When we last saw Lara Croft in her origin story-driven reboot, she was having a bad day. Upon burning her way out of a cocoon-like prison, she was pierced by a length of rebar, chased by an insane island inhabitant, and attacked by wolves. Our latest look at her harrowing survival story picks up shortly after those events where we find young Croft's circumstances haven't improved much.
http://www.gamesradar.com/tomb-raider-preview-other-side-lara/
Our E3 demo begins with Lara clutching her side - likely still smarting from the fresh hole in it - and peering over a cliff at the rocky coast below. Cluttered with shipwrecks, including her own, she spots her party's lifeboat washed up on the shore. Now anxious to find her friends, she pushes forward. As she begins searching, we get a look at her budding athleticism and agility. Far from the Prince of Persia-like acrobatics displayed in her previous adventures, she clumsily crosses a balance beam-like log, before scaling a crashed aircraft. The plane, however, is pinned vertically against a waterfall, making for both a cool in-game set piece as well as a daunting challenge for the tomb-raider-to-be. As the craft begins breaking apart, a panicked Lara scurries across its fragile fuselage; the piece she's desperately clutching gives way, but she drops to a safe spot below.
Despite her many brushes with death, the discovery of a fellow survivor's back-pack convinces her to push on. Following a leap of faith over a chasm halting her progress, Lara takes a nasty spill into the forest below - poor girl can't catch a break. Caked in mud and blood, shivering, and sopping wet from the rain, Lara makes camp. Among other gear, she finds a radio and a box of matches in her friend's pack. Sadly, there's just a single match in the box. While we're not actually playing the game, we feel the emotion, desperation, and intensity of the scene; when she manages to ignite the match and start a fire, we're genuinely relieved for her.
After an evening's rest, the action picks up with Lara exploring the wilderness. Stumbling upon a corpse dangling from a tree, she resists the urge to look away when she spots a bow on the human pinata. With a bit of not-so-fancy footwork, she climbs a nearby tree and acquires the victim's archery gear. While it's a far cry from the dual-pistols she's wielded in previous games, the primitive weapon does just fine against a deer. While inelegantly gutting her kill with an arrow head, Lara mumbles "sorry" to the dead animal and we again feel her fear desperation.
Back at camp, preparing her kill for dinner, Lara hears a familiar voice over the radio. The companion, who's apparently okay and with other survivors, urges Lara to come meet him. Relieved she's not alone, she sets out to rejoin her group. Shortly after resuming her quest, Lara happens upon a small hut covering a secret passage. Hoping to discover supplies and maybe a shortcut to her destination, she descends into the underground passage. Among the waist-deep water, skull-and candle-adorned alters, and slabs of rancid meat, she finds a rusty pickaxe. Grabbing the tool from a fly-infested side of beef, she flees from the scary subterranean shrine.
In a refreshing stroke of good luck, Lara finds her friend Sam not far from the exit. Unlike Lara, Sam's in good spirits and chatting with a seemingly nice, if hygienically challenged, chap. Of course, the lovely stranger turns on both girls when they decline his offer to follow him into the woods; pulling a blade on Sam, the dude goes from nice to nasty and drags the screaming girl off. Lara pursues them, but is thwarted by a bear trap - so much for that stroke of good luck.
Things quickly go from bad to a hell-of-a-lot-worse when a pack of wolves look to take advantage of Lara's unfortunate predicament. In a prone position, leg still swallowed by the trap's metal jaws, she takes the snarling beasts out one by one with her bow. Still trapped and now surrounded by dead wildlife, Lara seems ready to throw in the towel just when her friends find her. Upon blasting the trap open with a bullet, most of the group head off to track Sam while one member stays behind with Lara.
Lara goes back to camp while her partner searches the area, but she's soon beckoned by him when he discovers a large door decorated with ornate markings. After gutting a few more hungry beats en route, she arrives at the temple-looking entrance, and we're introduced to one of the game's first puzzles. Breaching the door requires both survivors to simultaneously turn separate cranks, though Lara must upgrade her pickaxe before doing so. Leveling up weapons, gear, and Lara's skills will apparently be a big part of the experience. Earlier in the demo, for example, we notice she gains enough XP to grant her the ability to pluck arrows from downed prey. Now, however, she must collect physical salvage to tweak out her tomahawk. Upon busting open some sacks and crates, she scrounges what she needs and goes back to camp to apply the upgrade.
Brandishing her leveled up blade, she rejoins the AI partner and the two manage to raise the large gate. Once inside, they discover the same sort of disturbing occult items Lara had seen earlier in the tunnel. Before they can become too freaked out by the evidence of apparent human sacrifice, though, they're captured by some close acquaintances of the hobo-looking dude that abducted Sam. As it turns out, these folks - who creepily recall the "Others" from television's LOST - have Lara's fellow survivors in custody as well.
Following a brief verbal exchange, punctuated by a "Kill them all!" command, all hell breaks loose. Lara's fellow survivors attempt to flee and she, with hands bound, also tries to escape. Scared to death, Lara squeezes into a safe spot even as screams, gunshots, and utter chaos unfold around her. Unfortunately, her safety's short-lived, as a grungy guy with a pistol plucks Lara from her hiding place. The game transitions into a quick-time event allowing Lara to kick and bite her captor before the two end up on the ground, struggling to gain control of the gun. Lara barely manages to position its barrel in front of her captor's face just in time to squeeze the trigger.
Visibly shaken and splattered with her victim's brains and blood, Lara seems a far cry from the buxom fortune-and-glory hunting heroine we've gotten to know over the years. There's still much to learn about young lady Croft's gritty survival story, but our recent peek of the promising reboot left us as breathless as its physically and psychologically scarred star.
No comments:
Post a Comment