It is two years ago that Lara Croft started her first adventure in the reboot of Tomb Raider. Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics released now the next chapter which is only exclusive available for the Xbox-One. The question is, will Rise of the Tomb Raider take players back to a great exploration adventure or will Lara be once again a heavy armed killing machine?

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We think that since the reboot of Lara’s adventures and in the Definitive Edition Crystal Dynamics’ Engine shows its power. Rise of the Tomb Raider continues this and shows us in the first minutes an incomparable scenes with atmospheric lightnings and particle effects, magnificent crossovers from cut scenes back to the game with great camera angles that could be in a blockbuster movie, impressive and believable facial expressions and thanks to the TressFX, the most beautiful hair simulation we ever seen.

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In addition, the cold Siberia’s icy areas turn out a wonderfully huge map which offers a potential for explorations and is also filled with life. Players will encounter the wild life Constantly. Different bird flying around, you will see how rabbits, squirrels or rats run through the snow. The game’s sounds are unique and reached a new level of high quality sounds. Not only the massive surround sound which is very dynamic but also the clear voices are fantastic. The professional speaker like Camilla Luddington did a really great job. The wonderful soundtrack fits great into this adventure and adjusts with its dynamic crossovers to the situation. We love it how the soundtrack supports the excitement and the immersion.  Rise of the Tomb Raider is an audiovisual magnificent game! We not only used our speakers to test the game’s sound. Thank to the Xbox One Stereo Headset Adapter we could used our Logitech G633 Artemis Spectrum 7.1 Surround Gaming-Headset that has played the 7.1 surround sounds lovely. For more about the Headset take a look at jadoRendr’s REVIEW or take a look at the official homepage HERE

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Unfortunately, there are some problems with the game’s FPS-Rate. Compared to the Definitive Edition of the last game, this game runs mostly only at 30 FPS instead of 60 FPS, especially in scenes with a lot of effects like for example scenes with burning buildings. SOmetimes we get the feeling that Crystal Dynamics pushes the console’s Hardware to its limits. This has not only some consequences on the game’s look, the control also suffers because of it. Unfortunately, we get quickly a feeling as we would play online with a very high ping. That means that our inputs are not been realized immediately what can lead that a jump will be made too late and you end up in the abyss. What we like and notice is, that the automatic save point are set fairly, but, unfortunately, especially if you aim on an enemy, we miss the speed if we are surrounded by human enemies. After a time of playing you learn how you have to deal with it, but it is very sad especially because of the great and successful integration of the pulses trigger, which feels fantastic when for example the zipline and other things are accompanied by vibrations.

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We also noticed quickly, that the developer wanted not to do some experiments with this game. They focussed more on the games mechanics, which we know from the previous game. Fact is, that you will experience elements such as unlockable abilities or weapon upgrades once again, but you will also play again the mix of exploration, small puzzles, battles and sequences of obligatory escapes. Even the architecture of some areas brings back memories of the previous game and the stocks with their convenient quick-travel functions are back again.

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But we think that this does not means that it is bad: We love the variations of the gameplay and we like that there are more graves to explore in this game which are filled with small but great physics puzzles. You can reach some of them only with some special equipment. Unfortunately, this graves are not really involved into the campaign and only constitute as an optional task. The only exception is the great side trip to Syria shortly after the start, which exactly reflects in its compact form, what we thing that should be in a Tomb Raider game. Atmospheric explorations, environment puzzles, nasty traps and a lot of dramatic action. The snow-covered, rocky wasteland offers a lot with its huge areas, wide valleys, hidden caves, russian outposts that raises our discovery willing, even if we have to return in known areas later in the game. We love the game’s architecture and implementation of the gaming world.

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Unfortunately, the developers did the same mistakes as in the previous games. We think that there are a lot of more elegant ways that Lara achieves new skills or parts for weapons as to use the unfortunately not nice made unlock-mechanic. At first glance it seems to be nice to specialize in the three known categories: fighter, hunter and survivor. But why in such a way? We would preferred if we could develop Lara’s abilities on our style to play like in shooters. We think that for example, if you successfully used the bow, upgrades should be available for this skill. Unfortunately, a lot of Lara’s Survivor-Skills only work in combination with the survival instinct. These are the mechanism that provides visual cues by pressing a button.

