Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition Reviews

Despite looking gorgeously lush, with beautiful cinematography during cutscenes, Shadows is unfortunately underbaked. The platforming controls respond poorly, combat is tedious and punishes stealth, environmental lighting and animations break frequently, and many puzzles are poorly designed and require the player to mash the interact key on every rock Monkey Island style. Too often I've had to watch a gameplay video to figure out which rocky ledge on a wall is climbable and which one is just set dressing. It's clear that whoever was in charge of this game simply rehashed the old engine and phoned it in. An unfortunate waste of money.

This game has a serious problem of immersion. You're just starting to feel the adventure the game promises, but it's suddenly punctuated by a deluge of tedious acrobatic endeavors and time-consuming puzzle-solving arrays. Combat or action sequences are undermined by unengaging exploratory sequences, which, in turn, make the game monotonous and mediocre.

Comparing it to the former Tomb Raider games, it's infinitely more mature than the previous two games. Especially in terms of writing and storytelling. Gameplay-wise, still on par with the former two, combat as well as stealth feels just as good as the first one and way better than the second. Easy purchase.

in short, its different. if you want a longer review, the game doesn't follow the previous tomb raiders functions. perks cost different amounts, weapon upgrades don't carry over, merchants exist, the sound design has been overhauled and more. its a good game. i don't like it as much as the others, but still. its a good game. Edit: after playing through the game some more, it has become better. the difference is quite nice when you get used to it.

Great game play, beautiful levels, enjoyable puzzles. Boring mediocre story sadly...TR 2013 & Rise both had excellent stories paired with great game play and cutting edge visuals for each respective time of release. Shadows improves on the graphics, adds new mechanics and is a lot of fun don't get me wrong, but in my humble opinion, it drops the ball with story telling and voice acting.

I love the gameplay, and for an old game the graphics are a delight.

Worth a play through... Excellent story and good gameplay.

** Couple game breaking bugs. Only way around is setting your graphics to lowest and frame rate to 20fps to get past the puzzles look at steam FAQ as this is a common issue*** now for my review: if we forget about the issues above this was another great Tomb Raider game. So beautiful in places. The story was good and interesting. I wanted more of it all the time. The combat was good too and loads of options for weapons and clothes to choose from depending on your play style. The challenge tombs where a bit hit and miss. Some good some I just watched a Youtube vid just to get it over with and move on. Overall not as good as the second game IMO but still a great game to get!. 85/100

---{ Graphics }--- ☑ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Meh, so-so ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☑ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☐ Decent ☑ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Game Size }--- ☐ Floppy Disk ☐ Old Fashioned ☑ Workable ☐ Big ☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive ☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it ☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☐ Easy ☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☐ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if you care about Leaderboards/Ranks ☑ Isn't necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☐ Average ☐ Good ☑ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☑ Average (I low-key did only the main campaign and some exploring, which took me roughly 12 hours) ☐ Long ☐ To infinity and beyond ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☑ Worth the price ☐ If it's on sale ☐ If you have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ Bugs }--- ☑ Never heard of ☐ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☑ 8 ☐ 9 ☐ 10

It's very Tomb Raider. It's very video gamey. It's very jungle. It's very pretty. It's very big. It's also inconsistent and buggy. I enjoyed it a lot.