We got to see the upcoming new *Tomb Raider* demoed at *E3 2012*. A reboot to
the franchise, it sees a 21 year-old Lara Croft on her journey to becoming
the tough action character we know today. Lara will suffer a lot in this
game, more than Nathan Drake, and I mention him because the parallels between
this game and Uncharted are obvious. It's a cinematic *action adventure
game*, from the same perspective, although Tomb Raider does seem grittier.
The amount of punches, injuries and falls Lara suffers borders on the
ridiculous, and you'll have to get used to her cries and screams. It will be
interesting to see how her character develops as the game progresses. Tomb
Raider is billed as an pseudo-open world game, but what we saw featured a lot
of scripted moments. The levels do seem big, and have multiple paths, but the
overall direction of the game look set. Like *Uncharted*, this new Tomb
Raider looks to be more about being an enjoyable adventure rather than a
tough game, with little of the tense atmosphere and puzzle solving of the
original game. At times it feels like Far Cry with less freedom. Lara has to
learn to survive on the island she is shipwrecked on. She'll hunt deer, make
campfires and have to develop her skills, improve her powers and instincts,
and so on. Tomb Raider's graphics are impressive, with excellent animation,
and beautiful finishing touches like rainwater on the camera lens. The
production values cannot be questioned, it looks genuinely fantastic. *This
retelling of the Lara Croft origins story looks promising. Tomb Raider is
undoubtedly visually impressive and exciting, but we hope it's sufficiently
challenging too. We can't wait to play through the whole game and find out!
It is slated for release on March 5th 2013 on PC and consoles.*Download *Tomb
Raider 2012 Preview* in Softonic