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It is a little bit annoying to collect all the stuff and to upgrade Lara’s abilities, but if you swing with grappling hook and rope over abysses again, build your own stairs and ziplines with bow and arrows or create your own molotov cocktails and smoke bombs, all this skill stuff is forgotten. It’s great how Lara opens new opportunities and ways to obstructed areas because of the help of her increasingly improved mobility or explosives.

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Players do not have to worry. Lara prepared for every increasing number of clashes, not only because of the significant expansion of her armor. The initial arc is quickly supplemented by high-tech models with special arrows (fire, poison, explosive charge), pistols, rifles and shotguns. Lara also get new skills continuously and can kill enemies with silent stealth attacks, well-timed counterattacks and or with a jump from the top which ends in a dogfight. This may sound really great but we think that the enemies are quickly too overpowered on the normal difficulty level. There are although more opportunities to kill enemies and players can, for example, distract enemies with the help of throwing objects or, later in the game, even prepare corpses with explosive gas. But unfortunately because of that Lara becomes again once more the killing machine.

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Unfortunately, we also have to confirm, that the game’s AI is not the best one. We do not understand, why the enemies do not get in cover in the most battles. They also get killed by their own companions’ grenades from time to time. They also do not pay a lot of attention even if we kill one of their comrades in their immediate vicinity. We noticed that the game is a lot more challenging on the higher difficulty levels, not because the enemies acting more intelligent, but they much stronger and it takes more hits to kill them.

We think, that the best part of the game are, if you do not have to use Lara’s weapons. In this part dominates acrobatics and your brains that you have to use. Here becomes Lara again what she really is, an archaeologist and grave robber. We like it that Crystal Dynamics included more of these mysterious chambers that we can find and explore. We also love it that diving celebrates a comeback in this game, even if it is unfortunately limited and a bit like running on rails, because you can not move freely under water and it is automatically directed into a certain paths.

The developers decided to tell us the game’s story a lot of times with the help of Audio-Logs. You can find a lot of documents or recordings that tells you the story about a mysterious prophet whose secrets and knowledge about a source of eternal life and a dark and secret organization called Trinity that chasing to realize a new world order. And there is also a nation that has been isolated from the outside world and is directing its existence it to protect the source and its power what ever it costs. Even if it is not the most innovative, the story keeps us playing, but not because of the audio logs, more because of the excellent staged cut scenes and interesting characters. We especially loved the one or two surprising points in the game’s story-line. All in all, the 15-walk through Syria and Siberia is generally pleasing entertaining and varied. In addition, there is no extremely contradiction like in the first game anymore in which Lara looked extremely vulnerable and insecure in cut scenes but was a killer-machine in the game. We think that the character representation in this game is a lot more homogeneous and comprehensible.

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This game has not a multiplayer-mode, but we like it that but the developers included an expedition and ranglist. In various areas of the game’s campaign the player’s performance will be compared to those of their friends and be immortalized in a leaderboard. In addition to the points there is also listed how long your friends needed to complete a section.

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The expeditions are a concept of asynchronous duels but with different modes and the so-called Expedition Cards. The latter one you get by reaching milestones in the game’s campaign by the redemption of in-game currency or you buy more decks of cards for real money in the form of micro-transactions. With this cards you can play challenges entirely on your own desires or ability that you like. This helps you to win as many credits by reaching of the game’s requirements. With this cards you can for example strength or weak weapons, set tasks, or sets yourself under pressure, if choose not to die or to get any damage. What we like is that the possibilities and combinations are almost limitless. You can also resell for game currency cards for which you see no personal use.

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All in all, we think that Rise of the Tomb Raider is a great continuation of the reboot, which offers once more traditional treasure hunters content thanks to a greater variety of atmospheric graves and small puzzles. In addition to that, the new adventures of the young Lara Croft offers stunning backdrops, successful tempo changes, strong speakers and a cinematic stagings, which are supported by powerful sound effects and dynamic background music. We not only used you speakers to test the game’s sound. We also used our Logitech G633 Artemis Spectrum 7.1 Surround Gaming-Headset that has played the sounds really great. For more about the Headset take a look at jadoRendr’s REVIEW or take a look at the official homepage HERE. Unfortunately, the Xbox One’s hardware acts from time to time overwhelmed and the controls are not so great as in the previous game. We think that with all these in game loot and the audio-logs, less would have been more! Nevertheless, Rise of the Tomb Raider is an improvement on the reboot, because this game is more focused on what constitutes the charm and the fascination about a grave robber. We can say: Well done Crystal Dynamics, we like the new Rise of the Tomb Raider game.

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