Shadow Of The Tomb Raider Review: 7 Ups & 3 Downs

2. The Plot & Characters Aren't Very Interesting

Granted, the Tomb Raider series has always been pretty iffy in this department, and Shadow is no exception.

Narratively, the game is for the most part the same, tired adventure movie-homaging nonsense we've seen before, with one contrived scenario after another basically creating an excuse for the game's various tomb-raiding set-pieces.

The real disappointment, though, is with the villains: Doctor Dominguez was featured extensively in Shadow's marketing, but he never amounts to anything more than a generic, insane baddie with cliched motives.

There is some mild promise in the fairly fleshed-out citizens of the lost city of Paititi, but these characters tend to only appear when it befits the story and often end up getting the short shrift.

More often than not, you'll know exactly where the plot's going, who will die and what's coming next. There are a few welcome, nostalgic callbacks to the PS1-era titles, but mostly the plot and characters are absolute stock and nothing more.