My experience with the Tomb Raider franchise started with the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition for the Xbox One, so coming into the game for the first time, I thought I was in for some puzzle solving, parkouring action. Little did I know I’d signed on for a third person, cover-based shooter with a few small tombs to raid here and there.

To kick things off, let’s look at the story. It’s a tale of Lara Croft’s origin, and it allows the player to see her transformation from young, inexperienced archaeologist to badass, dual pistol-wielding archaeologist/death machine. Lara and her fellow travelers get shipwrecked and trapped on the island of Yamatai, where she must do battle with a violent, crazy cult called the Solarii Brotherhood. The game shines in this particular area, for the most part, giving the game an almost Temple of Doom kind of vibe. With moments that are chilling—such as an encounter with demonic samurai—to those that are breathtaking, Tomb Raider delivers a variety of emotions with its story-telling. There are, however, a few disappointing aspects. Lara’s path of development goes in one of two ways, she’s either getting the crap kicked out of her, or she’s massacring entire armies of men in such a way as to make you wonder how the hell so many of them managed to live on the island without stripping it of resources. There are certainly more subtle and intricate ways one can make a character grow. It’s just a little weird to see her cry over her first kill before quickly moving on to shove arrows into dozens more guys in a matter of minutes.

Gameplay performs very well, if not a bit predictably. The addition of a bow allows for a slightly different, and more difficult, experience than your standard third person shooter, but the chest-high walls quickly bring you back to a familiar place. Quick Time Events are frequent, as is to be expected, but I like how unforgiving they can be. I died quite a bit during some of the QTE sequences because, as I discovered, the game wasn’t going to pat you on the back and send you on your way for almost timing it right. Puzzle-solving is somewhat challenging, although I wish there was more of it. When I completed the seven tombs in less than an hour, it made me feel cheated. Maybe I expected too much, but a game with the title Tomb Raider should really have a little more than seven “Oh, I’ll just solve one pretty easy puzzle and be done” tombs. As my friend pointed out to me, though, the island of Yamatai was meant to act as the “tomb.” I don’t know; I still can’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment.

Speaking of disappointments, this game has two features that need to be done away with or tweaked. The Xbox One has Kinect functionality, but it has been throughout my time playing either useless or an annoyance. Never once did I intentionally use the voice commands to play, although the game would register some offhand remark as a command every once in awhile. The other aspect that needs something done would be the multiplayer. Once I was done with the singleplayer (about 12-15 hours), I moved on to multiplayer with excitement. It took only a couple of lackluster matches, which were unbalanced as all get out, and some major issues with finding a damn game to turn me off completely to Tomb Raider’s multiplayer mode.

Graphically, the game looks impressive on the Xbox One, and I was surprised that the game actually appeared to be enhanced over its 360/PS3 counterpart. It did have an almost next-gen look to it, although I’m fairly certain that we won’t see much of true next-gen until they really concentrate on making games for the new systems on their own.

Final Score – 7.0: This game does a fairly decent job of telling Lara Croft’s origin story, but it feels too much like an average cover-based shooter most of the time. The puzzle solving portions are fun, to an extent, but their criminal length and lack of challenge make it disappointing. That said, the game itself was enjoyable for the time I got to play it, although the multiplayer definitely needs to be either polished or gotten rid of. All in all, it’s not a bad game by any stretch. If you like a mix of action and platforming, this game is for you.