Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation

While I maintain this is a good entry in the tomb raider franchise, I will admit that it does have its flaws due to a rushed development cycle which makes it feel like a step back from its predecessors.

The big issues is how long this game is, it's almost double that of the third entry with content that could've easily been left on the cutting room floor. The worst part is at one point, the game has a split path that is determined by how you solve a puzzle, meaning there was a perfect opportunity to include all of its content without forcing players to go through all of it in one playthrough that I guess they discarded save for this one occasion. Admittedly this is arguably the game with the best collection of puzzles which include a match against a dirty which is what determines which path you take depending in if you win or lose to it. Another issue is the rope mechanic, simply put, it sucks as it strives for realism which makes the otherwise acrobatic Lara feel rather stiff swinging from them. Thankfully they're quite rare with only two sections of the game requiring you to use the mechanic otherwise I wouldn't have been as positive in this review. This is a minor thing since the franchise isn't known for its compelling storytelling, however I feel the plot was far more nonsensical this time around, I'm guessing they wanted it to be more compelling than its predecessors, however Lara makes some rather egregious decisions in this game involving her former mentor and the villain of the game which is the Egyptian God set (looking more like Anubis for some reason.) Again, not a deal breaker, but far too complicated to be enjoyable or engaging.

It's a bit all over the place as you can definitely tell this was meant to be the final game in the franchise, however there are plenty of good ideas to make it worth your while. Besides, it's a return to form as you are indeed raiding tombs once again in this entry as opposed to its two predecessors.

I think this was intended to be the final game, hence the title, but in hindsight we know that didn't happen. With Lara's 4th game, she features a new voice actress, and a bigger chest.

Apart from the first two levels in Cambodia with young Lara (which serve as a tutorial rather than having the usual Croft Manor), the entire game takes place in Egypt. This makes a change from the original trilogy which saw Lara on a globetrotting adventure. The choice to have a single location makes game more cohesive, but it doesn't feel as monotonous as you may imagine, since there's still different locales and different ideas.

One of the new ideas is that sometimes, the levels are grouped together in interconnected areas. This means you sometimes return to previous levels once you have required some kind of key to progress further. This means sometimes there's a bit of backtracking, and sometimes you can get a little lost when it's not clear where you need to go.

The controls can feel a bit awkward until you get used to them. You also have to be in fairly precise positions to interact with switches or to pick up items. This can be a bit fiddly to make Lara slowly step to the required position. Also, it's quite easy to die by falling off ledges due to the controls. You can save anytime, which means it's not too frustrating when you do die. I found it pretty straightforward to configure the Xbox 360 controller to control Lara. The controls weren't perfect like that (RT and LT weren't recognised), but it was close enough to play through the game.

In some ways, Lara is very agile with fluent movement. Lara can run, jump, climb, flip and roll around the environment and is well animated. She can sprint, crawl and monkey-bar across certain surfaces. A new feature is the rope swinging but this mechanic is very clunky and inconsistent. Pressing the "sprint" button should make Lara gain momentum but it doesn't always seem to be the case, and Lara struggles if you aren't low down on the rope, but doesn't want to budge unless the rope is still.

The crawling mechanic is used way too many times. You often go from grappling a ledge, then pull yourself into a tunnel and slowly crawl to the end. You then have to slowly turn around and lower yourself out of the other side; it is extremely cumbersome. There's one stupid idea where Lara finds a waist-high tunnel which she should just be able to crawl into. But because that's not how she normally enters, you have to find a switch to open the floor panel that is under her feet, so she can jump up and grab the ledge, then pull herself in.

There's 2 levels where you use vehicles; first a car, then later a motorcycle. The vehicles can feel very clunky and awkward to control too. There's a very clunky car chase early on with men gunning you down which seems pure luck if they hit you or not, and bottomless pits you can't quite see in time. That section just seemed very trial-and-error.

The gameplay consists of a mix of combat, platforming and puzzling. There are switch puzzles, timed areas, and block puzzles, but the majority is just finding the button to press to unlock the next door. The frequency of block puzzles is low compared to the earlier games.

At first, enemies are scorpions, bats, and crocodiles. Soon you are attacked by human ninjas armed with dual swords, but may switch to guns. They wave their swords which blocks your gunfire. If you put your weapon away then they will either run at you or get out their guns. Later on, there's dogs and various monsters. If you switch to the first-person aim mode, you can shoot off skeleton heads and they run around blind (how do skeletons even see though when they don't have eyes?). The aim mode is used later to hit buttons or destroy objects.

