Shadow Of The Tomb Raider

Third Time Isnt The Charm For This Jumbled Jungle Threequel.

- Dave Meikleham

Rebooted Lara needs a break. Croft bust back onto the scene in 2013, then proceeded to scrape her shins 14,000 times while exploring the spooky island of Yamatai. It was a successful reinvention, grounding the ass-kicking archeologist and making the ‘90s biggest gaming icon relevant again.

Two years later, she donned her most bullet-proof parka and headed for Siberia, in a sequel that improved upon the original’s quasi-sandbox structure. Now though, at the end of her origin trilogy, gaming’s First Lady looks tired and short on ideas.

In fairness, the poor woman has clocked up some serious air miles in the last five years. Lara’s battered passport takes another beating in Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, with her latest McGuffin-chasing quest whisking her away to the sweltering jungles of Peru. It’s understandable she’s a little fatigued. Sticking rather too closely to what’s come before, this threequel prequel (is that a thing now?) fails to significantly build on 2015’s Rise Of The Tomb Raider. Alarmingly, it all too often can’t even match its frigidly fun predecessor.

Still on the trail of the evil (and poorly realised) Trinity faction, the increasingly obsessed Croft triggers a series of cataclysms when she unwittingly unleashes the power of an ancient dagger. Now admittedly, a lot of innocent folk die because of Croft’s impulsive actions, but at least these ill-conceived blade shenanigans throw up an ace early set-piece involving a flash flood destroying a town.

Plot to bits

Even when these tightly choreographed, undoubtedly thrilling set-pieces kick in, they fail to hide the fact rebooted