For my review of the main game, please see here. For Tomb Raider: Gold, I'm reviewing just the expansion pack that came with it in the form of four new levels.
You know when you see someone who's really good at something, and it inspires you to 'git gud' yourself? That's how I felt when watching playthroughs of custom Tomb Raider levels - some on par with the official games - that fans had created using Tomb Raider Level Editor. These guys are crazy, I tell you. They'd created platforming sections that I'd never conceptualized solving before. In fact, that may well be what inspired me to go back and beat the first Tomb Raider game for good.
So when I found out about this expansion pack, with four levels designed for 'expert raiders,' I felt that I was honour-bound to beat them too. I wanna be called an expert raider, even more than I wanna be called mommy's soft submissive boy.
These new levels boast no story or cinematics to speak of, though a fair bit can be inferred from the environmental storytelling. For the first set, titled The Shadow of the Cat, Lara Croft returns to Egypt to... I dunno, maybe she wanted to investigate who keeps leaving magnum ammo in these thousand-year-old tombs. After many trials and tribulations, she finds a giant cat statue - I'm talking so big she can walk on its tongue - that's admittedly pretty cool, and then SHE JUST FUCKING LEAVES. At least have her pick up an artifact! Christ...
These Egyptian bonus levels are exquisitely challenging, and the second one is the longest level in the entire game - base or expansion pack. There is quite a lot of precision platforming to be done, much more imminent risk of an untimely death from fall damage, and enemies are in more inconvenient spots. While a lot of assets are reused from the base game, there are some cool new additions, like the aforementioned cat statue, moving wall carvings (I can't believe the Ancient Egyptians invented .gif images!) and a skybox.
The second section, Unfinished Business, has a decidedly less glamorous set of levels on offer. The good news is that you can skip most of the first level entirely if you so desire, and the second one... there's no good news about the second one. It's a slog. It's also the first, and only, level in the entire game that introduces deliberate softlocks. This final level only drops in quality the longer it goes on, feeling increasingly thoughtless in its design, giving Lara insultingly large piles of ammo only because there's way too much of Tomb Raider's weakest link here: combat. It doesn't border on the ridiculous. It is ridiculous. I kind of wish they introduced a level skip for this one too.
Treat this expansion pack as you would the bonus tracks on an album. It's a pleasant surprise when it's as good as the main package, but not all that disappointing when it underwhelms. The Egypt levels are worth a dedicated Tomb Raider fan's time. The Atlantis levels are inessential.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, the Unfinished Business wasn't the friends we made along the way. It's that Lara's gonna fuck all these aliens up so they don't escape and inflict their low-polygon Lovecraftian horror upon the world.
You know when you see someone who's really good at something, and it inspires you to 'git gud' yourself? That's how I felt when watching playthroughs of custom Tomb Raider levels - some on par with the official games - that fans had created using Tomb Raider Level Editor. These guys are crazy, I tell you. They'd created platforming sections that I'd never conceptualized solving before. In fact, that may well be what inspired me to go back and beat the first Tomb Raider game for good.
So when I found out about this expansion pack, with four levels designed for 'expert raiders,' I felt that I was honour-bound to beat them too. I wanna be called an expert raider, even more than I wanna be called mommy's soft submissive boy.
These new levels boast no story or cinematics to speak of, though a fair bit can be inferred from the environmental storytelling. For the first set, titled The Shadow of the Cat, Lara Croft returns to Egypt to... I dunno, maybe she wanted to investigate who keeps leaving magnum ammo in these thousand-year-old tombs. After many trials and tribulations, she finds a giant cat statue - I'm talking so big she can walk on its tongue - that's admittedly pretty cool, and then SHE JUST FUCKING LEAVES. At least have her pick up an artifact! Christ...
These Egyptian bonus levels are exquisitely challenging, and the second one is the longest level in the entire game - base or expansion pack. There is quite a lot of precision platforming to be done, much more imminent risk of an untimely death from fall damage, and enemies are in more inconvenient spots. While a lot of assets are reused from the base game, there are some cool new additions, like the aforementioned cat statue, moving wall carvings (I can't believe the Ancient Egyptians invented .gif images!) and a skybox.
The second section, Unfinished Business, has a decidedly less glamorous set of levels on offer. The good news is that you can skip most of the first level entirely if you so desire, and the second one... there's no good news about the second one. It's a slog. It's also the first, and only, level in the entire game that introduces deliberate softlocks. This final level only drops in quality the longer it goes on, feeling increasingly thoughtless in its design, giving Lara insultingly large piles of ammo only because there's way too much of Tomb Raider's weakest link here: combat. It doesn't border on the ridiculous. It is ridiculous. I kind of wish they introduced a level skip for this one too.
Treat this expansion pack as you would the bonus tracks on an album. It's a pleasant surprise when it's as good as the main package, but not all that disappointing when it underwhelms. The Egypt levels are worth a dedicated Tomb Raider fan's time. The Atlantis levels are inessential.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, the Unfinished Business wasn't the friends we made along the way. It's that Lara's gonna fuck all these aliens up so they don't escape and inflict their low-polygon Lovecraftian horror upon the world.
NOWITSREYNTIME17
4 months ago