Some weapons have a few types of ammo although some of these seem rare. The crossbow has standard ammunition as well as poisoned and explosive. For most of the game, you can make do with your dual pistols that have unlimited ammo. Explosive weapons are good against certain enemies like skeletons. Shotguns temporarily knock them down, but you can blast them off ledges. There's plenty of ammunition to find, especially if you locate the secret areas.

The graphics don't seem a noticeable improvement on the previous game, so you still see that the levels are constructed out of square panels and bland, flat textures. You can light flares in dark areas which take advantage of the lighting model. The game is pretty dark overall though, so I turned up the in-game settings as well as my TV to make it easier to see. Paths are not always clear; I sometimes found it easy to miss climbable walls and 'monkey bars' on the roof. In general, it does do a far better job than previous games, but still can be improved further. Lara's swaying ponytail is impressive.

There's definitely some interesting ideas such as the couple of rooms with a mirror, where it shows you the hidden roof tile exit. However, sometimes the ideas fall a bit flat. There's a Ludo-like board game but you don't get a good understanding of the mechanics, or a good view of the board. There's a couple of basic block pushing parts which don't require much thought, as well as rooms with multiple switches where the solution is just to push them all. I was a bit confused in areas with the scarabs which seem scared of the light, but the torch you are given is barely effective so you just have to flee.

I got stuck on the 1st level after the tutorial levels. You need to combine items to progress but the game doesn't tell you this. It's easy to forget this mechanic because you then don't need to use it for a while. I also thought it wasn't clear which objects you can interact with. Objects sometimes looked like you should be able to interact with them, but Lara doesn't say "NO!" like she does in previous games when in this situation. That voice sample is here though and sometimes she says it when you are doing the correct thing (like attempting to fill a flask in a pool of water). It is only when you have the correct item, (sometimes have to combine it), then interacting does it pop open your inventory for you to select the item. I think it always auto-selected the required item too, so it was pointless even opening your inventory.

As a related note, I don't think the game did a good job at making it clear what your objective was in many situations. Sometimes I was climbing, pulling levers etc and eventually picked up an artefact but I didn't know my aim was an artefact. Maybe it needs to utilise camera pans to show you the end goal, or put you in a room with the item, but you have to go an alternate path to get to it.

There's one section where you go into an abandoned, and very dangerous carnival. It has a shooting gallery where you win a token, you can put this in the fortune teller machine which raises a rope to a store room. You pick up a broken broom, attach it to a hook and use it to steal the keys from the entrance. The area is a cool idea, but I don't think any of it made sense, and even afterwards I didn't know why I wanted the keys and don't recall where I used them. There's this fire breathing dragon that requires you to run through quickly to avoid the fire blasts. Later, there is a scene where Lara is just casually talking to someone in front of the dragon, and the dragon is watching them rather than attacking; there's definitely some oddities throughout the game.

Music and sound is similar to the previous games. General eerie, ominous ambience unless some action music or fanfare is playing.

There's loads of levels within the game, although the sheer length of the game makes it drag. Later levels become like the original Tomb Raider trilogy: plenty of dark areas that you struggle to see even when the brightness cranked right up. Easy to miss items that will require backtracking to collect. Enemies hiding around dark corners to jump you. Maze like navigation that looks way too similar. Awkward jumps on sloped terrain so you are never sure if this is actually the correct way to go or if you exploited a glitch. These levels are frustrating, but by this point, I thought the game was a bit too long and the pacing just screeched to a halt. The game time showed 17 hours, but Steam clocked 27 hours which includes all the time reloading and some time paused while checking a walkthrough during the more ambiguous parts.

Even though I highlight many flaws, I think the game is better than the previous games, and generally does much better in it's level design. However it is overly long, and drags in its final moments with frustrating level design.

The breast-to-body ratio in this game is farcical.

I adored the Tomb Raider series (I hate the word "franchise" when used in this context) because it represented everything that I wanted out of a game: some action, some discovery, some problem solving, a bit of shooting when necessary and some platform jumping. I think that presents a great and stimulating blend of elements. Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation is my favourite, though not by a huge margin.