Having to make my own decisions was a terrifying experience. I will never do it again. And before anyone asks, I did it, everyone! I fixed her! (I got the good ending)
It was one of the best visual novels I have ever played. Great voice acting, great story, and the voices in my head are accurate. It's impressive that they are still updating the game, and a big update that'll extend the game by 25% is on its way. It's also not a very long game; I finished it in 5 hours because I took my sweet time and wandered around.
There was a sequence where I refused to continue doing what I was told, and the game shut down after the entity told me, "I will be here when you are ready" or something. I was flabbergasted. Next time I opened the game, that same entity welcomed me, and I continued where I left off.
I just wished that the Voice of the Hero and the Narrator's voice wasn't so identical.
It is truly a unique experience and a must-play.

I wish I could consider this game complete because it's very special to me. My journeys through Tamriel throughout the early days of COVID is where I can pinpoint the cause of my infatuation with RPGs. The world doesn't just feel large, it's genuinely fucking huge, my world map is almost filled out at nearly 200 hours, but there remains hours of exploration worth of unreached corners, and a plethora of incomplete questlines. The Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, random city quests, the Arena, there are so many fun, interesting quests with often simple storylines, but distinct identities that make them uniquely "Oblivion" quests. It's hard to explain why they work so well, with so many reused environments and repetitive objectives, but the exploration that takes place during and between pursuing quest objectives is where the player's primary source of agency stems from. This game is not a good RPG in the pen-and-paper sense, builds are pretty homogeneous, as all skills can be maxed out and specialization is a choice, not a framework that players structure their character around. Where it excels is in adventure, atmosphere, combat, and creativity. All objectives may or may not be pursued for completion of the game, and if a questline is uninteresting to the player, they won't lose much by deciding to focus on something else. Open-world fans can find something they love in this game and focus on it, not compelled to fulfill the gargantuan task of completing everything unless their heart desires it. The voice of Bethesda's writers and developers shines through the charm of the NPCs, the uniqueness and depth of cities, and the mood established through the tranquil OST and sound effects numbing the sense of "epic adventure", a symbol of a bygone era of being a traveling adventurer, enjoying the journey. Unfortunately, the innate need for modding represented by the multitude of bugs and graphical shortcomings, supplemented by visual and gameplay overhauls (including one with Arthas' Lich King armor and Frostmourne) has caused my save to break. I'll have to retire this game, but I'll always be thankful for the joy and appreciation brought to my life while pretending to be a Breton saving Tamriel from the jaws of Oblivion.

-clean the tutorial
-kill a dude and sleep
-joins the dark brotherhood
-do the questline
-quit

Reaching the end of a trilogy is always exciting to me. Ideally, it's the conclusion of all the previous lessons learned and the moment everything gets tied together into one satisfying bundle. The PS1 is probably the console I think of the most when it comes to looking back at trilogies by single developers, simply because it had so many different ones during its life-span. Crash, Spyro, Resident Evil and even to some extent Final Fantasy. I think there is something special about seeing a game series in different stages of refinement, clearly being able to observe how a developer's ideas evolve over time. And yes, of course Tomb Raider went through that aswell. With the continued smash hit of TR2, Lara Croft was now without question video game royalty and Core Design was yet again given no breaks in pumping out another sequel for publisher Eidos Interactive. Setting aside the undoubtedly horrid working conditions at Core Design during the development process, I find it once again incredible how TR3 released only a year after its predecessor. And after my new-found love for this franchise was only reinforced by how much I enjoyed TR2, I was excited to jump into Lara's third adventure.

Sadly, as you can already guess from the rating, this turned out to be a massive disappointment. As the hours passed and the downward spiral of bad level design began, I became more and more miserable having to put up with everything Tomb Raider 3 was throwing at me. I was worn down and finally broken when I reached the end. I don't want this to be a rant about how much I hate this game. I still do, but there are so many fantastic qualities here that I can not even stoop so low as to call this a lazy sequel. Core Design really cared. It's just that all the visible care and love gets utterly crushed under the weight of unfair difficulty and a lack of polish, most likely due to razor tight deadlines along with an overworked staff. So let me go through the positives first before I start falling down the rabbit hole that has become my absolute hatred for this game.

