GotY 2014: #7 Tomb Raider

This is the last game on my list that is a part of a franchise that I had never played before. Now, let's take a deeper look why it's on my list. If you've missed any of my other blogs for Game of the Year, check them out here:

#8, #9, #10 and HM

Tomb Raider

This game was one of the best surprises of the past year for me. As I was going through the story, I could see Lara become more and more confident as I was playing. The best part was once again having characters that you care about and seeing how things branch out from there. The openness of the game was very surprising for me and it was fun to try and work my way around as stealthily as possible. Like Wolfenstein, when you messed up the stealth approach, you could then move around and shoot dudes in a way that made you feel it works, no matter how you play it.

The gameplay itself was very well done and made you feel like you were learning alongside of Lara. The bow was the weapon that I used the most during the game, especially when I was sneaking around. The climbing also felt good, especially when I had been playing Black Flag before this, which still suffered from the problems of climbing and moving around the series has had. The tombs were amazing and a lot of fun when you were trying to traverse your way around to get the treasure. I went out of my way to find and play through all of them because I loved the puzzle aspect of them. When you had to shoot, the guns felt good and the enemies didn't feel like they were super bullet spongey.

Some of my problems with the game, and what kept it from being higher are few but are pretty big in my mind. The first one is the very beginning of the game where you are fleeing from the creepy raper dude. That part could have been done where he was just chasing you and not trying to act like he was going to violate you once he caught you. That part really rubbed me the wrong way, but fortunately, it was at the very beginning so I could forget about it pretty fast. The other problem I had was that it seemed to take too long for the story to get going, even though the characters were really well done. Then, the story fell into the trap of "Who doesn't love supernatural stories?" when the answer to this, especially dealing with games like this and the Uncharted series, is NEVER.

This one was a little shorter but stay tuned for tomorrow's entry and thanks for reading. Tomorrow's will hopefully tell you the truth about sticks.