The bow mechanic from Tomb Raider is not on the list as a specific moment, but rather the overall experience throughout the whole game. I honestly went into the new Tomb Raider expecting to hate it, but I ended up loving it. I thought it would just be more of the same. I expected myself to be pushing blocks and getting lost. From the trailers I had seen, I thought I would be participating in quicktime events, pushing blocks, participating in more quicktime events, getting in gun fights, and that would be it. The funny thing is, that was it. But guess what? It was a fuck-load of fun.
Honestly, this game could not have surprised me more, and the best thing about it, in my opinion, was just how awesome the bow and arrow was to use. While many games have had great bow mechanics in the last couple years (Crysis games and Far Cry 3 to name a few), the bow in Tomb Raider may have been my favorite.
I think the main reason is it just felt like it fit the character. The game was more about her survival from not just the “bad guys,” but from the elements and nature itself. Honestly, every thing in this fucking game wanted to kill Lara Croft. Even the trees would try to impale her. But that feeling when you stood across a cliff face from an enemy camp, and just let an exploding arrow fly through the air and cleared them all out in one shot, it was an incredibly gratifying moment.
Also worth nothing were the puzzles. I don’t mean to just gush about this game, but even the puzzles blew me away. For the first time in as long as I can remember in gaming, puzzling felt organic. There was no block pushing, instead, there were puzzles that used elements and puzzles that used weighted objects. The best part? The puzzles were in individual caves, and had nothing to do with the story progression, so if you sucked at puzzling you could skip that section altogether.
That, my friends, is genius game design.
Now it’s your turn, tell us, what were your favorite moments from gaming in 2013? Take to the comments and let us know.
