Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is an action-adventure game co-developed by Eidos Montréal and Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix. It was released on September 14, 2018, with macOS & Linux ports released on November 5, 2019, and a Google Stadia port released on November 19, 2019, as the launch title for the latter.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Great graphics.
 * 2) Dr. Dominguez is an interesting antagonist that doesn't want to take over the world when searching for the treasure, but instead to save the people of Paititi.
 * 3) Great story that is a big improvement from the previous games Lara having to stop doomsday.
 * 4) Good voice acting.
 * 5) Great puzzles.
 * 6) Jonah is more fleshed out this time with the game telling us more of his backstory, making him a more active character instead of purely a supporting character.
 * 7) Good soundtrack.
 * 8) The game has a new mechanic for this: setting the difficulty levels for traversal, navigation, puzzles, and combat separately, so the player can pick and choose how easy or hard they want those individual aspects to be rather than just using a single difficulty meter for the whole game.
 * 9) You can craft or earn outfits, which gives Lara perks. The former you can select the upper body and lower body individually allowing you to get two kinds of perks at once.
 * 10) Just like Survivor in Rise of the Tomb Raider, when you play on One with the Jungle, you get a more engaging experience due to there not being health regeneration and survival instincts.
 * 11) The scene where Lara rises from the water and snaps is an intense and badass sequence.
 * 12) The game has Lara finally stop letting her Father's reputation define who she is, which is nice.
 * 13) You can now buy and sell resources to the merchant.
 * 14) New Game+ gives you nine new skills, three new outfits, and three new weapons. It also unlocks three new Paths that Lara can master, each tailored to fit a particular gameplay style:
 * 15) * Path of the Serpent: features an emphasis on stealth and subterfuge. Players take down enemies using sound and decoys to sow chaos. Mud and camouflage lets players lash out before slipping back into the shadows.
 * 16) * Path of the Jaguar: features an emphasis on hunting and combat, focusing on agility and close-ranged combat via knife takedowns.
 * 17) * Path of the Eagle: features an emphasis on traversal and resourcefulness. Observe enemies from afar, scouting out to plan the next attack. Traverse with ease, attacking enemies from long range.
 * 18) The game expands on the stealth allowing the player to hang enemies up similar to the rope darts from Assassin's Creed III and Lara can cover herself in mud to hide from enemies.
 * 19) You can use certain plants to create not only health, but other time-limited perks like perception, endurance, and focus.
 * 20) * Perception: Allows you to see animals, enemies, and plants through walls.
 * 21) * Endurance: Resists the enemy's attacks and bullets.
 * 22) * Focus: Activates slow-motion.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Has a bit of a pacing issue when reaching the climax.
 * 2) This game has some of the same problems Rise had.
 * 3) * Some outfits have the same perk.
 * 4) * There are tomb perks that can make the game much easier; the first one increases health regeneration and the other fills your health back up when near 0.
 * 5) * Playing on anything other than hard makes the game less engaging and challenging.
 * 6) You're rewarded with an outfit when completing a DLC tomb, but the problem is that it's the same outfit as some of the DLC outfits just with slight color change. The same goes for some of the DLC weapons.
 * 7) Technical issues like how the frame rate stagnates when in Paititi and the loading time goes on for a little too long.
 * 8) While the scene where Lara snaps is great, it's ruined when it's revealed that Jonah is actually alive; Lara believing he was dead was the whole driving point of the scene.
 * 9) Lara repeats what she does in mh:crappygames:Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation and takes an artifact knowing it could instigate Armageddon.
 * 10) The DLC is more lackluster this time as it's nothing but more tombs to explore instead of other modes like Endurance Mode.
 * 11) Plot hole: The game shows the day Lara's father supposedly committed suicide. When it shows her father's dead body, you can see a wound on the back of his head. How did people think Lara's father committed suicide if he was shot in the back of the head?
 * 12) Square Enix caused the game to be slightly rushed in order to coincide with the release of the Tomb Raider (2018) movie and to compete with Marvel's Spider-Man.

Reception
Shadow of the Tomb Raider received "generally favorable" reviews, according to video game review aggregator Metacritic.