Hands on Tomb Raider

Lara Croft's got a bow, your argument is invalid.

I was pretty excited that I was actually going to be able to play "Tomb Raider" at the Penny Arcade Expo last week after having seen it at E3 earlier in the summer. Of course, I was also intrigued to see just what part of the demo would be available after the outrage of the near-rape scene that took center stage during E3. For those of you concerned, it was not a part of the demo that I played and therefore it was solely a gameplay experience, so I'll focus on that.

Square Enix allowed us to play as young Lara Croft just after surviving a horrific crash. She's lost, cold, tired, hurt and stranded on an island. I had to traverse the perilous cliffs and find shelter from the tropical rains that were now slowly but surely coming down. Lara had to climb and jump in the new platforming style that has become so prevalent in adventure games like "Uncharted." In fact, it was almost exactly like playing "Uncharted."

After building a fire, Lara went to an uneasy sleep. Waking up to a clear sky, I set out as Lara to get some food. That meant I had to get  a weapon. After exploring the wilderness a bit, I came across a small hut. On the tree, hanging upside down right outside the door, was a rotting corpse with a bow slung around it. That was my ticket to getting an arrow in some of those wild deer I had scared on our way there.

Lara climbed, reached out to grasp the branch holding up the bow-slung body and promptly fell to the ground with the corpse. But, I got the bow. It took me a few tries but I finally bagged an animal. Unfortunately, Lara wasn't as comfortable with skinning an animal as much as John Marston from "Red Dead Redemption" and it took her some time to work up the nerve to do it.

Getting back to the campfire, I got to cook the meat and level up. I put some points in Lara's archery skills so that she could retrieve more arrows from her kills. I figured we'd be shooting a lot of those wild animals.

Unfortunately, the demo ended there.

That is some nasty rain.

So really the game is like "Uncharted." Honestly, that's what I took away from it. What I saw in the demo at E3 and from playing it now, I can't lie and say that it isn't eerily similar.

Does this make me sad? Of course it does. Then again, there's not much more you can do with Lara Croft since she was Nathan Drake even before he was. I suppose it's more accurate to say that Lara hasn't changed and never will, but it would still be nice to see something new done.

As for something new, the leveling up seems pretty interesting if a little unnecessary. I'm not sure we'll be roaming the wilds of this island so much that we'll need to have a personalized way of playing with Lara rather than just a gradual shift in her tools and skills that happens in games like "The Legend of Zelda" and "Assassin's Creed."

She looks pretty mad, doesn't she?

Of course, Lara herself has changed a little too. She's younger, more uncertain and she's definitely out of her element. Personally, I think this is really great because I've always wondered what Lara was like before she became the Tomb Raider.

This trial by fire definitely puts some steel in her character and back story. Since the games have previously never really had a linear story, starting from the beginning doesn't seem like a stretch as much as it would with any other franchise.

There's a lot here and a lot of potential in this game, but I'm not certain that a younger Lara with some customization of skills will be enough to reinvigorate a franchise that was never particularly groundbreaking. This isn't to say that Lara isn't a cornerstone of gaming history, more that the "Tomb Raider" franchise is not something that needs to be anything more than it was. Perhaps it would be more suited to an HD re-release than an entire franchise overhaul. Only time can tell, but we're looking forward to the game come out March 5 of next year.