The 'loons' you speak of are not as loony as you seem to think. At the end of the day, I want to play Tomb Raider, not Uncharted. If I wanted to play Uncharted, I'd play it.

Despite being a huge fan of Tomb Raider since the very original, I don't expect, nor want, the newer games to be like them. There obviously has to be room for modernization and 'improvement' but what they've done is essentially copied Uncharted. Especially with it's incredibly silly amount of over the top near death experience set pieces.

I want that feeling of isolation, exploration and loneliness. There was a certain atmosphere about the old games that was just never recaptured (not just in TR 2013 mind you) and what we got was a game that more or less plays itself. Scripted sequences up the ass, hand holding gameplay, repetitive and follows the same formula from beginning to end, it's just ... dull. The shooting and overall combat was good, but that's not exactly something I feel I should be complimenting as the best part of a game named Tomb Raider. The only time this game really excelled was in it's optional tombs that consisted of one (usually) decent puzzle.

Your rewards or incentives for exploring the environment are pointless. You simply collect salvage from crates and such and use it to spend on perks and upgrades to make the game even easier than it already is. No joke, I completed the game on hard with 12 skill points and over 6000 salvage points available. There was just no point at all.

Yes you COULD revisit the island after completing the game, and fast travel to various points on the map, but why would you? There's absolutely no reason to want to explore - which to me is a huge part of the game. Taking a more realistic approach also meant a lack of variety too. The enemies, the locales never really change. Gone are the interesting level designs, gone are the puzzles and exploration and gone is the actual tomb raiding - for the most part.

The 'loons' you speak of are not as loony as you seem to think. At the end of the day, I want to play Tomb Raider, not Uncharted. If I wanted to play Uncharted, I'd play it.

Despite being a huge fan of Tomb Raider since the very original, I don't expect, nor want, the newer games to be like them. There obviously has to be room for modernization and 'improvement' but what they've done is essentially copied Uncharted. Especially with it's incredibly silly amount of over the top near death experience set pieces.

I want that feeling of isolation, exploration and loneliness. There was a certain atmosphere about the old games that was just never recaptured (not just in TR 2013 mind you) and what we got was a game that more or less plays itself. Scripted sequences up the ass, hand holding gameplay, repetitive and follows the same formula from beginning to end, it's just ... dull. The shooting and overall combat was good, but that's not exactly something I feel I should be complimenting as the best part of a game named Tomb Raider. The only time this game really excelled was in it's optional tombs that consisted of one (usually) decent puzzle.

Your rewards or incentives for exploring the environment are pointless. You simply collect salvage from crates and such and use it to spend on perks and upgrades to make the game even easier than it already is. No joke, I completed the game on hard with 12 skill points and over 6000 salvage points available. There was just no point at all.

Yes you COULD revisit the island after completing the game, and fast travel to various points on the map, but why would you? There's absolutely no reason to want to explore - which to me is a huge part of the game. Taking a more realistic approach also meant a lack of variety too. The enemies, the locales never really change. Gone are the interesting level designs, gone are the puzzles and exploration and gone is the actual tomb raiding - for the most part.

The only tombs you really raid are the optional ones, hidden away with no real purpose other than to get experience and 'money' to spend on upgrades you never need. T

@ThatEnglishDude

I wasn't referring to the types of criticisms you've listed. I don't think the game is perfect in every way, either. One of the most common criticisms you'll see in my posts tends to be complaints about the difficulty being far too easy, so I agree completely there, especially regarding the simplistic tombs. I also wholeheartedly agree that they stray far too over the top, particularly regarding ancient structures that have been in place for centuries that just happen to crumble right as Lara is traversing them. It began straying into Just Cause 2 territory, which is intentionally absurd. So definitely they should reign in some aspects.

I have no problem with legitimate criticisms. I was referring to some rather extreme statements I tend to see very time a reboot of a franchise is made.