’s not fun.