Tomb Raider 3 has the best locations in the series so far. There is an incredible leap in art design at display here. Be it the opening trek through the jungles of India, the massive canyons in Nevada or looking out over the rooftops of Nighttime London. Levels feel lived in, in a way Tomb Raider 2 was still struggling with. The updated engine makes everything look so much less blocky, which the designers take full advantage off. I love the lighting, the colors and the great texture work. The atmosphere is so good, and I wish more games would take what Core Design accomplished here as an example. Really, in terms of atmosphere, TR3 doesn't miss even once. I love just standing in these maps and soaking it all in, ready to be pulled along into more adventures. It helps of course that the soundtrack is amazing aswell. There is a tone of ambiance to each location, of course classic series leitmotifs return and new tracks have been added that round everything out. It doesn't matter if it's discovering ancient ruins or if you find yourself face to face with horrifying creatures. It always fits, and I'm in love with the overall sound of TR3.

When it comes to the story, we find our favorite adventurer once again on the trail of a mysterious artifact. While on a treasure hunt deep in the jungles of India, she encounters a scientist named Dr Willard. He is looking for the missing pieces of a meteor that crashed down on earth millions of years ago, is responsible for having whipped out the Dinosaurs and starting the chain reaction of modern evolution. Supposedly these pieces also contain mysterious powers, once even being worshiped by Polynesian trips for their god like properties. And that's all we need to trot across the Globe. It's a dumb story even for the schlocky standards of classic Tomb Raider, but I still very much enjoyed it. The increased focus on cutscenes and Lara having more fun interactions with different characters helps the story flow much better than it did previously. This finally feels like a continues narrative and not just a semi connected sequence of video game stages. There is of course the obvious issue in how Lara has now been fully reduced to nothing more then what can only be described as a full on sociopath. More than ever before, she is an absolute bitch that cares about no one but herself and is willing to kill anybody that just so much as glances at her wrong. I'm still somewhat fine with her because the point was always to have an uncompromising action heroine, but previous games at least gave her some shred of humanity. The absolute girl boss attitude I fell in love is still present, but there is certainly a discussion to be had about crossing the line from girl boss to unlikeable cunt. This crosses that line way to often. TR2 is also guilty of this to a lesser extent, but toed the line in keeping her likeable much better in my opinion.

When it comes to combat, I'm happy to say that Core massively overhauled their approach to how you fight enemies. The fundamental controls are the same, but enemie encounters are spread out way smarter. Gone are the days of spawning goons right on top of the player.  There are often spots you can jump to that give Lara a clear advantage, and even late game foes can be taken down with just a bit of effort and only the standard handguns. And that's basically all I wanted to see, and I'm glad they at least took the time to improve an aspect of the series that desperately needed a revision. Croft Manor now has been expanded with a shooting range as well. This version of Croft Manor is for sure the best one. Many secrets to find and all the tutorials you could ever need. Lara's home is practically its own giant level now. Once again I fully recommend you play around in the tutorial not only because it's a lot of fun but because it will also helps in familiarizing you with the expanded move set. Lara can now crawl, grab on to certain ceilings in order to use them as monkey bars, and is able to use a short dash that can be ended on a quick roll forward. These added options are mostly used to great effect, but I will admit that the dash stays fairly underutilized. There are only very few spots where it's actually needed, and even then I find those challenges more annoying than anything else.

And that's about all the positives I can think of. For all the love I can express for TR3, it just wouldn't be honest if I omitted all my frustrations and all the reasons why I ultimately came away with the conclusion that this is simply a very bad video game.

Starting off with the basic structure: You're now allowed to pick between locations in between the opening chapter and the finale. What sounds cool on paper, turns out to be a nightmare in reality. The three places you can pick from: Nevada, the South Pacific Islands and London vary so wildly in complexity and challenge that you're most likely going to fuck yourself over if you happen to choose wrong. Pro-tip: Always start with Nevada. I didn't, and it screwed me over hard by the final stretch. Nevada contains the easiest and most enjoyable set of levels, and most importantly: There is a similar bit to TR1 and 2 where all your items will be taken away from you, as Lara is once again captured by armed guards. Unlike previous games there is a high chance you will not get most of your inventory back, meaning that if you happen to pick Nevada last, you might lose hours of collected guns, ammo and med packs. At that point, you are just stuck desperately searching for scraps during the final 4 segments of Antarctica. It's a horrible design decision that I despise with a passion, and they should have either ditched the level select entirely or put actual effort in balancing each locations difficulty. And while the South Pacific Islands are a mostly tolerable set of levels, London is where the game fully backflips into of pit of rusty spicks.

