Tomb Raider has had highs and lows, controversy, excitement, attention, fandom, disinterest, and pretty much anything else that can be levelled at a video game.
This new Tomb Raider is an "origin" story. It's about Lara Croft before she made a name for herself; a young woman in the shadow of her father. She's on an expedition to locate a mythical Japanese island, as part of a team supporting a reality TV "archaeologist". They end up shipwrecked. It's a good set-up.
Lara's world goes from charts and maps to shotguns and murder, and her transition from scholar to slaughterer is a brief one. In respect to the canon, this is completely acceptable. Lara has always dispatched her foes without hesitation.
Here, the disconnect is amplified by two things: one, enemies can often be overheard talking reluctantly about their roles, and two, Lara is markedly different from the aloof monster Angelina Jolie portrayed in the movies. She just doesn't seem the type.
The game's violence is brutal. It's unrelenting, bloody, often gory, and certainly not a game for the younger members of the family. The general gameplay is not just shooting things and quicktime events. The rest of the game is packed with exploration and environment traversal.
