[Locke]

"Run you bastards, I'm coming for you!"

I think Tomb Raider is one of the first games I've played where the gameplay actually fits the story. I know that sounds really odd but so many games that I have played, have found me at odds with the story. The most recent example of that in my memory was Sleeping Dogs, a story about an undercover cop who is morally and emotionally torn because he's a good man, forced to do bad things and may even like it. But the gameplay betrayed his character arc, because the game allowed you to gleefully drive along the pavement, killing hundreds of people on the hood of your sports car with only light repercussions. Can't you feel how morally torn he is?!

Tomb Raider, on the other hand, makes me genuinely feel like I've shared Lara's arc. I'm now blowing people up as the palace burns around us, I'm clearing whole rooms of praying cultists by igniting the natural gas, I strike from the shadows and drag corpses back with me with my pickaxe and carefully take down enemies, one headshot at a time, without ever being seen.

These are all things that the game has carefully allowed you to do, when it makes sense for you in the story to do them. At first I wasn't so sure, I know I've even claimed the opposite in the past, but just looking back we've come so far and in such a well paced way.

I dunno, it's just an exquisitely designed game, with some of the finest gameplay I've had the pleasure of working with. Even the platforming feels natural and fluid, and never feels like an irritating bit of padding life it often is in other action games. This is fast becoming my favourite game of all time.