Moving on to Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Once again, I'm playing at 1080p with DLSS4 and DLAA forced via Nvidia Profile Inspector. I gave ray tracing a try, and honestly, I didn't think this game's RT shadows were always an improvement over the default ones. They look different, but not necessarily better. Since they cut my frame rate in half, I decided to turn them off. Otherwise, the graphics are quite good, aside from the occasional flickering which seems to occur when any kind of upscaling is used (DLSS, FSR and XeSS are all affected). For the record, Rise had no such issues.
Gameplay wise, Shadow is almost the same as Rise in terms of its basic systems. You still get to improve Lara's abilities and weapons by earning XP and via crafting, while completing optional tombs unlocks special skills. The devs made the upgrade UI needlessly confusing, but it's still manageable. On an interesting note, this is one of the few PC games that can make use of the Impulse Trigger Vibration feature of the Xbox controller. Kinda neat when you feel the slightest hints of rumble as Lara walks over a spot where something valuable is buried.
One big difference with Shadow is that it puts less emphasis on combat and shifts the focus toward exploration and platforming. In a sense, this is a return to the very first Tomb Raider game, and do I see a lot of parallels here. And yet, this is my least favorite entry in the reboot trilogy, despite my affection for TR1. Why? Because of the pacing. In Shadow you often spend long time periods climbing, swimming and platforming without anything in between. Also, there are too many instances where Lara is talking to someone on the radio which makes her walk veeery slooowly for some reason. And the forced underwater stealth sections where she needs to hide in seaweed to avoid piranhas just plain suck.
On the plus side, the puzzles which you encounter during the main plot, as well as the ones in the optional tombs, are much more complex. In this aspect, Shadow truly excels. The area design is also very good, and some of the locations look spectacular. This is especially true for the challenge tombs. The stealth system got some improvements as well, so Lara can now use mud as camouflage (think Arnie in Predator) to avoid enemies using heat vision. Stealth takedowns are also more varied, and can now be performed with a bow in jungle locations.
Anyway, I'm about one third in right now. It's still mostly fun to play, but not as good as Rise. Also, Shadow's story is the weakest in the entire reboot trilogy, which isn't exactly helping to keep me engaged.