London is a confusing labyrinth of dark hallways that loop around in the most unintuitive ways. I got lost so many times just backtracking, not knowing what my goal even was, and finding crucial progression items in spots that made me scream in agony. Of course, one of the keys needed to progress in on top of a mining drill you just escaped from in order to not get crushed to death. It's not like every sane human being would see the section now occupied by the giant death drill as blocked off for good. Add to that weird angled jumps that shouldn't work, but sometimes just do, and hard to make out wall texture that are supposse to signal climbable surfaces. Trust me, you will run past those surfaces for a couple of hours before looking up a guide and then promptly feeling the primal urge to buy a gun along with a time machine in order to pay Core Designs studio a friendly visit back in the late 90s. All that misery and I haven't even mentioned the vehicle sections yet. Oh, the fucking vehicles. TR2 had the exact same issue, but the meaningful difference is again that this was limited to only 2 sections. We had a boat, that controlled fine, and a snowmobile that controlled like shit. TR3 on the other hand has at least one vehicle for each location. There is an ATV, a kayak, a weird underwater robot, a Donkey Kong style minecart ride and another boat. I don't know which one is the worst for me, but it has to be a tie between the kayak and the minecart. Paddling the kayak through the rapids of the south pacific rain forest is pure luck, as you can't really control it and are at the mercy of the game's geometry in order for Lara to not straight up smash into a pile of rocks and drown. The minecart on the other hand will make you randomly fly off the tracks if you happen to pull the break at the wrong time, that is if you even know where to fucking go in the nightmare labyrinth known as the RX Tech Mines. Either way, the conclusion is always: try to get somewhere, die, reload, repeat that step about 50 times per stage until you get that one lucky try that lets you progress.

I hate Tomb Raider 3. I can't recommend it to anyone ever. The final boss was a giant spider mutant that makes you run around in a circle for 40 minutes so you can pick up some shinny rocks. Watch the game end with Lara shooting a totally innocent Helicopter pilot in the face and a shot of her ass while the credits play. Fuck this game, I need to game something good next.

I remember how magazines were writing at that time: well, people were starting to get tired of Tomb Raider games since they were not changed, and Eidos sold us the same game again and again.
Just remind you that professional reviewers never play games and tell random words about everything.
While Tomb Raider 1 was a perfect game, and Tomb Raider 2 was action-based DLC with fresh ideas in levels, Tomb Raider 3 is sadistic torture for a healthy mind.
I had a good first impression, and I remember from being a kid how different stories, levels, and costumes in this one. So I thought: ok, probably at the end of the day I will give it good review with a mark "can't recommend but I loved it".
I still can't recommend it and I don't love it. I dropped it right before last chapter, or I should say I rage-quitted it and going to never touch this piece again.
People often remember how brutal traps are in here, there are many places where the game doesn't give a chance to the player and one-shot him just because it is funny I believe. It is not a big problem since we can save game any time.
But endless backtracking and total lack of sense or logic, these things killed me before I completed it.
And this makes me mad. On paper, Tomb Raider 3 is great, it has enough good ideas and features, and it felt different from previous entries. But it is insanely painful to play, to rinse and repeat many areas, to wander around without any clue about what the last button opened.

Helldivers is without a doubt one of the most fun, frantic, and chaotic multiplayer games I've ever played. To successfully pull off your missions, total cooperation and communication is required between your teammates. Unfortunately, me and my friends do not have these abilities and so we usually end up screaming at each other, shooting each other, and barely making it out alive of every single level.

The game-play is seen at a birds eye view POV, however feels just as good and often even more frantic than many first person shooters I've played. Enemies are near constantly trailing close behind you, giving you no time to cool off ever. You need to constantly manage when to shoot and especially when to reload while also keeping track of your objectives as well as pulling them off. You'll also need to find time to call down one of this games core combat mechanics: stratagems. With these you can call in extra ammo, guns, bombs, and any gear you might need along your mission, however it is very easy to kill your team mates with these stratagems, which leads me into another amazing part of this game.

FRIENDLY FIRE IS ACTIVE ON EVERYTHING. everything you do WILL kill you AND your teammates. you will probably die an equal number of times to your own teammates as you do to your enemies, and its absolutely awesome. it contributes so much to the hectic feel of the game and really makes every match play out in mass panic as you try to not instantly die to everything that happens.

Unfortunately There is not really a proper campaign or story to this game, but the multiplayer is infinitely re-playable and seems to never really get old. Though Helldivers 2 is out now, there is still a decently active community online, and I'd still strongly recommend giving this game a shot if you ever find it on sale.