Shadow of the Tomb Raider

This game is almost always on sale and is worth getting. I just don't like how the game takes away your weapons a lot. If anyone wants a copy I will gift it whenever it goes on sale.

---{ 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
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
---{ 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
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u 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
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☑ Can get annoying (some bugs)
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ Replayability }---
☐ One and done
☑ Maybe after a year
☐ Worth a second run
☐ Played it 20 times and still not bored
---{ Microtransactions }---
☐ None
☑ cosmetics and other stuff
☐ Slightly pay-to-progress
☐ Pay-to-win
☐ More shops than gameplay
☐ Casino Simulator
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

A beautiful game in every sense of this word, and the most pleasantly surprising comeback after the disappointing Rise. Feels like this time it was made by people who really understood and cared about the franchise, because the way they managed to make it much closer to the old entries while keeping all the modern mechanics is super impressive.
You could say it is the most "proper" Tomb Raider game out of the new trilogy, with little combat and a heavy emphasis on slow, careful exploration. There are still tools that can dumb it down to a generic open-worldish collectathon, but if you deliberately avoid relying on those, you’re in for a very immersive experience. I’d highly recommend opening the map or using survival instincts as rarely as you can. In fact, one of the most rewarding things you can do in this game is just walking slowly, taking in the stunning vistas, enjoying Lara’s smooth movements, thinking about the puzzles or lore while getting the lay of the land. Play it on "One with the Jungle" (it’s not hard at all), be one with the jungle.
Another rewarding thing to do here is, as it should be, raiding tombs. Boy, they really went all out this time; every tomb is like its own little world with pretty much zero repetition. The puzzles got more involved and now have just the right difficulty to help the immersion. The traversal is still mostly straightforward, but the removal of the white paint helped, and occasionally you can even get stuck because you didn’t spot a climbable wall or a ledge, just like it was in the good old days. There are also proper underwater sections now, which is another nice little bridge between the old and new.
The story may not have the same dramatic highs as TR2013, but it’s a solid, competently written affair where everything is a notch above what it was in Rise. Some may be put off by its more subdued tone or slower pacing, especially during the middle stretch, but this is exactly what lets the characters breathe and eventually develop into something more nuanced and mature.
The antagonist is a flawed yet relatable, sympathetic man, and with him comes a conflict that’s much less generic than "I want eternal life" (although at the cost of any consistency in Trinity’s depictions, but who cares about that). Jonah is as important as a partner can be: not just a trusty mood-making sidekick but also indispensable emotional support for Lara. Another special mention goes to Lopez, who, despite only appearing on screen for a few seconds as mummified remains, plays a very important role and is gradually fleshed out both through the main events and lore collectibles.
And, of course, there’s Lara herself, feeling like a real human, showing subtle emotions on her realistic high-poly face. She might be a bit all over the place in terms of personality or motivations, but that is also a decidedly human trait. The much-praised flames/rampage scene is masterfully done, marrying a scared little girl with a cold-blooded killer in a convincing, meaningful manner, and the way the plot uses a supernatural setup to bring closure to her personal trauma is beautiful and touching.
Visual-wise, this game is an absolute feast: lush jungles, breathtaking landscapes, beautiful realistic illumination, fascinating architecture. Each of the three hubs has its own unique vibe: a poor native village ravaged by a storm; a small Christian settlement centered around missionary work; a bustling city in a hidden valley with multiple distinct districts and impressive verticality. It’s not just top-tier graphic design that makes exploration rewarding, though, but also meaningful density; you never have to travel too far to find the next set piece or lore item that at least won’t be boring, and at most will tell something memorable about the world.
The only part where the level of quality falters is the side quests and DLC stories, which feature a number of stiff, unpolished conversations (much unlike the precise directing of the primary cutscenes), but they aren’t numerous enough to ruin the overall impression, and compared to the previous entry’s fetch quests they can still be seen as a slight improvement.
It’s funny because I was so frustrated with Rise for its uninspired storytelling and shallow gameplay, lamenting how TR seems to have become another franchise whose soul got sucked by the bloated progress-bar-filling AAA approach. Yet Shadow blew away those worries completely, even though at first glance it appeared to be doing the same things. As usual, the devil is in the details, and I couldn’t be happier that such details allowed Tomb Raider to stay relevant in modern times without sacrificing its core identity.

I am obsessed with this game. After Rise, I didn't think they could elevate the experience. This is my favorite of the Survivor Trilogy for sure. I find myself unable to stop playing. I just want to get one more achievement, one more tomb. I really love the skills, the combat, the outfits, the voice lines, I mean everything. I love Lara's little witty one-liners and how caring she is. I've already 100% the other two and cannot wait to add this to my list of accomplishments. Cannot wait for more.
Warning: If you are gonna go for the 100% be prepared for the hardest mode being incredibly irritating. You will die to Lara refusing to grag a ledge or grapple anything. Cenotes will become nightmare fuel. Good luck.

I happened to be visiting Peru in real life as I was in the middle of playing this game, and I can tell you this - do not wear shorts in the jungle. All I gotta say about that!

9/10.
It's a fun game, the exploration and combat mechanics are the best from the 3. The levels are pretty cool and the puzzles and tombs are very well done.
Lara is an awful protagonist, though. She is selfish, whiny and obtuse and she has actually regressed from the previous games. She has no relevant character arc and her making knee-jerk decisions is the cuase of like 90% of the problems she has to solve. Even Jonah lost his cool with her on this one.
The internal logic of the game is also pretty bad (from a caucasian lady with a heavy british accent passing as a local figure just because she is using a costume is actually hilarious - also, for a Village with little contact with the outside in the middle of nowhere, a LOT of people just speak english pretty fuently, huh?), so calibrate your suspension of disbelief accordingly.

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.