Rise of the Tomb Raider

An easy buy and one of the most enjoyable games of the year, improving on its predecessor with grander, more labyrinthine level design, stellar animation that melds with the world, amazing environmental sound, and epic orchestral music. Genuinely satisfying tombs return alongside excellent gunplay, survival-crafting, and well-tuned difficulty settings. Minor knocks include hit-and-miss textures, a clumsy upgrade-screen presentation, weak enemy AI and stealth, and occasional map-scale and audio-transition awkwardness, but it is brutally fun throughout.

One of the best action-adventure titles of its generation and a worthy follow-up that trades survival desperation for treasure-hunting in larger, more open environments. The exploration is rewarding, weapon and ability upgrades feel meaningful, the tombs rival Zelda dungeons, and combat encounters play like satisfying puzzles. The cliche, generic story is easily the weakest part, but the gameplay and progression make it a consistently exciting experience, rated a solid 9 out of 10.

Gorgeous to look at and a very solid PC port, but underneath it is a generic, heavily scripted third-person experience. Play boils down to moving between small self-contained zones, solving repetitive puzzles, and forced linear progression gated behind crafting, with predictable set-piece moments that never feel like the promised high-octane action. The story is initially appealing but the gameplay offers nothing new over countless similar titles.

A bland but perfectly functional middle-ground adventure that leans heavily on a Last Crusade-style plot and a manipulative survival framing that is wearing thin. The tomb-raiding and ancient puzzles are the highlights, but they are mostly optional while the repetitive combat drowns in too many redundant weapons and meaningless collectible upgrades. The new Lara, with her constant exertion noises and helpless dialogue, grates.

A fantastic, more-but-better follow-up to the 2013 reboot, with improved systems, environments, story, and visuals across snowy hub areas like Siberia. The optional puzzle tombs are the standout, progression is rewarding, and the pacing balances open exploration with strong action set pieces. The familiar collect-and-upgrade loop may feel like more of the same to some, but it is a polished, satisfying single-player adventure.