Tomb Raider: An Experience That Stays With You Long After

Earlier in the week, I discovered something that made me very happy. The new Tomb Raider game—a reboot of the series that came out a few months ago—has been nominated in a number of categories for the Spike TV videogame awards. Best of all, it’s one of five nominees in the “Game of the Year” category, which I personally believe is an award it deserves to win.
 
Now, the Spike videogame awards (now named “VGX” for that extra edginess) are by no means an effective commentary on the state of the games industry. They tend to limit the majority of their coverage to popular, big-budget titles and don’t really accommodate the stream of smaller games that really try to do something different and push the industry in interesting directions. That said, the awards are very much focused on catering to a very broad, very mainstream audience, and this is part of why they’re important—because they’re fantastic for exposure. And the more people that know about Tomb Raider, the better.
 
Tomb Raider is my favourite kind of game—one that doesn’t shy away from being “gamey” in lieu of being an interactive movie instead. A game that’s a “game” first and a “story” second, but still manages to combine the two into an experience that is both fun and makes you feel like you’ve witnessed someone grow into the person they’re going to be for the rest of their life. Tomb Raider is a game that throws you into a virtual playground and showers you with places to explore, collectibles to find, and interesting puzzles to solve. It’s the kind of game that’s fun, replayable, and will make you want to come back to it again. At the same time, it’s also the story of how a girl went from being a bright, young university student to genius archaeologist and hardened adventurer.

Testing, testing~

Let's see how this works...  Is this working?

Scarlet Ibis!

Super Mario 3D Land - They Finally Got It Right

Super Mario 3D Land is really fun and is one of those perfect portable games. I don’t have much to say on the subject, since I’m by no means an expert on Mario, and other people have already expounded on the subject enough, but it’s a great blend of 2D and 3D Mario elements.

I’m not very fond of 2D Mario games at all. They feel a little too simplistic and unforgiving, and I get bored of them very quickly, since there isn’t a whole lot to do other than run and jump—and you’re always going one direction. 3D Mario games, however, are great. I love the freedom of movement and all of the different moves and abilities Mario can use to explore the world around him, both horizontally and vertically, with no restrictions as to where he can go.

With Super Mario 3D Land, it looks as though Nintendo, after a significant amount of trial and error, have managed to identify precisely what people appreciate about both 2D Mario and 3D Mario, and incorporate those features into the same game.