The new Tomb Raider game was at this years Eurogamer Expo, and I managed to take a quick look of what is to come. From a design prospective, I was expecting an emotional ride of the beginnings of Lara Croft’s life and right at the start that’s what we got that. The mixture of audio and level design caused Lara to come across in a lot of danger and in even more pain.

Narrative such as her saying “yes yes I can do this” and muttering to herself, as she limped around the forest really was a great touch and added to the tense and emotional atmosphere. I am always afraid of bad voice acting when it comes to English characters but the voices I did hear in game were spot on and actually sounded English, not some American putting on an English accent. Like with most games people seem to believe that anyone with an English accent is automatically from London, just like Lara is. Stereotypes in games, got to love them.

Graphics and animation were crisp, clean and beautiful with a lot more realism than the older games (to be expected) and much more visually stimulating. The gameplay felt as if you were playing any other 3D puzzle game but once she managed to gain her first weapon, the bow, the combat was polished and smooth. One of the less liked parts of the game were the cut scenes, they felt a little bit too forced but its understandable due to the focus on the story line.

Overall impression is that the game is very beautiful looking and will tell a great story of Lara Croft and how she become the bad ass she is today.

Did you attend the Eurogamer Expo? If you did and you managed to play Tomb Raider, let us know what you thought about it in the comments.