For all the bruisings, beatings and impalings that Lara Croft endures in the recent rebooted trilogy, the real victim was Tomb Raider s sense of scale. Everything became crushed down to deliver fidelity. There were temples, sure, but you viewed them from cramped tunnels as you scurried past guards, and towering structures were only seen from the extreme close-up of a climbing wall or the long-distance photo op as you were shepherded along ziplines. Yamatai, Siberia and Peru are vast landscapes you view from a thin corridor of interaction. And even then control is wrestled away with endless QTEs. Returning to Tomb Raider: Underworld s gargantuan locations is like stepping off an EasyJet flight and feeling the blood rush back to your ankles.

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