When comparing Grand Theft Auto V vs Rise of the Tomb Raider, the Slant community recommends Grand Theft Auto V for most people. In the question“What are the best singleplayer games on Steam?” Grand Theft Auto V is ranked 49th while Rise of the Tomb Raider is ranked 50th. The most important reason people chose Grand Theft Auto V is:
Even aside from the many missions, there are dozens of other things you can do. This includes activities like playing tennis, going skydiving, watching a movie in the cinema, managing your businesses to earn tons of money, going hunting in the mountains, or just simply exploring the map while taking in the sights. Whatever you decide to do it's very easy to lose track of time. Mostly because it feels like a giant sandbox where you're allowed to do anything and simply have fun.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Freedom to do anything you want
Even aside from the many missions, there are dozens of other things you can do. This includes activities like playing tennis, going skydiving, watching a movie in the cinema, managing your businesses to earn tons of money, going hunting in the mountains, or just simply exploring the map while taking in the sights. Whatever you decide to do it's very easy to lose track of time. Mostly because it feels like a giant sandbox where you're allowed to do anything and simply have fun.
Pro Massive world
It's very easy to get lost in GTA V's world both figuratively and literally. It's partly because of the sheer size of 35 square miles, allowing you to spend hours just walking, driving, or even flying around the map. It's also because of the many beautiful sights you get to see, causing you to often stop and take it all in. So it doesn't matter if you're walking along a beach packed with people, biking around a dimly lit city, cruising down a highway next to the ocean, or just hiking on the forested mountains, GTA V's world feels like a real place you can explore endlessly.
Pro Great story wrapped around in biting and relevant social commentary
GTA V's story portrays the many reasons why criminals still exist in modern society, focusing on serious topics like corruption, greed, hypocrisy, and even the abuse of power. However, it's not all serious since it has its fair share of wacky moments, satirizing many aspects of modern society. This includes social media, consumerism, and even our growing inability to focus on important issues. All of this creates an engaging and thought-provoking story.
Pro Challenging but fair optional puzzles
In Rise of the Tomb Raider there are 9 optional tombs that serve as large scale environmental puzzles. They all rely on you reading the environment carefully.
For example, one of them is a wooden ship frozen vertically on the wall of an ice cavern. The puzzle is reaching the treasure at the top of the ship.
It might seem really hard at first, but if you carefully look at the environment you'll find a path. Solving one of these puzzles is really fun, especially because you get an upgrade from them.
Pro Jaw dropping graphics
Rise of the Tomb Raider has phenomenal graphics and a very great attention to detail. Simple things like the snow moving as you step into it or how Lara's hair moves in the wind. This gives it a feeling a of polish most games don't have.
The character models and animations are also phenomenal. Each of their movements and facial expressions look real, creating a movie like experience.
Pro Rewarding exploration
Each level is large, so there is quite a lot to see and do in each one. You'll be rewarded for exploring as there are many hidden items, weapons, and beautiful views to be found. This gives you an incentive to fully explore each location.
Pro A variety of weapons to keep the gameplay fun
There are over 20 weapons to choose from, including handguns, shotguns, assault rifles, and bows. You can also craft special ammo or explosives such as nail bombs. This keeps the gunfights interesting since you can switch to a new weapon whenever it gets dull.
Pro Replayability through unlockables
Once a level is competed, you can to complete unfinished or new objectives. These will unlock new outfits or other items. This gives you plenty of goals to strive for outside the main story. Trying to complete all the optional objectives can be quite addictive.
Cons
Con Multiplayer is overrun by hackers
During online play you'll encounter hackers who have infinite money, can spawn any vehicle of their choice, and many other things, which reduces the fun quite a bit. What's even worse is that by interacting with the hackers you can get banned immediately without any additional investigations on the developer's part.
Con Overused and overly familiar plot
The gist of the plot is that Lara is searching for the key to eternal life. This plot has been used in other franchises such as Indiana Jones and Uncharted. It seems kinda lazy, especially because both of these franchises are also about treasure hunters. You won't be able to shake the feeling that you already know the story, which somewhat ruins the enjoyment.
Con Very linear
Most of the time you'll be forced to move along a single path. There are occasional quick-time events and simple puzzles, but every situation only has a single solution. This makes it feel more like an interactive movie than a game since you're never really given any freedom of choice.
Con Focuses on action too much
Rise of the Tomb Raider doesn't have many puzzles or slow-paced sections, so you never really feel like a treasure hunter looking for artifacts. There are just way too many gunfights and high intensity moments one after another. It would have been nice to see more puzzles to balance out the action.
Con Stealth seems pointless
While there are stealth takedowns and you can be stealthy in many areas, there is no real incentive to be stealthy. You can easily take out most enemies in an open confrontation and you won't ever feel like you're truly in danger.
Con Difficulty spikes late game
During the latter half of the game the gunfights will suddenly become a lot harder. While they're not impossible to beat, the sudden difficulty spike will take time to get used to. This may cause some frustration and worsen your overall experience.