I've put in about a dozen hours over three sittings, and it's on my mind basically all day when I'm at work or out doing other things. Rise of the Tomb Raider, while having the worst and most generic name in the history of video games, is scratching that same itch. Just moving and jumping with Lara felt more fluid than its closest touchstone, Uncharted, and the mechanics of scaling walls with your climbing axes and eventual upgrades like rope arrows made moving around the world feel involving and skillful, rather than autonomous. It was a great time, and while the tone and story was pretty hokey and uneven between wacky side-kick characters and self-seriousness (remember when Lara got the ever-loving shit kicked out of her? That was weird!), the gameplay felt goddamn good. I plowed through it in a few sittings, beat it a few more times, and eventually ended up 100%'ing it. The reboot of Tomb Raider in 2013 grabbed me in a way that a lot of games don't.
