The first hands-on demo of Tomb Raider at Crystal Dynamics studios in San Francisco.
I recently visited the headquarters of Crystal Dynamics to get a hands-on opportunity to play the first two hours of Square Enix new Tomb Raider. Does the game deliver on all of the hype produced in the last few months?
I arrived at Crystal Dynamics in foggy San Francisco, was handed a controller and told to enjoy. The very first moments of Tomb Raider begin with the infamous CGI cut scene of a very young Lara Croft in a ship cabin before chaos ensues and she is smashed around drowning underwater. Coming to, Lara finds herself alone washed up on shore surrounded by debris and wreckage. It is not long before Lara starts looking for other survivors before she is attacked and knocked unconscious. Lara awakes to find she is hanging upside down in a cave riddled with candles and dead bodies.
The puzzle elements that have been seen in older Tomb Raider games have made a return in this new installment. Lara has something of a vision mode that allows the player to see what they can and cannot interact with. I would hope the puzzles one encounters much later in the game are harder than the ones I played through towards the beginning.
